seems to me as a sort of football-schizophrenia, in other terms try to match a coach with a player who clearly doesn t do his tactics big service.
Those "tactics" are needed - sometimes - but not always. The better players the coach has, the tactics are less needed, simply because in case of a Messi or Iniesta - just an example - they are capable of being more creative on the pitch (compared to any tactics or trainer) so the tactical ropes won't really help them positively.
The MSN were great in their prime, because they played more or less free, creative and unpredictable.
The good tactician coaches are those who are able to amalgamate a good team consisting of mediocre-good players, where the tactics are more important than individual brilliance.
Valverde is a typical mediocre coach, actually having his very first team that has quite a few outstanding players in it, and one can easily see that how Valverde tries to dominate the team. So far the results are good, quality is less good, but it's clear that the "games" Valverde has been playing with Semedo, Dembele and partly Countinho, only serves his image being the great tactician. He is not a good tactician, he is biassed and even more stubborn.
In the defense: he should have realized that he needs at least one Semedo type with speed, because apart from Alba all others are very slow, but he is screwing that.
If Stegen were in a bad form like he did last year, there would be no results.
The midfield (the weakest part last season) is more or less untouched.
The attack is reduced to a deeply playing Messi and a more and more heavy Suarez, luckily works most of the times, but only due to Messi's genius.
The 4-4-2 is just valid to play safe games but almost useless for a PERMANENT attacking formation for this team.
You will see that the inevitable flops will come sooner or later, because Valverde's will have to tactically dominate will indeed dismantle the attacking tradition of this great team...
