Nobody is every going to dispute that Lionel Messi is one of the greatest of all time, but one player can only carry a team so far.
He’s always been part of good teams at Barcelona and things were built around him in many ways, but it’s only in recent years where they’ve adopted one tactic – just give the ball to Messi.
His form has started to tail off as he gets older and that’s only natural, but when you watch them play it’s obvious that the other ten players on the park don’t have the confidence to try and take risks themselves, so they are just waiting for Messi to take over and drag them to victory.
READ MORE: Astonishing claim from Jose Mourinho as he questions the professionalism of an Arsenal coach amid Gareth Bale concerns
A true lack of identity has been a major reason for their downfall in recent years, so some recent comments from club legend Dani Alves should make the fans despair.
Goal picked up on some of his comments as he offered some advice to his possible successor Sergino Dest, but this will only continue the current problem that the club is facing:
“If I have to give Dest advice, it’s very simple: pass the ball to Messi.”
Deliberately stifling the creativity of the other players will hurt in different ways, as it makes them easy to play against just now and they will look even more clueless when Messi eventually leaves or if he gets injured.
They need to find ways to cause problems as a team and this will give Messi more space to operate, but it’s clear that they’ve become trapped in trying to have everything go through him and it’s hurting them on the pitch.
Hopefully Ronald Koeman is giving Dest more advice than this.