You can spin the story countless ways, but the fact remains, we have a very expensively assembled squad, with a lot of talented individuals, but we lack a genuine team spirit with a major work ethic.
We don't get caught out by sheer brilliance of teams like Barca, we get undone by our own inability to finish, silly mistakes, or general complacency. We've had glimpses of varied play, but on the whole we're predictable. We pass it around a lot and try to walk the ball into the net - we also tend to take a good while to get going.
People can say it's going to take time and that Pep's one of the best in the world etc etc, but the football we're seeing is bettered by 3 other teams in this league and likely 4 by tomorrow. Two of those teams have pretty recent managers as well.
If we want to be champions, we need to improve now.
If we want to finish in the top 4, we need to improve pretty soon.
It's not knee jerk reaction, it's not wild panic, we simply aren't performing as well as we should be given the players at our disposal, and it's Pep's job to get the best out of them. Currently, he's not doing that. Yes, some players aren't world beaters, but that's true of plenty of our rivals too.
Maybe I am a two bit supporter who doesn't know his arse from his elbow, but when you're 3-0 down and you're taking off your only striker, I'm struggling to make sense of it. It's only 'genius' if it pays off, and right now, these decisions are not paying off.