Defenders
Marcos Alonso – 5
Alonso is a left back that will be good for you going forward, but defending isn’t his strong suit. In this one, he was caught high multiple times, and just couldn’t get back in time to defend the Celta breaks. The center backs were put under a ton of pressure every time because of this lack of full back help. He also didn’t do much for them on offense, which means that this match wasn’t a good one for him.
Andreas Christensen – 5
His rating, as well as Koundé’s, suffers by association in this one. He wasn’t bad, far from it, but there just wasn’t much he could do. He picked up a quick yellow and was then forced into 3 on 2 situations time and again. While he tried his best to cut angles, games like this will make center backs look bad.
Jules Koundé – 5
He was bound to have a subpar game eventually, and he did in this one. The second half was much better, as was the whole team’s performance, but his first period was pretty rough. He misjudged the timing on a tackle that would directly lead to Celta’s first goal. As with Christensen, he was stretched too thin at times and couldn’t cover all the angles, leading to Celta having good chances. He picked it up in the second half when Cancelo played a more traditional role, but overall he wasn’t at his usual high level.
João Cancelo – 7
Difficult to judge Cancelo in this one. While he assisted the 2nd goal and scored one of his own, his positioning didn’t help defensively at all. The right-hand side was constantly exploited by Celta, as his inverted position left a ton of space in behind for Christensen and Koundé to deal with. On the other hand, his quality did eventually shine through when he went just a touch wider in the second half. A good pass in to Lewandowski resulted in the second goal and a great run into the box produced his match-winner. However, they wouldn’t have needed those heroics had they not gone down 0-2 in the first place. If I seem to be talking out of both sides of my mouth, it’s because I am. I’ll give him a good rating in this one, but a tentative one.
🚨 João Cancelo: "I was having a very bad game, technically I was making a lot of mistakes. But you have to be focused and play until the end. And we got the three points, which is the most important thing." pic.twitter.com/GGUsK8LdHg
— barcacentre (@barcacentre) September 23, 2023
Balde – 7
Balde definitely provided some much-needed width in this one. He came on in the 60th minute for Christensen and was pretty good. While not doing anything spectacular, his mere presence makes this team more dangerous.
Araújo – 6
Ronald Araújo made his return from injury in the second half. Unfortunately, he suffered from the same problems the other center backs did – not enough help from the midfield and an inability to defend two people at once. Barça’s super offensive tilt led to yet another Celta numerical advantage, and Aspas’s perfectly weighted pass beat Araújo for Celta’s second goal. He did almost score on a long shot, though, so some points for that.