There has been some criticism in the press of the first two substitutions that Frank Rijkaard made in yesterday’s match against Racing. In the 62nd minute Messi was replaced by Henry, and some are suggesting that it would have been better to take off Eto’o or Ronaldinho as they weren’t doing anything. It is easy to criticize after the event but at the time, in the bar where I was watching the game, there were no criticism at the time of the substitution. I feel Rijkaard could have taken off any of the front three who between them had done very little, chosing Messi had its logic in that Messi had hardly played in the pre-season. Ronnie and Eto’o will find out soon that they are not untouchables.

The second sub was Deco who came on for Touré after 70 minutes. This has been criticised because Touré was one of the better Barça players, and that the three ‘pequeños’ - Deco, Iniesta and Xavi hadn’t worked last season. While I agree that Touré had a good game, Racing had just been reduced to ten men for the sending off of Smolarek, and for this reason putting on a more creative midfielder in place of the defensive Touré also made sense to me at the time.

So it didn’t work? That doesn’t necessarily make it a bad decision. Personally I put more blame with the players who let themselves down. If there is a problem with Rijkaard, and I think I can add Neeskens to this, is that they don’t seem to know how to put the fire in the players’ bellies.

But hey, this is Barça, it’s all about style and class. The idea of a manager screaming at the players or throwing things around the dressing room just isn’t going to happen. The players need to do it for themselves, hopefully the addition of Milito and the return of Puyol next month will get the others fighting with more spirit than they showed yesterday.