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Alaves vs Barcelona

Barcelona had a narrow win against Osasuna in the last match. Barcelona's performance was good enough. Even then the team could not score more than one goal. So the Barcelona team is trying to dominate from the beginning of today's match.

Lewandowski scored from Gundogan's pass in 22 minutes. Barcelona now lead 1-0. Barcelona players did not attack much after scoring. However, at the end of 40 minutes, Barcelona managed to have 74% of the ball possession. Barcelona probably want to end the first half 1-0. Maybe Barcelona will change their match strategy in the second half.

Barcelona played very cautiously in the first half. Xavi is well aware that his team's overall condition is not good right now. Because of this he is now very tactful. Barcelona kept their defense tight in this match but still tried to attack. Barcelona tightened their defense after scoring. Barcelona lead 1-0 at the end of the first half. A bon Barcelona made a total of 3 shots while Alaves players made 6 shots. I think we will see a few more goals in the second half. Xavi may have tried to find weaknesses in Alaves' defense in the first half. In the second half, maybe Barcelona will increase their attack speed.

I am not sure if cautiously is the right word here. I think if they had the possibility to simply play better, they would do it I would assume. But Barcelona can't play better than that because what does cautiously even mean. They barely get close to the goal of Alaves and if they get close then they have difficulties to get their shots properly on target. At least Lewandowski scored the goal, which is most likely giving him some relief after the stressful weeks when he didn't score that much and when Xavi attacked him for being too lazy.

Gundogan scored just 4 minutes into the second half to give Barcelona a 2-0 lead. But in just 2 minutes, Barcelona conceded another goal. Barcelona's defenders must perform very carefully. Barcelona is losing points in most of the matches because of the weakness of the defense. Barcelona needs to strengthen the defense. Youngster Vitor Roque scored in the 63rd minute to give Barcelona a 3-1 lead. Barcelona will probably get 3 points in this match. However, Barcelona's overall performance needs further improvement. In particular, they need to strengthen their defense more.