Exciting match today even after seeing it on replay and after already knowing the result. I would imagine quite entertaining for the neutral. Full credit to Betis who came to play. I thought Fekir, Akouokou, Emerson and to a lesser extent Juanmi and Iglesias all played well to some degree.
Very happy with our performance though. Not entirely perfect, but Koeman finally making some smart selections via substitutions and the team looked much better in the second half. Still a game of inches really and some top individual plays sealed the deal. A few thoughts:
Very happy with our performance though. Not entirely perfect, but Koeman finally making some smart selections via substitutions and the team looked much better in the second half. Still a game of inches really and some top individual plays sealed the deal. A few thoughts:
- Apart from missing that wide open header, that he should have at minimum put on target and really even put away, I thought Lenglet had a good match.
- Dembele had a good match. His skill was on full display with some amazing individual moments. The way he created space and provided Messi with that assist though... Hopefully he keeps it up and Koeman gets the selection right so he can thrive with the right players around him.
- Messi came and of course changed the match. Again, involved in every single goal to some degree. He really took his shot well though. To some it might not look like much, but have another look at the replay.
- So happy for Trincao. Like I said after the Granada match, you can see the skill and the intelligence. On the own goal, he was in an offside position when Messi played the through ball but he just jumped over it and let it go to Alba who was the intended target all along. His goal though was fantastic. Takes the ball right off of Ruiz and in a split second takes that shot which was through traffic and it goes in off the bar. Even tighter than Messi's goal. And possibly a huge goal as well considering the title picture (though I still don't see Atleti losing the top spot).
- Griezmann put in the work as always, but didn't offer a lot.
- Braithwaite was practically non-existent, but as I've said before you either start him or Griezmann and the other should be on the bench. He's not suited to play out wide.
- Pjanic...
- More I see Migueza the more I like him. He'll probably never be a world beater, but we need squad players too. He works really hard and is more capable at RB that I'd have thought.
- Again, Koeman needs to get the selection right. Absolutely zero reason he couldn't start Trincao and Dembele at the same time. Dembele on the left and Trincao on the right. I think it would have made a big difference overall and especially for Riqui and probably Alba too. He also could made different substitutions rather than putting De Jong at CB. He had Umtiti and Dest on the bench. I already covered Braithwaite and Griezmann.
- I mentioned after one of the last matches, but again, seems to be a good spirit in the team. I also like that multiple players are stepping up and contributing.
- Can't see us winning the league (thought there's still a long way to go) and I'm not even thinking of the CL much less the CL QFs, but the team is largely showing up when the chips are down of late. As much as it's been a tough couple of years and a downright shitshow at times, it's somewhat of an exciting time to be a Cule. A lot of young players coming through and delivering right now and we still get to enjoy Messi as well.
