There is no doubt that Saturday was a difficult night for Barça for various reasons. Atlético inflicted a third defeat of the season on the Catalans, Diego Simeone enjoyed his first league victory over Barça, leaving Ronald Koeman’s team nine points behind the rojiblancos.
The two teams have only played eight games, and there is still a long way to go in the season, but that already seems like a sinister rift between the two clubs. Atlético remain undefeated and have still conceded just two goals in La Liga in 2020-21.
It’s been a great start to the new campaign for Simeone’s men and a completely miserable one on Koeman’s side. Indeed, it is now Barca’s worst start to the season since 1991 and it means that the Dutch manager is already in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Barça lost Gerard Piqué and Sergi Roberto through injury to Atlético, and the duo add to an ever-growing list of injured. Koeman was already without Ronald Araujo, Samuel Umtiti, Sergio Busquets and Ansu Fati and now it seems that he is going to lose the duo for a while.
All of which leaves Clement Lenglet as the club’s only fit defender today and means that Frenkie de Jong may be forced to return to central defense for the time being. Pushing back the Dutchman also means Koeman will have to rethink his midfield.
Carles Alena and Riqui Puig have been largely ignored so far by Koeman, but they are desperately waiting for some opportunities to open up with the team battered by injuries to key players and facing a busy roster of matches between now and the end of the year.
Barca could have put on a horrible display, but in the end the winning goal only came in a wild moment when Marc-Andre ter Stegen was caught miles from his goal, allowing Yannick Carrasco to go ahead and place the winner in a empty goal.
Ter Stegen had been his usual best command after returning from injury, and he had also made a great save from Saul Niguez early on, but it turned out to be a very costly mistake from the German.
Marc-Andre ter Stegen has made five mistakes that have resulted in goals since April 2019, more than any other LaLiga player in that period of time.
What was I thinking ?! pic.twitter.com/PIrUo1SNLT
– Squawka Soccer (@Squawka) November 21, 2020
Koeman was not happy with the goal after the game saying that “a team like Barcelona cannot conceal a goal the way we have done it” and you can probably expect a sincere apology from Ter Stegen to appear on social media in sometime.
Of course, it wasn’t just Ter Stegen who was to blame for Aletico’s goal, with Piqué’s mistake also contributing to the winner, but the goalkeeper will know that he should have done much better in that situation.
Barca’s attack struggled again on Saturday, although perhaps not a surprise given that they were away from home and faced the best defense in La Liga so far in 2020-21.
Lionel Messi played his 800th match in the Barcelona shirt against Atlético, but it is not a match that he will quickly remember. The captain scored a brilliant late win on his last visit to Wanda Metropolitano, but this time he saw his best chance saved by Jan Oblak.
The forward also set up Barca’s best chance of the night with a great cross from Clement Lenglet, who was only able to head straight for Oblak, but other than that he had a quiet game and still seems a bit out of his best form.
Antoine Griezmann also had another game in which he offered little, Pedri struggled, Ansu Fati was missed and the only positivity was provided by Ousmane Dembele who looked lively and seems much more robust these days.
Koeman hasn’t been keen on making changes to his tenure so far, or making full use of his equipment, but surely the changes must be on his mind after a bad start and with injuries limiting his options.
Interestingly, Sergino Dest has recently been ruled out by Sergi Roberto, but should now play Dynamo Kiev at least in the middle of the week, while Koeman may need to dive into Barça B to bolster his back line in the coming weeks.
Miralem Pjanic did enough to keep his place on the team, while Alena and Puig can finally be rewarded for their patience. Perhaps Koeman could also be tempted to a line-up change as well in an attempt to add some much-needed creativity?