10 - Lionel Messi - v2

[exneo]

a) misleading ? irrelevant? lol?. They are stats, that are the truth and everyone have seen that this season Villa scores as soon as he gets a small chance to do so. Plus, I was comparing a striker vs another striker. You, in other hand, come with some random crap comparing a goalkeeper vs midfielder... lol.

b) Use your words properly next time. Don't confuse ppl with (as you would say) "misleading" words that mean something else. So, you need 2 guys to shutdown Messi, but you need a WHOLE team to shutdown tiki taka. ...?

You pretty much said before that Messi is a "god" that needs to gets all the balls because he's the best, period. So yeah, if the whole team plays for this guy, and put all their trust on him (like on the penalty) and he doesn't win us the game, isn't it, mostly, his fault?

c) chicken? egg? what? Real Madrid managed to get more points and goals than us in the last league without Messi. Like I said, there's life after Messi, believe it or not.

d) Complaint about what? that Messi plays? why would I. I was just making a comment saying the obvious thing.

e) Last season Pedro was pretty much injured the whole season. Villa - as Pep said himself, was having problems already on his leg, but since he kept playing it ended up in a big injury. As you said, they were both "off form", so it makes sense not to trust them when they are playing bad. However, are they off form now? are they playing bad? last time I check they were playing pretty good. Oh right, Last time I checked it was a Spain match, with Barca however they suddenly become "bad" because they can't score.

You missed all of my points entirely.

 

[Patty2720]

Messi have how scored 50 goals in La liga in 2012, there is still 6 games left.

Levante - Away
Athletic Bilbao - Home
Betis - Away
Atletico Madrid - Home
Valladolid - Away

La Liga in 2012:

33 games
50 goals
14 assists
64 total - 1,94 %

Insane !

 

[ryuken]

What the fuck is going on in this thread?

 

[Paganinisrvnge]

Jtmx12, are you saying that Villa could score as many goals as Messi if he were the focal point? If so, I highly doubt that. I understand and agree with your point about Villa needing passes at points instead of Messi being the only option but your example of Villa's shots to goals ratio is ridiculous because it's such a tiny sample size. If Barcelona got rid of Messi and made Villa the focal point, Villa would probably get 30-35 goals on the season. Maybe 40. Why? Because although a great finisher, he can't create chances out of thin air like Messi. Also, Messi is the better finisher.

 

[jiopi]

your example of Villa's shots to goals ratio is ridiculous because it's such a tiny sample size.

Correct.

League shots/goal 10-13

Messi 98 goals, 4.2 spg
Villa 28 goals, 6.3 spg

 

[lessthanjake]

The Spain thing was for his whole reply, not for the thing in red only clearly. My bad for having it in the wrong spot.

As for La Liga, last year, didn't we lose it because of the lack of goals that the "god" Messi (according to exneo) couldn't provide in some matches where we lost points? like in the last clasico played in Camp Nou?

No. I find it absurd that you are trying to argue Barcelona lost the league last year because Messi did not score often enough. He scored more goals than anyone has ever scored in a league season. Barcelona scored more goals than they have ever scored in a season. In fact, they scored more goals in a La Liga season than any team has ever scored, with the sole exception of RM last season. For comparison, in 2010-2011, Barcelona scored 19 fewer goals in La Liga than they scored in 2011-2012. That's a full 0.5 goals per game less back when Villa and Pedro were getting a larger share of the passes.

They lost La Liga for two reasons that have nothing to do with Messi:

1. Their defense was worse. They gave up 8 more goals last season than they did the season before. That was a 38% increase in goals against. The biggest problem here was the lack of consistency in defense. It is very hard for teams to win games when they give up 2 goals. Barca can usually deal with giving up 1 goal, but 2 really risks losing points. In 2010-2011, they only gave up 2 goals twice the whole season. They lost both games. Last season, they gave up at least 2 goals EIGHT times, dropping 14 points in those matches.

2. Real Madrid was just too good. RM set the record for most points in a season and shattered the mark for most goals in a season. You can't expect to win the league when another team does that. I think it's important to realize this. Barcelona can only control the games it plays in, and none of the previous Barcelona seasons would have beaten RM last year. They were too good. You mention the clasico in the Camp Nou, but remember, Barcelona would still have lost the league 97 to 94 if they had won that game.


Surely you cannot think that Barcelona's defensive woes and RMs great season are a result of Messi not scoring enough goals.

 

[lessthanjake]

a) misleading ? irrelevant? lol?. They are stats, that are the truth and everyone have seen that this season Villa scores as soon as he gets a small chance to do so. Plus, I was comparing a striker vs another striker. You, in other hand, come with some random crap comparing a goalkeeper vs midfielder... lol.

Okay, so I suspect you're like 12-14 years old, but there is such a thing as a margin of error in a statistical sample. The more data points you get on something, the higher the chance is that the data you have is actually statistically accurate. You are unstoppably touting Villa scoring 5 goals in 8 shots. That is SUCH a small sample size that the margin for error is exceptionally high. It essentially tells us nothing. To put this differently, I think virtually any striker in the world could score 5 goals with 8 shots at some point. Let's take your argument to the extreme. Let's say Villa had one shot and one goal. Would you think it was significant that he had scored 100% of his attempts? I doubt it. And what you are saying now is very very similar.

Let me give you a bigger sample on David Villa.

In 2010-2011, his one full season at Barca so far, Villa shot 133 shots in La Liga. He only scored 18 of them. That is 13.5%. He had 35 shots in 2011-2012, and only scored 5 goals. That's 14.3%. In his last season with Valencia, he scored 21 goals in 139 shots, which is 15.1%.

Now, let's add in his 5 goals in 8 shots this season. That means that Villa has scored 49 goals in his last 315 shots in La Liga. That's 15.6%.

315 shots is a way more statistically significant sample size than 8 shots, and is certainly closer to his true goal rate.

On the other hand, during those same years, Messi has 132 goals in 578 shots, which is 22.8%. That is a WAY better rate than Villa's. And Messi is quite clearly becoming a better goalscorer over time. During this season and last season, Messi has scored 67 goals in 265 shots, which is 25.2%. Villa is nowhere close to him. If Messi had only scored at Villa's 15.6% rate last season, he would have gotten only 31 goals instead of 50.

The numbers are a bit less stark when you take into account that Messi's goal rate is aided a bit by taking penalties, but he is still very significantly more accurate than Villa when you use anything but a laughable sample size.

e) Last season Pedro was pretty much injured the whole season. Villa - as Pep said himself, was having problems already on his leg, but since he kept playing it ended up in a big injury. As you said, they were both "off form", so it makes sense not to trust them when they are playing bad. However, are they off form now? are they playing bad? last time I check they were playing pretty good. Oh right, Last time I checked it was a Spain match, with Barca however they suddenly become "bad" because they can't score.

I think it bears pointing out that Villa was injured/off-form, Pedro was off-form, and Alexis is not a goalscorer, and Barcelona still scored BY FAR the most goals in a season it has ever scored. Maybe using Messi as a sole focal point isn't so bad for the offense? It yielded 19 more goals than the season before when the offense was more balanced and the strikers were more on form. You wouldn't expect that to happen unless it is just a superior tactic to do that.

 

[Paganinisrvnge]

Lessthanjake

I expect Messi to get his 60 goals but Villa's role will be important come the Champions League knockout stages as he will be expected to score those chances that Alexis and Cesc missed last season against Chelsea.

 

[poldep]

No. I find it absurd that you are trying to argue Barcelona lost the league last year because Messi did not score often enough. He scored more goals than anyone has ever scored in a league season. Barcelona scored more goals than they have ever scored in a season. In fact, they scored more goals in a La Liga season than any team has ever scored, with the sole exception of RM last season. For comparison, in 2010-2011, Barcelona scored 19 fewer goals in La Liga than they scored in 2011-2012. That's a full 0.5 goals per game less back when Villa and Pedro were getting a larger share of the passes.

They lost La Liga for two reasons that have nothing to do with Messi:

1. Their defense was worse. They gave up 8 more goals last season than they did the season before. That was a 38% increase in goals against. The biggest problem here was the lack of consistency in defense. It is very hard for teams to win games when they give up 2 goals. Barca can usually deal with giving up 1 goal, but 2 really risks losing points. In 2010-2011, they only gave up 2 goals twice the whole season. They lost both games. Last season, they gave up at least 2 goals EIGHT times, dropping 14 points in those matches.

2. Real Madrid was just too good. RM set the record for most points in a season and shattered the mark for most goals in a season. You can't expect to win the league when another team does that. I think it's important to realize this. Barcelona can only control the games it plays in, and none of the previous Barcelona seasons would have beaten RM last year. They were too good. You mention the clasico in the Camp Nou, but remember, Barcelona would still have lost the league 97 to 94 if they had won that game.


Surely you cannot think that Barcelona's defensive woes and RMs great season are a result of Messi not scoring enough goals.

very good post!

 

[jtmx12]

Jtmx12, are you saying that Villa could score as many goals as Messi if he were the focal point? If so, I highly doubt that. I understand and agree with your point about Villa needing passes at points instead of Messi being the only option but your example of Villa's shots to goals ratio is ridiculous because it's such a tiny sample size. If Barcelona got rid of Messi and made Villa the focal point, Villa would probably get 30-35 goals on the season. Maybe 40. Why? Because although a great finisher, he can't create chances out of thin air like Messi. Also, Messi is the better finisher.

When did I say that? the only thing I said in last page was that if Villa had 63 shoots... and Messi 8, Villa would have more goals clearly, lol. It would be impossible for Messi to score more than 8 goals with 8 shoots (unless he can score 2 with 1 shoot just because he's Messi ), while Villa has scored 5 goals with 8 shoots this season, and would have 45 shoots left to score 4 goals at least xD. I could argue the same thing about Pedro, not sure if I could about Alexis tho...

@lessthanjake

No, clearly the reason why we were alive until the end of the last Liga BBVA was because Messi scored often enough. However, "exneo" said that "Messi was never shutdown" and I was trying to point out that that was actually one of the reasons why we lost the last La Liga BBVA. Because in some games, Messi was shutdown, couldn't score and we would lose points because none else would either, like in the last Clasico in Camp Nou that we lost it and all our hopes died with it (Messi:0 goals)... (That's why it's great to have Pedro and Villa as well, because they can step up and score, however the last one will end up leaving if he's not happy)

Let me give you a bigger sample on David Villa.

In 2010-2011,

Let me quote myself so you can read it again.

Who's talking about passing or dribbling? in the 6 images I gave, Villa just had to shoot the ball to the net, that's it. And according to stats, Villa is as good as Messi at finishing this season (actually, better). Villa, 5 goals, 8 shoots aka 63%. Messi, 17 goals, 63 shoots, aka 26%. So when it comes to passing the ball to one of them where they just have to shoot it, the thing needs to be simple: the one who has the best position gets the assist, not Messi every time.

Your stats are not useful at all, because they are from a different season. The first one where he failed quite a lot (and I remember him hitting the post like 7 times AT LEAST in all competitions). The 2nd he was injured and then ended up injured the whole season. Clearly Villa's first season was great based on goals and titles, but everyone knows Villa failed more than he should have. I'm talking about this season, where his aiming is way better than before, so there's no reason not to rely on him a few times, and not on Messi every single time. I could get some stats from an old season of Messi, or Ronaldo to make them look worse than they are now but those stats are useless, because both guys have improved, just like Villa, so you can't rely on old stats anymore. You need to look at the present, like I do. Wait until the end of the season and we'll see how Villa ends up with his goal/shoot thing. However, that will never be increased if Messi keeps getting all the assists xD

Anyways I said earlier I didn't want to keep writing about this again. I couldn't because of exneo but I'll give it a try again...

 

[xaviniesta]

ok may i just take the last few pages up with this quote?jtmx has a point but well, it's still messi we are talking about.

 

[Maria]

Knowing that Spain won the EC this year without Messi or Villa, I think we should sell them and buy Torres.

 

[poldep]

Knowing that Spain won the EC this year without Messi or Villa, I think we should sell them and buy Torres.

Torres! This year ballon d´or winner cuz he won the EC and the CL. Torres it is then! get him now!

 

[CatalinR10]

 

[evilhita666]

That's freaking scary! Almost one third of La Liga gone and his numbers are already pointing higher that last season...