Anoeta Nightmare Continues....

Real Sociedad with a dominant performance and were  unlucky to just get a draw against the catalan giants, extending their unbeaten streak at home to nine (9) years and counting against Barcelona.

Even with El Classico around the corner, Lucho fielded his strongest eleven to try to break the Anoeta curse and reduce the point gap significantly before facing Real Madrid at home on Saturday. Real Sociedad started the game strongly pushing Barcelona back, winning possession and forcing mistakes but they just couldn’t get the break through at half time. A brilliant game by Vela bossing Barcelona weak defence and creating numerous chances during the game and was by far the Man of the match.

Willian Jose opened the scoring in the 53^rd minute of the game after the Barcelona defence was split opened and pique, in an attempt to clear the ball just helped it into the net. Lionel Messi came to Barcelona rescue just six (6) minute later scoring a brilliant gaol after an impressive run by Neymar who set up the goal.

The Barcelona Trident was silent all through the game and was giving away possession cheaply. Barcelona will be thanking the linesman after he made a horrendous error by disallowing Juami goal which he claimed was offside but he was clearly not. Real Madrid outcast Granero came on and could have gotten a hattrick but his poor finishing let him down and he will definitely rue his misses. The game ended 1-1 but no doubt Sociedad deserved to win the game. Real Sociedad beat Barcelona in possession to prove their dominance all through the game.

"If I look at the result, it's the most positive assessment I can give from this season," Lucho told Barca TV. "To finish 1-1 is almost a miracle. Winning would have been unfair and I have to congratulate Real. We couldn't even string five passes together. Without the ball, we were disastrous. "He continued in his media conference: "They pressed us with six players and we didn't find the middle-range and long-range passes, We didn't even win five per cent of the duels. If you don't match up in this type of duel and you concede the advantage, there's little you can do. "In the second half we improved a little but nowhere near enough. We drew the game because of an isolated bit of play between Messi and Neymar, but little else’.

Barcelona will be glad that Neymar didn’t get his fifth yellow card of the game and will play against Real Madrid on Saturday, Barcelona will hope on the return of their captain Iniesta and Umtiti to boost their squad going into a must win weekend clash.

Player Ratings:

Real Sociedad:  Rulli 6, Navas 7, I.Martinez 7, C.Martinez 6, Yuri 6, Illarramendi 6, Zurutuza 7, Prieto 7, Willian Jose 8, Vela 9, Subs: Juanmi 6, Canales 7, Granero 5.

Barcelona: Stegen 6, Roberto 5, Pique 6, Marscherano 5, Alba 5, Busquet 6, Gomes 4, Rakitic 4, Neymar 6, Messi 6, Suarez 4, Subs: Denis 6.

Barcelona will look to end the Anoeta curse when they face each other next season.