Four things Valverde must do to avoid blowing Barcelona’s season before El Clasico

Barcelona are coming off two disappointing games without a win and heading into a massive month of fixtures.

The Blaugrana will play six games in 30 days, and all of them will be major clashes featuring top teams. It starts this weekend as they host Athletic Club before travelling to Wembley to face Spurs in the Champions League. After that they travel to the Mestalla to face Valencia in a ground where they always have trouble.

After the international break they enter in a series of three difficult home games. First they host hotshot Sevilla, then Inter come to town in their Champions League group of death, and the finally to finish October off we have El Clásico, the game of games. It’s a brutal period of games and so the Blaugrana would have been desperate to enter it in the best possible form.

And before the weekend, they were doing just that. Six wins out of six in competitive action, including the Supercopa de España played in Morocco. They were humming along nicely, and expected to enter the month from hell having won eight straight. Then they drew with Girona, which was a speed-bump but not a huge one; but then came the shocking loss to Leganés.

This has left Barça in a seriously problematic position where they now have to enter this monstrous run of games off the back of two incredibly troubling performances that have laid bare some serious issues with the Barcelona squad. Now Ernesto Valverde has genuine issues that he needs to solve, lest this brutal sprint of games see Barcelona drop so many points that their season is all but over before the title bout against Real Madrid even kicks-off.

Control counter-attacks

The first thing Valverde needs to do (and the major unifying theme to most of the things he needs to fix) is control counter-attacks. Of the four goals Barcelona have conceded in the last two games, three have come from quick counter-attacks and three have come from long-balls being sent into the box. That’s it, those are exclusively the kind of goals Barcelona are conceding right now.

The Blaugrana’s offensive style of play and high-line defence will always leave them open to counter-attacks (which is why making 1v1 saves is such a key skill for Barça goalkeepers), but the side normally manage and control them much better than they are now. It’s getting to the point where one or two well-placed passes can crack them in two like a walnut.

Gerard Piqué is particularly struggling. He always starts seasons slowly but 2018/19 has been ridiculous even by those standards. It all came to a head when he shaved his beard off and has since put in two terrible displays where he is directly responsible for three of the goal conceded, and he didn’t exactly defend well on the fourth either.

Motivating and organising his defenders (Piqué in particular) is one aspect of it, but Valverde also needs to work on his midfield spacing. Far too often you will see the Barça midfield stretched so wide that there are massive avenues for opponents to cruise down with just the largely immobile Sergio Busquets in their way. Now Busquets is the best in his position on the planet, but everyone has weaknesses and his is pace. Asking him to cover acres of ground is absurd, it’s like trying to paint your house with a surgeon’s scalpel.

Keep rotations consistent

Football is obviously a squad game now, and with such big games coming up for Barça, rotation is really important. Ernesto Valverde is definitely into rotation, but he is so in strange and off-balance kind of way. He rotates, but it often makes no sense.

For example, at right-back he has two options: the solid defender Nelson Semedo, and the bright attacker Sergi Roberto. What’s odd is he seems to play Roberto when he should play Semedo, and vice versa. At home against a deep-set Girona, he played Semedo. Then away against Leganés and all their pace on the break, he played Roberto. He consistently seems to have it backwards.

In midfield Valverde also has trouble identifying games where he can rest Sergio Busquets (keeping him healthy is essential), doing it away rather than at home. He also does weird things like pair Arturo Vidal and Arthur, both new midfielders, together in the same midfield rather than bringing one through at a time.

His rotation at left-back has been the worst. Jordi Alba is obviously a key member of his side, with the Catalan’s pace and direct running so important to Barça’s width on the left. Now Alba has no natural back-up in the squad, so b-team player Juan Miranda will have to be picked. But Miranda is an inexperienced youngster, so games like Girona at home may be a good chance to rest Alba and bring him through.

But Valverde didn’t do that. Instead he rested Alba away to Leganés, and replaced with centre-back Thomas Vermaelen. Not Samuel Umtiti, who whilst a centre-back used to play left-back for Lyon, has the skill-set to impact the attack and the athleticism needed to get up and down the pitch. Not him, but the 32-year-old injury-prone Vermaelen.

Alba will need resting at some point in the next month, and if Valverde puts Vermaelen out there against the quality of side that the Blaugran are going to be facing? Things will get very ugly very quickly. Valverde needs to keep his rotation consistent; if Alba comes out it has to be someone who can replicate his attacking role (or at least do a good impression) that comes in.

Move Messi centrally

The next point feeds into both rotation and more importantly managing counter-attacks. Part of why Barcelona look so open on the break this season is that they are once again playing Messi as a right-winger. Now, Messi isn’t a right-winger and spends his game cutting in and playing no. 8, no. 10 and no. 9 – but always centrally. And he doesn’t chase back defensively because that’d be a waste of energy.

So when he cuts infield, the side is defensively unbalanced. Luis Suárez doesn’t have the energy to cover for Messi any more, this drags Rakitic over – which contributes to the open midfield issue that leads to more (and more) counter-attacks cutting a swathe through the Barcelona side, exposing their defenders.

Last season Ernesto Valverde’s 4-4-1-1 system was derided by many, but it protected the side from being unbalanced as both wingers tracked back. Now in a 4-3-3 that isn’t the case, so Valverde has to figure out a way to get Messi back into a central zone. Whether that involves going back to the 4-4-1-1, or switching to the 4-3-3 false nine he originally deployed in his first few games, or introducing a 4-2-3-1, something has to be done to allow Messi to thrive whilst returning a solid defensive shape to Barcelona.

Rest (or drop) Suárez

The final point is basically that he has to get the underperforming Luis Suárez out of the team. Whether that’s on a temporary or permanent basis, there’s no doubt that Barcelona will play better football if the Uruguayan isn’t in the side every 3 days.

The major issue is that age is catching up to Suárez, and he isn’t capable of adjusting his game to account for that. He still plays the same way he did as a 29 year old, when he was bursting with athletic ability, except now his size has slowed him down tremendously.

When he came on against Leganés he was trying to knock the ball by opponents and run onto it, the way he could in the past; but he’d always lose the footrace. He simply can’t stay still, which is leaving him well out of breath when it comes to making the decisive final contributions of shots and passes in the box. He isn’t effective as a goalscorer, which is the role Barça desperately need him to fill.

So rest him. Take him out of the firing line. He didn’t start vs. Leganés, but maybe don’t start him against Athletic either (and don’t bring him on, he’s not great off the bench – he just ends up playing to his own tempo). Give him a whole week to prepare for Spurs and Valencia. Maybe you give Munir El Haddadi more minutes; he underwhelmed at Leganés sure, but he needs time to properly build-up a rhythm first.

Or maybe you do go 4-3-3 false nine, deploying two of Coutinho, Ousmane Dembélé and Malcom on the wings around Messi. That way you both get Messi off the flanks, put together a solid midfield that can protect itself and break forward also helps to control counter-attacks.

Arturo Vidal as the foremost midfielder in a three, breaking beyond a false nine Messi who is flanked by Coutinho and Dembélé (both have both begun the season in fine form) could be a superb set-up that provides stability, goalscoring, and the Suárez-on-the-bench-ness that Barcelona need to power through their monstrous fixture build-up to El Clásico.

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