Barcelona vs Athletic Bilbao Tactical Analysis - Barca Looking Comfortable Under Xavi

welcome to mr blue football analysis basser went into this game under resurgence after knocking napoli out of the europa league and athletic bilbao didn't cause them any problems in this game which barcelona controlled from start to finish in the end xavi will be very pleased with a four-nil victory thanks to goals from aubameyang dembele to young and depai barcelona lined up in a 4-3-3 that saw a few variations during the match gavi given freedom to get forward while the mature pedry dictated the game from deep at times athletic club started with a 4-4-2 and it didn't deviate too much from here throughout the game basa were able to have the ball in their own half as bilbao were not interested in pressing they controlled possession and matched bilbao's 4-4-2 shape with a 2-4-4 shape by making sure that their wide players held the width this meant that basa players needed to be very mobile to find space to create an opportunity to bring the ball out of defense and into midfield busquets would sometimes act as a third central defender and this created space for the defender with the ball to advance into midfield and play a path to a wide area where basser had good numbers in the case that bill bower defended even deeper the centre-back could find a pass directly to a winger in the spaces out wide although basa concentrated most of their attacks down the left with 45 percent coming from this side it was down the right that barcelona looked dangerous it was when bilbao were drawn to the left that passed a good switch play with a long diagonal ball out to adama triori often leaving him one-on-one with the fullback and a chance of hitting a ball across the six-yard box when baser had controlled possession gabby would move into the front line to make up a five-man attack it was then danny alves's role to act as an inverted pivot and cover the spaces in central midfield to prevent a transition with bilbao still operating with a back four this could see gabby move unmarked into the box and stretch the bilbao's defense with a front five this front five was started by having pedry drop deep to make up a back three from here dust would advance down the wing and into the front line this was because pedry is more comfortable on the ball and there is less chance of him allowing a transition once in this position pedry would be able to find a long pass down to dest or switch to play over to traori he would then move into the midfield line alongside busquets and alves as barter attacked with a 235 the role of danny elvis can be seen in two ways the first way is that he provides cover in the midfield and prevents transitions and it can also be seen as a way of freeing up space for the right-sided attacker who is either treyore or dembele both of whom have paced the burn at one nil athletic bilbao adopted more aggressive tactics as they started to press basa closer to their goal this is where bus gets dropped between the center backs to make up the extra man if the midfielder had tracked him it would have opened up a pass to a number 8. the fullbacks and the wide attackers held their width to make the pitch as big as possible bilbao's pressing actually played into barcelona's hands by allowing more space for their new found pace in attack to run into in a very unlikely barcelona tactic the defenders would launch long passes into spaces behind bilbao's defense as the game went on and after the substitutions stopped dropping one of their eights into the backline and instead adopted a more conventional 4-3-3 shape the advantage of this was that they could use their number eights to create passing triangles in wide areas with the fullback and wide attacker this saw barcelona overload and control the wide areas and get the wide attackers or fullbacks behind the defense however one area that let barcelona down today was on the left there was often a lot of space created for dest down the left but a lack of control and the desire to cut back onto his right foot meant that chances were often lost with the bible defense getting into positions alba will have more impact when he comes back the use of the number eights was seen in nemberle's goal the two number eights are occupying bilbao's defense and this has left dembele in acres of space on the left it's too late for the bilbao defense to get back and it's here that basta secured their victory a very effective display from barcelona controlling the game from start to finish in this game basta showed that with their new signings they have added another dimension to their game bastard now move into the top four and they have a game in hand over the teams above them thank you for watching