In the 20th round of La Liga, Barca drew 1-1 with Granada. Looking back at this game, the performance of the Barça generals is not satisfactory. In particular, Depay, who came off the bench, had a weak presence on the pitch and barca's attacks came to a standstill as he made his debut. Compared with the off-line penalty of young player Garvey, this is also the key reason why Barca ultimately missed to get three points. As many Barca fans have complained: they don't understand why Xavi replaced Luc De Jong with Depay!
Facing mid-level side Granada, Barca did not play easily in the opening stages. The roots are traced back to the fact that Granada is defensively tough and has also posed in an iron barrel formation. Fortunately, Barca have a strong centre-forward, Luc De Jong. Seeing that the infiltration of pass control could not pose a threat to Granada's defensive line, Barca decisively adopted the tactic of finding a center forward in a cross from the side. It was with this simple and rough play that Luc De Jong, who scored consecutive goals, helped Barca take the lead. In the eyes of many people, Barca, who scored first, had the winning ticket, after all, the strength gap between the two teams was obvious.
Who would have thought that coach Harvey's substitution adjustment directly buried a good situation. Just 3 minutes after the goal, he replaced Luc De Jong with Depay. With this substitution adjustment, Barca's attack has completely come to a standstill. This was so because Depay was simply unable to act as an attacking fulcrum, resulting in the invalidation of the previous cross-cutting tactics. Coupled with the fact that pass-and-control infiltration is still ineffective, it is difficult for Barca's attack to be a substantial threat. To make matters worse, young player Garvey was sent off in the 67th minute, and Barca's attack, which played one less, was even more constipated.
Seeing this, Granada, which did not have to worry about defending, began to strengthen its attack. With the advantage of playing one more person, he finally scored a goal in stoppage time and then drew 1-1 with Barca. Watching the low-hanging fruit turn from 3 points to 1, Barca fans were unhappy, especially angry at Xavi's adjustment of replacing Luc De Jong with Depay. After all, Barca were only one goal ahead at the time, and Luc De Jong was the best player on the barca field. Depay, on the other hand, was useless on the field, so that the post-match rating of 5.6 ranked second to last in the team. In the eyes of many fans, replacing Depay is a turning point for Barca to win, and then Garvey's red card became the last straw that crushed the camel.
To be fair, Depay's poor performance in this game certainly has the reason for his return from injury, but he has not dropped the chain at a critical moment than once or twice. Since joining Barca, Depay has been lackluster in every key game. Not only is it impossible to help on the offensive end, but it has also repeatedly become a defensive loophole for Barca: randomly conceding the ball and being counter-attacked by the opponent.
Former Barca boss Corman has thus reduced his use of Depay, especially when fighting hard battles. Apparently, the successor Harvey was unaware of this and paid the tuition fee for the game. It has to be said that Depay, who was once pinned high hopes by Barça fans, has become the biggest chicken rib in the team. Sell the cash, right? The same price can not buy the same level. Leave it to the point, right? I can't count on it when it matters. This may also be the key to Depay's bright data but difficult to rank among the superstars, right?