MESSI IS SCARED OF ENGLISH LEAGUE........ENGLISH PRESS

Lionel Messi has been receiving praises  this week for sealing Barcelona’s treble. It’s a treble that came after months of underperformance and infighting, of total crisis, as one Spanish paper put it.
To go from that state of disarray, and the sackings of Andoni Zubizarreta and Carles Puyol, to triumph in Berlin against one of the best sides in Europe, Juventus, is obviously quite some achievement. And they have been suitably rewarded in cash, glory, tales of redemption and a parade through Barcelona.

Congratulations, of course. But it doesn’t hide the inescapable truth: Messi could be in irreversible decline, and he won’t be able to prove himself to history unless he can start to show that he would succeed in the Premier League.
We know, after all, that the Premier League is the greatest league in the world. That’s self-evident, but so-called ‘sceptics’ will demand proof.

Well, here is the proof. It was announced on Monday that Manchester United became the first football club brand to be valued at over $1 billion. Not Barcelona, not Real Madrid, but Manchester United. In an age where social media reach, advertising effectiveness and wealth creation is of overriding importance, the Premier League has the jewel in the crown.
Yet Messi stays in the economic backwaters of Spain, happy to be a big fish in a small pond, or estanque as the Spanish call it. Or for the politically correct out there, estany in Catalan or Basque or whatever it is they choose to speak to alienate the British tourists who are paying their wages.
Until Messi faces off against the greatest brand in the world, it’s impossible to appraise him with our 21st century British values of putting profit at the heart of all areas of society. To look at his records in Spain and Europe only speaks of an insecurity in willing to proclaim British as best.
And we can see that when he does face the English, he struggles. He has not scored against British opposition for a calendar year. When he played Manchester City in the Champions League, it was Ivan Rakitic and Luis Suarez who scored the goals to knock out the opposition. The message is plain: Messi struggles against the defensive discipline of lionhearted Englishman like Joe Hart.
There’s also a sense that Messi is failing to learn all he can about the game to become a more rounded and successful player. We know, of course, about the poor diet and poor form that resulted in the first half of the 2014/15 season, and that it required Xavi Hernandez to step in to challenge his colleague.

It put the club on a crisis setting, with Luis Enrique suffering because his star player refused to contribute as he could, and the manager’s position is still not settled.
Why? Messi. Would he be able to stand up to Alan Pardew, Tony Pulis or Steve Bruce in such a way? No, and that’s why he’ll forever be found wanting until he negotiates what it takes to make his way in England.
This season’s 58 goals are nothing more than a dead cat bounce when you realise they came after a season of scoring just 41 in 2013/14. He had fallen out of love with the game, and it showed.

The English offer much to football, but it’s greatest contribution is the zeal to play with passion and desire. John Terry, Steven Gerrard and Ian Wright know what it means to play with their heart, and Messi has never lined up with any of them - he knows they would see through his fecklessness in a heartbeat.

If a Premier League club bids for him, then Barcelona would almost certainly be glad to be rid of his troublemaking tendencies and start to play with a full set of a team who work to make sure that the club is at the heart of all plans, rather than one self-regarding superstar. But that supposes, of course, that should he join the biggest brand in football, United, that he would put in the hard work to displace England’s captain, Wayne Rooney. It certainly sounds unlikely.

Messi is scared of the Premier League, and until he confronts his fears we are right to doubt him. Is Messi really scared?