19 - Lamine Yamal

[serghei]

Plenty of quality coaches would be desperate to get one chance at managing Football Club Barcelona.

Yeah, we got one already. Need elite manager to improve on Xavi. I was talking about elite.

Names like Pep, Klopp, maybe Tuchel... Not many others on that list.

 

[serghei]

Other good managers would be similar to Xavi, maybe a bit better, maybe worse. For sure would not change the manager for one of those after winning the title with Xavi. Sounds like a bad proposition to me.

 

[ajnotkeith]

Those things are not true, and false representations of my comments. It's not a fluke, and repeatedly said that being more focused and more hungry to win than the competition is huge credit fo the team.

Your problem is that you attribute that last La Liga title mainly to a great squad, and use it to blame the manager for the CL debackle from last season, despite context. It's simply bullshit to me. The management of this team that did an excellent job last summer. It's simply the stage of the current team, good enough to fight for La Liga title and even win, but not good enough to fight vs the best teams in Europe. Quite simple and straightforward.

I attribute it to both parts. Xavi did a good job as well as the squad being top. He is a great manager in league play.

If the CL 'debacle' is just an anomaly then I would agree with you but there are consistent indications he is not good at managing in cup competitions.

 

[serghei]

Not much to go by that he is not good in cups. Last season he got kicked out by CL finalists and Madrid in cups, both cases with 3-4 key players missing. Got the Supercup vs Madrid.

 

[ajnotkeith]

Not much to go by that he is not good in cups. Last season he got kicked out by CL finalists and Madrid in cups, both ith 3-4 states missing. Got the Supercup vs Madrid.

Inter have a net spend balance of like -150m under Inzaghi, he is working with far less than Xavi and made a final like you say, contradicting the 'hundreds of millions' narrative. Also knocked out by United as well.

Anyhow, it goes before that too. Drawing to Benfica. Losing to Frankfurt. Nearly knocked out by Galatasaray. Even goes before that as he was poor in ACL with Al Sadd. His one notable win in Europe is Napoli.

It is a weakness and I believe will continue to show, despite the excuses you will state as injuries or the stadium being full of Frankfurt fans. You deal with adverse circumstances in a long cup run and other teams overcome it.

With that said, he is clearly a very skilled manager in league play. Similar to EV in a way.

 

[serghei]

Inter have a net spend balance of like -150m under Inzaghi, he is working with far less than Xavi and made a final like you say, contradicting the 'hundreds of millions' narrative. Also knocked out by United as well.

Anyhow, it goes before that too. Drawing to Benfica. Losing to Frankfurt. Nearly knocked out by Galatasaray. Even goes before that as he was poor in ACL with Al Sadd. His one notable win in Europe is Napoli.

It is a weakness and I believe will continue to show, despite the excuses you will state as injuries or the stadium being full of Frankfurt fans. You deal with adverse circumstances in a long cup run and other teams overcome it.

With that said, he is clearly a very skilled manager in league play. Similar to EV in a way.

You can believe what you want. You have a habit of turning a blind eye to context, such as missing the whole defense almost vs Inter. I consider context to be very important.

 

[JamDav1982]

The Inter game has been done to death but Xavi chose not to start Balde or Alba and went with Busquets as single pivot vs them on front of a slow defence.

To leave out Balde in a defence already lacking pace and to them not put the best player in team in midfield on front of them was amateur hour.

Even Alonso was a better CB than Pique by that point.. a Pique who had barely played. Even FDJ would have been better CB despite being teams best midfielder.

Inter also missed players. Their best mid and Lukaku who until then had been very important for them.

Was horrendous set up and team selection.

His defensive set up v Man Utd when the defenders were all available was arguably even worse.

His set up v Frankfurt and not playing best team maybe even worse again.

 

[serghei]

Balde was not developed enough at the time. Easy to say now, but at the time there was no other choice. It's been done to death, I'm tired of it by now. Move on. Inter were a better team at that moment and our defense was in shables, two things that became very obvious at the moment of the match.

You can go on about his set-up vs Benfica and Frankfurt, but that was a shite season with a poor Barca side, and in the 2nd leg there was a massive Frankfurt crowd on Camp Nou making the players feel like playing in Germany. It was a massive club-level fuck-up. Could just as well point to the great win vs Napoli in Italy but that's not fitting with the Xavi is shit picture, is it?

 

[JamDav1982]

Alonso FDJ Garcia

Balde was not developed enough at the time. Easy to say now, but at the time there was no other choice. It's been done to death, I'm tired of it by now. Move on. Inter were a better team at that moment and our defense was in shables, two things that became very obvious at the moment of the match.

You can go on about his set-up vs Benfica and Frankfurt, but that was a shite season with a poor Barca side. Could just as well point to the great win vs Napoli in Italy but that's not fitting with the Xavi is shit picture is it?

Nonsense and more excuses.

Balde was starter at that point and more than ready to play the game ahead of Alonso.

So Xavi thinks 'CL is too much for Balde but I can start him next game in Classico'... more fool Xavi if actually thinks like that.

Balde started away to Sevilla, Sociedad and Real around that time... stop with these excuses that there is some magical pressure in CL Balde then cant deal with. Same shite was claimed as to why he didnt start at home to Utd.. then he is one of Barca best players over there in second leg.

Xavi may have thought that way and was wrong. Baldes pace was badly needed.

There was plenty choice.

Play Balde, Alba and put your best midfielder protecting them.

Barca had a better side than Frankfurt. No question. Xavi fucked the team selection up badly.

The win in Napoli is not relevant really.. Barca better side and won. The point is making poor decisions in too many key games in Europe to this point.

 

[ajnotkeith]

You can believe what you want. You have a habit of turning a blind eye to context, such as missing the whole defense almost vs Inter. I consider context to be very important.

I forgive context for certain losses if they lie outside of the mean.
They dont. He has a long record of losing cup games and of bringing up excuses consistently used to explain away the losses.

If he goes on to be successful in CL then he will have proved me wrong.

 

[serghei]

If he goes on to be successful in CL then he will have proved me wrong.

Depends on how delusional you are. If you are like JamDav, thinking we should be 50-50 at worst against anyone including City or something, then it doesn't really matter how you view his CL success because it's based on some dream-like expectations.

He should win the group, and probably make CL QF. From then on, it depends on luck a lot. Could be in the semis with some luck. That would be very good you reckon? Top 4 in CL?

In my book, CL quarterfinals or semis would be very good result this season.

 

[JamDav1982]

Depends on how delusional you are. If you are like JamDav, thinking we should be 50-50 at worst against anyone including City or something, then it doesn't really matter how you view his CL success because it's based on some dream-like expectations.

He should win the group, and probably make CL QF. From then on, it depends on luck a lot. Could be in the semis with some luck. That would be very good you reckon? Top 4 in CL?

Nah you are the delusional one that makes out Spurs are better than a Barca side that cant compete for years with Real Madrid and have to spend 100s of millions.

You are the one that makes out Havertz is a top talent for likes of Arsenal while Pedri is just over rated for Barca.

Delusion is all yours and wrong as usual.

Indeed I would have the Barca squad as second only to City and Real and would expect at least 50/50 with anyone else.

But aye you go list all these great teams that are ahead of Barca and show how little clue you have.

 

[ajnotkeith]

Depends on how delusional you are. If you are like JamDav, thinking we should be 50-50 at worst against anyone including City or something, then it doesn't really matter how you view his CL success because it's based on some dream-like expectations.

He should win the group, and probably make CL QF. From then on, it depends on luck a lot. Could be in the semis with some luck. That would be very good you reckon? Top 4 in CL?

I expect losses against City and Bayern. I believe the team is 50-50 at worst against any other opponent except maybe Madrid.
Beating City, Bayern or Madrid in CL would count as an upset.

Lets see the path we get. Basically, if we had a draw like Inter did last year, I'd expect us to make the final.

 

[serghei]

Nah you are the delusional one that makes out Spurs are better than a Barca side that cant compete for years with Real Madrid and have to spend 100s of millions.

You are the one that makes out Havertz is a top talent for likes of Arsenal while Pedri is just over rated for Barca.

Delusion is all yours and wrong as usual.

Mate, if you want me to seriously answer to your replies, stop posting the same shit all the time. I'm tired of it. If you want a reasonable discussion, I'm on. If not, no

 

[mc_lovin]

I swear to god you two had the same exact exchange a bunch of times already.