Barça must plug their leaky defence if they want to win LaLiga

Yesterday FC Barcelona added another four goals to 14 they had already conceded this season. It was already a worrying figure but after Real Betis' visit to the Camp Nou, it's even worse. No one could have said it better than Arturo Vidal at the end of the match. "No one should come here and score four goals against us. If we want to win the title we need to improve a lot." Gerard Pique said something along the same lines too. "It's been a long time since we've conceded so many goals."

And the defender is right. To be precise, it's 44 years Barça have reached gameweek 12 with 18 goals conceded. In fact, none of the players which make up part of the current squad were even born the last time that happened. However today they get to share that unfortunate honour. In that 1974/75 side there were names such as Cruyff, Rexach, Quique Costas, Asensi and Sadurní. It's a cause for concern for Valverde.

To have conceded 18 goals after 12 matches wasn't part of the script. And even less so when you consider the defensive structure we witnessed last season when Valverde used a 4-4-2 formation and had Paulinho often playing in midfield. At this stage last season, after 12 matches, the team had only conceded four goals. The difference is huge. And perhaps even more concerning is that after the first two games this season, against Alaves and Real Valladolid, Barça didn't concede a single goal. If we remove those two matches it reads as 18 goals conceded in 10 games, that's an average of 1.8 goals per game. As Vidal mentioned, unless things improve it'll be impossible to win the league this way.