Fin Jim

Minus 25 Celsius? You are welcome to that, I'm freezing my bits off in minus 3!

now it all falls into place, couldnt see how you could be having no snow in Finland in your picture of the LED bar. I tried the cooper discoverer tyres for a while, they where OK, but back on studded hakka now.

been down to 15 cold ones here now, wich is rare at the west coast. Still weeks before we get any heat from the sun.

I have had some problems lately. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. 

It's hard to say when the problem started as I now suspect it has slowly creeped on me.
One turning point was few weeks ago when I drove the car inside for a little defrosting and to install outside temperature gauge.
Car was inside a warm workshop for 4 hours. Everything was perfectly fine when I drove it in. As I tried to reverse out I was unable to put the gear in...then tried to give it a little force and it would make that unpleasant transmission noise.
Turned the car off and I was able to shift again. Started the car with gear in and the car would move even when clutch was pressed.
Weird that it would just suddenly be so bad?
I was able to fix it by adjusting the clutch wire and went on my way. Sometime after that I realized that accelerating was taking way too long and really had to push it to reach even 80km/h. It's slowly getting worse.
The problem is barely noticeable when driving around town, but really effects accelerating and driving on 4 or 5th gear. The car wont rev past 3000rpm when in gear. Engine sounds and revs just fine when idling or rolling in gear when clutch is pressed.  

So to sum the problem.
-lost of power on higher rpm
-wont rev past ~3000rmp in higher gears

 Im guessing I need a new clutch? 

I have checked some obvious engine things to rule them out.
Faultcodes, disconnected maf, and both lambdas respectively to see if that would have any effect and checked the sparkplugs for "signs". 

Sorry, long ass ramble.
Any thoughts? Never had this kind of issue before.

Here is a picture of my dog getting bored of clutch wire adjusting. 

It could be a blocked second catalytic converter if the front one has disintegrated that would potentially explain the not reving cleanly. Also if you put it in 5th at standstill and lift your foot off the clutch does it stall as the clutch bites? If not then yes it needs a clutch.

Unlikely to be a worn clutch, because then you would easily be able to rev past 3000 rpm (but without getting anywhere). How many km? My gen 3 clutch went at 184,300 km
Reading through your post makes me think that there are multiple issues occurring simultaneously.

Nice rug.

 
Bingo! on the collapsed catalytic converter. Thanks for solid advice!

Opened the exhaust between the catalytic converters and was greeted with a solid chunk of cat junk. I then used a rod to smash out any remaining fillings that was visible from the first cat. 
I inspected the section with the second cat from both ends. No sign of debris there, also no rattles. 
Put the exhaust back together and went for a test drive. Much better but not perfect, I need to replace the second cat too. 
Gonna be expensive but Im still happy it was not the clutch. 😅
Anything special with the second cat? I was thinking of replacing it with generic (cheap) cat. 

I did some testing to the clutch and indeed it seems to be working ok. It was probably just frozen cable and paranoia. 

Thanks again!