Barca defeat and Alves injured

Defeat against Rubin Kazan means that Barca now face an important match against the Russian champions in their next Champions League clash but other results mean they are still leaders of Group F.
Rubin proved their doubters wrong as they showed plenty of quality against Barca who by their own standards where far from their best. Admittedly only playing on the break, they scored two fine goals and for the rest of the match they remained solid while the azulgrana could only find a way to goal through a fine strike from Ibrahimovic, the best of Barca’s attacking line.
Last week Leo Messi received a lot of criticism in Argentina for his below par performances for the Albiceleste and he certainly now does not seem the usually carefree player of previous seasons. It is the first time that Messi has had a run of bad form and hopefully he will be able to bounce back. It is natural for any player to have dips in form but such has been the level of his performances that fans have started to expect too much.
Barca dominated possession against Rubin but could not find a breakthrough and perhaps this was the type of game where they miss the directness of Samuel Eto’o. While the Cameroon was perhaps not as technically strong as Ibrahimovic he would go straight for goal and that is something that the team is lacking at the moment.
Afterwards Pep Guardiola took the game in his stride: “we had a good game but the result is always the most important. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth because we gave away a key passage to the next round, now we will have to win away.”
More bad news for Barca is that Dani Alves will be out for three weeks with a hamstring strain.