La Liga: Celta Vigo 4-1 FC Barcelona: Player Ratings

A detailed, player-by-player breakdown of Barcelona's big loss against Celta Vigo.

Marc-Andre ter Stegen

3.8

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 37 Passes: 29 Pass Accuracy: 76% Shots Faced: 5 Saves Made: 1 Clearances: 1 Bostjan says: 4.5 Should we be getting worried about ter Stegen? It is probably too soon for that, but has the young German made a "big save" so far this season? Maybe one or two, but he has been beaten by everything else that wasn't directed right at him. It's hard to blame him for any of the goal he conceded against Celta, but the worrying part here is that he does not look comfortable in goal, unsure in himself whether he should leave the line or stay put, or stand tall for the shot or go to the ground...

Dani Alves

4.2

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 66 Passes: 55 Pass Accuracy: 80% Key Passes: 1 Turnovers: 0 Tackles: 3 Shots/Shots on Target: 1/0 Clearances: 2 Aerial Duels Won: 2 Interceptions: 3 Bostjan says: 2.0 If somebody can enlighten me as to what Alves' purpose was in this game please enlighten me as I only saw a player who did not know what to do - and he even failed to do that well. At blame for two goals, he looked especially silly on Cetla's third, Alves was a defensive mess, being unable to cover Nolito and Iago Aspas time and time again. In attack he wasn't much better.

Javier Mascherano

4.3

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 76 Passes: 65 Pass Accuracy: 78% Tackles: 1 Interceptions: 4 Clearances: 2 Aerial Duels Won: 2 Fouls: 0 Bostjan says: 4.0 Claiming somebody was the best defender in this game is not a big achievement, but Mascherano was so nonetheless. though he too occasionally drifted out of position and made mistakes - like in the 2nd minute when Celta almost scored. But most of the time Mascherano made the plays that were necessary to stop Celta's attacks. Shame his teammates couldn't do the same as well.

Gerard Pique

3.6

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 79 Passes: 64 Pass Accuracy: 78% Tackles: 0 Interceptions: 5 Clearances: 5 Aerial Duels Won: 4 Shots/Shots on Target: 1/0 Bostjan says: 3.0 Not much better than Alves, as he too was to blame for two Celta goals, once with a poorly cleared ball, and later with a missed easy clearance.Those were the two high profile mistakes in a night filled of small ones by Pique that went unnoticed  because there were so many all around mistakes. It has to be said that Pique also made some good plays, but ultimately they were all overshadowed by his mistakes.

Jeremy Mathieu

4.0

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 33 Passes: 26 Pass Accuracy: 81% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Tackles: 0 Interceptions: 1 Clearances: 1 Key Passes: 0 Turnovers: 4 Bostjan says: 3.0 About as big of a mess as the two players that made mistakes that led to the goals, but his errors were much less publicized. The Frenchman looked lost at left-back, not for the first time this season, and one has to wonder if it's time to stop forcing him there. He looked out of position defensively, though with Celta often attacking down the left and through the middle it wasn't as noticeable, and he offered next to nothing in attack.

Sergio Busquets

4.6

Minutes played: 65 Touches: 45 Passes: 41 Pass Accuracy: 81% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Tackles: 2 Interceptions: 0 Clearances: 0 Turnovers: 1 Aerial Duels Won: 1 Key Passes: 0 Fouls Won: 0 Sam says: 5.5 Similar to the whole team, it was a bad night for Busquets. He was much lower in all areas compared to his usual excellence. His passing success rate was just 80.5%, his positional play seemed lacking and this all contributed to Cetla twice being allowed to quick counterattacks which resulted in goals. He couldn’t get the ball from defence to attack quickly enough and was eventually sacrificed for the attack-minded Ivan Rakitić.

Sergi Roberto

4.0

Minutes played: 57 Touches: 38 Passes: 31 Pass Accuracy: 87% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Turnovers: 1 Key Passes: 0 Fouls Won: 0 Tackles: 2 Sam says: 6.0 Playing in a more familiar role, Sergi Roberto produced an average game. There ware no real mistakes on his part but he didn’t create enough or have a big enough proscenium to turn the tide in Barça’s favour. He completed just 31 passes in his 57th minute stint and none of them were really penetrating balls that threatened to open up the defence. He was replaced by Munir just before the hour mark.

Andres Iniesta

5.7

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 53 Passes: 44 Pass Accuracy: 89% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Fouls Won: 4 Turnovers: 2 Successful Dribbles: 1 Key Passes: 4 Tackles: 2 Sam says: 6.5 Like Robeto and Busquets, Iniesta found getting into any kind of passing rhythm difficult. He managed just 44 passes during the entire game and was unable to insert midfield dominance. However he did create chances throughout the game. A good dribble into the box allowed him to slide the ball into Lionel Messi’s feet but the Argentine’s shot struck the post. One of Barça’s better attacking players in the game.

Lionel Messi

6.2

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 69 Passes: 48 Pass Accuracy: 75% Shots/Shots on Target: 7/3 Turnovers: 4 Successful Dribbles: 5 Key Passes: 6 Fouls Won: 1 Interceptions: 1 Sonia says: 5.5 It was obviously not Messi’s time to shine against Celta. He missed an easy goal, despite the net being guarded by seemingly few Celta defenders. However, the awesome chance that turned into Neymar’s goal was created by Messi, and the team’s creativity is also obviously dependent on Messi. Regardless, overall, Messi is not having a particularly good streak of games and had horrible luck against Celta, but the entire team has been poor as well; hopefully Messi (and the rest of the team with him) bounces backs soon.

Luis Suarez

4.8

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 39 Passes: 29 Pass Accuracy: 76% Shots/Shots on Target: 0/0 Fouls Won: 3 Successful Dribbles: 0 Key Passes: 1 Turnovers: 3 Tackles: 2 Sonia says: 4.0 Suarez didn’t do very much at all against Celta; the game would not have turned out very different at all had Suarez not been on the pitch. He made more mistakes than he should have; he lost balls and made too many poor and misplaced passes. Suarez has in general not been very good recently, and hopefully he regains his scoring finesse soon. It was overall a bad game for Suarez; though the loss is certainly not all his fault, he could also have scored a couple of times to maybe make up for it.

Neymar

6.6

Minutes played: 90 Touches: 64 Passes: 31 Pass Accuracy: 84% Shots/Shots on Target: 6/3 Successful Dribbles: 5 Key Passes: 4 Tackles: 2 Turnovers: 6 Sonia says: 6.0 Neymar was the best member of the front three on the pitch against Celta, and was easily one of Barca’s most dangerous players. He fought until the end, unlike most everyone else on the pitch. Also, the goal he scored made the result look a little bit less miserable, and it was a brilliant finish, but it came so late in the game that it didn’t matter and just couldn’t do anything.

Munir El Haddadi	4.1
Minutes played: 33 Touches: 25 Passes: 12 Pass Accuracy: 67% Shots/Shots on Target: 3/1 Bostjan says: 5.0 Introduced with roughly half an hour left to play to provide a spark to the quiet right side of the Barcelona attack. He looked lively on the pitch, but the end product was, again, lacking from the youngster.

Ivan Rakitić	4.7
Minutes played: 25 Touches: 24 Passes: 21 Pass Accuracy: 76% Aerial Duels Won: 2 Bostjan says: 4.5 Even though he spend a good chunk of play on the pitch, Rakitić never really made any impact on the play as he didn't take control of the midfield to help Barcelona attack.

The Team

4.1

Passes: 501 Pass Accuracy: 80% Shots/Shots on Target: 18/7 Tackles: 16 Aerial Battles Won: 58% Fouls Won/Committed: 19/4 Bostjan says: 8.0 First of all, Celta should be congratulated for a very deserved win. Now, let’s get onto why Celta deserved the win; Barca absolutely sucked. It wasn’t our day at all. Alves made dumb mistakes and screwed up throughout the entire match. Pique also made his share of defensive errors, which certainly didn’t improve Barca’s chances for winning. Ter Stegen doesn’t deserve every single piece of criticism that he has been getting, but it must be noted that the goal hasn’t been defended the way it should be for the past few matches. Neymar’s goal, assisted by Messi, was a bright spot, but it came so late in the game that it hardly mattered at all. Overall, this tragedy against Celta was a bad game by Barca. Yes, it is very early in the season and this Barca won’t go trophyless, not when it has world-class players like MSN, but this isn’t the same team that won us the treble last season.

Luis Enrique

4.3

Bostjan says: 3.5 I've said it before and I'll say it again: you do not rotate in games like this one - an away game against a hot team that you've struggled against before. Lucho should've sent out his best eleven. Barcelona still might have lost, but at least they would've done so giving their best. The substitutions could also be viewed as late considering Barcelona struggled in the first half and were down by two goal.

MOTM - Lionel Messi	41%
Bostjan says: Neymar It was a tough task finding somebody not bad enough to win the Man of the Match award in this one. In the end the community decided that Messi picked up yet another award, edging Neymar by 10%. Coming in in third place was Iniesta with 11%.

Source: Bostjan Cernensek http://ift.tt/1LEKUJp