CADIZ vs BARCELONA(2021)

 

Barcelona made it three games without a victory on Thursday as a goalless draw with Cadiz further weakened Ronald Koeman’s position as coach

Barcelona had another disappointing result on Thursday night, being held to a 0-0 draw with Cadiz in a match at the Nuevo Mirandela.

Ronald Koeman came into the game under pressure after stuttering starts to the season, with Barca president Joan Laporta saying on Thursday that he supported the Dutch coach while adding that results need to improve or action would be taken.

 

Unfortunately for Koeman and Barca, a lackluster first half saw the Catalans fashion few legitimate chances despite dominating possession before going into the dressing room locked in a goalless draw.

 

Barca keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen was called into action just after the restart, diving high and to his right to parry away a deft, outside-of-the-foot shot from Alvaro Negredo

 

"Here we have to try and win LaLiga. This notion of it's ok to finish in the top four doesn't work for me," Roberto said.

 

"We need to fight for the league. The squad is very good, and we have some injuries but that's not an excuse.

 

"We've got a squad who can fight for the LaLiga title and I don't think other sides have better squads than us."

 

Frenkie de Jong was shown a pair of yellow cards inside of five minutes after the hour for two clumsy tackles, with the Netherlands international forced to leave the pitch and leave Barca to finish the match with 10 men.

 

Memphis had a bad miss in second-half stoppage time, firing wide of the far post after being played in by Gerard Pique with no one to beat but the keeper.

 

Koeman was also sent off in the dying minutes with a straight red card for dissent.

 

"All I said to the fourth official was that there were two balls on the pitch," Koeman said. "They send you off for nothing in this country. I calmly asked the referee, but let's leave it as it's not my problem."

 

Barcelona, who drew 1-1 against Getafe on Monday, is now in seventh place in LaLiga with nine points and a game in hand over most of the teams above them in Spain

Match Summary

FIRST HALF

Nothing happened.

Halftime.

SECOND HALF

The first five minutes of the second half had more action than all of the first, with each goalkeeper making a big save. Marc-André ter Stegen was the first as he made a brilliant stop on a shot by Negredo, and Ledesma did a pretty good job himself to save a powerful shot from Memphis Depay.

After those two moments, however, the game went back to its slow, uncreative pattern and there was no good football being played by neither team. And then Frenkie De Jong was sent off after two questionable yellow cards in a space of three minutes, and Barça had to play the final 25 minutes with 10 men.

Cádiz took advantage of the extra man and finally put together some nice attacks, and they had one golden chance when Riqui Puig lost the ball with his first touch as a substitute and Sánchez found himself one-on-one with Ter Stegen, but the German stuck his right foot out and made another big save.

The game seemed to be crawling towards a boring finish, but Barça was given a golden opportunity in the fourth minute of added time when Gerard Piqué carried the ball 50 yards on a one-man counter-attack and set up Memphis for a great chance, but Depay somehow missed the target.

Ronald Koeman was somehow sent off before the game ended, and the final whistle came to end in one of the worst displays of Barcelona football we have ever seen. Since Monday, that is.

It’s all very bad right now.