Coffee_Johnny

Doesn’t always land, but that bus is genius.

Must have been a hard watch last night for him. Bet he was kicking himself (…not too hard though I hope )

You said they were getting ‘plaudits’ because they were a big name with big name players, not because of how they played. Pretty and not really effective was I think how you put it and when you bizarrely said how they played had very little to do with the result, my guess was that you thought they were lucky we missed our couple of big chances as they didn’t play well enough to win by their own merit. Same language just a wild choice of words and way of interpreting a match I had watched. They were clearly the better team, and had their own missed chances, although we made a decent fist of it.

Fair enough, but I’m genuinely flabbergasted that anyone could watch that match and not see their quality on the ball and (in the relatively rare occasions they didn’t have it) without it also. They played their game. Regardless of how we tried to disrupt it. We had 10 shots which isn’t bad to be fair, but we were hardly unlucky to lose. They looked pretty comfortable throughout, at least once they had rode out the first twenty minutes of volume. In his interview, Gordon said they were the best side he had played against (particularly in midfield) suspect Bruno and Tonali would give a similar message.

They’ve beaten Spurs away, Brighton and Wolves at home and scored twice at Anfield. They’re currently and deservedly in fourth place. Plus we often seem to really struggle against them. I’d be delighted with a draw.

That’s a wild take. Their possession, calmness and pure class, in midfield particularly, plus an excellent defensive performance against an intense pressing forward line made the difference. Thought we did well to largely contain their forward line though again their class and depth of squad shone through.

Not a bad replacement when your young wordie is injured. Rashford is in his footballing prime, age wise, and regardless of form he brings the experience, knowledge of how to win, and technical ability of a player with seven cup wins, about 70 international caps, goals in high pressure games against the best defences, a couple of Europa League team of the season acknowledgements etc etc. . Having players like this, even when they are not on their best form is part of the added benefits of being an elite team.

Reserving judgement about how our midfield stacks up against other opposition in Europe until we’ve played the other seven games (at least). I was hopeful that Tonali and Bruno (surely our strongest ‘department’) would humble Pedri and de Jong. They didn’t. They weren’t humiliated or outclassed but I doubt they have/we will come up against a better midfield pairing. There is no shame in being beaten by this Barcelona side (any Barca side) and we were in the game even when chasing shadows after their second goal. Proud of the lads for sticking in; they didn’t give up hope and neither should we.

No complaints really. Good effort, against a superior team. We’d need everyone to be absolutely ‘on it’ to beat them. Too many weren’t. Don’t get the negativity re Tino though, did ok for me. As did Trippier. Joelinton started badly (lost count of unforced errors), looked gassed early and only seemed to settle just before he was hooked. Gordon covered some ground but also had an ‘everything he touches turns to shit’ phase. Barnes played to his level. Elanga looked most threatening and Murphy also made a positive difference when he replaced him. Thiaw looked classy. Beyond that all performances more in the ‘ok or understandable in the circumstances/given the opposition’ bracket. We needed to win the midfield battle and Pedri and de Jong just weren’t going to let that happen.

He’ll play at weekend, Gordon can’t.

Barnes, Gordon and Joelinton off?

Fairly even in terms of flow of play. They’ve had more possession and more shots (9 vs 3) though only one on target (2 for us). Doing well to contain a very good side. Need to get the crowd pumped-up again.

Big Joe looks phased tonight.

Team is the team, and the bench is decent. Howay the lads!

Here you go… Just spent a bemused minute looking at this before realising I was in the fucking Wolves thread!

These two so important tonight. Howay lads show them who you are!

It’s a puzzler. Must be tens of thousands of UK based Barca fans (I mean the Dundee chapter must be fuming!). Perhaps another success for the way tickets are sold now.

Hope to see him at some point tonight (for his sake more than anything).

Joining you. Held out as long as I could. Really miss being ‘home’ on nights like these.

Don’t!!! I really tried to be back for this one. Hoping to recreate the feeling from one of my best experiences supporting this club.

Are we going to see PSG levels of creativity and effort from the flag battalion tonight??

That was lovely. Once the kids had got over the shock they were so natural and nice. Experiences like that really help players understand what they mean to people and stops it seeming like playing in front of a faceless crowd of punters, or some such distancing crap.

Worked. Miss our skinny superstar (yes I do mean Miggy—what a goal!).

Wtf 😂

Are we there yet? Ok, more reminiscent of kids on a long car journey, but that pretty much sums up my finger tapping, watch checking, frequent sighing, frame of mind.