24 - Eric García

[Messi983]

That kind of hyperbole is exactly your lane, by all means continue with that stream of 'logic' that no one claimed


Only thing lamentable is how poor your attempt at reasoning is. Sure, you are not convinced (When the greatest coaches in our club's history do) - that either makes you a genius ahead of them or precisely how I depicted your type of fan


Posters claiming to be fans less than a decade ago were binning Pep, touting the virtues of Rosell & eventually Bartomeu - every club has a portion of fans without the faintest idea of what the club is about much less how to improve it. Barca is no different

Even more lamentable is you have to bring Rosell and Bartomeu into discussion in most your posts.

I've never binned Pep. I was disappointed when he left but I understood him. But I was always a Barca fan first and foremost so I'm not a fanboy of certain players/coaches and follow their every step when they leave the club. I still wish them the best (unless they go to RM) but I don't see why I should support Pep coaching clubs like Bayern (whom I've always respected but also disliked) or City who I've had no previous hard feelings about either. They were just a club for me before Pep and they're just a club for me now. Since he has left us I've always considered Pep as a manager of opponent/rival clubs when we've played Bayern/City but most of the time I didn't care how he did in BL/EPL because in general I just don't care much about other leagues than La Liga. I also won't even bother watching the CL final because I'm indifferent to both Chelsea and City.

 

[DonAK]

I don't see how all of that is relevant in a discussion about how good Eric Garcia actually is.

I do agree with Mess983.

If he hadn't been a La Masia player there's no way we would be after signing him. He's not a very good defender, but as a free transfer I'll take it since beggars cannot be choosers.

But apart from his passing which is great, I've yet to see one top quality from him. His leadership perhaps? But that won't help us much if he isn't a good defender.

He's not the tallest, not quick, not physically imposing, his positioning is fine, but not great. He's young so he can improve, but we have so many projects already that we really cannot afford to try to develop more guys. We need someone that can come into the defence and be great day one.

Why do you think Spain have been trying to get Laporte to switch over so desperately? Apart from probably Pau Torres they have no faith in their other defenders.

As for Pep's comments about him then he also said he wanted 1000 players like Dante. When Pep praises a player so much that he exaggerates I get skeptical because usually it's about players that are quite bad

 

[Rory]

If Pep truly rated Garcia he'd have had him in the first xi or at least next in line. This is a manager who has the highest expectations in world football. He would play the absolute best available regardless if they were leaving a year later.

 

[DonAK]

If Pep truly rated Garcia he'd have had him in the first xi or at least next in line. This is a manager who has the highest expectations in world football. He would play the absolute best available regardless if they were leaving a year later.

Especially considering Pep likes to rotate a lot in the Premier League and didn't mind playing Sane while he was stalling on his contract renewal and even started him the game he got injured. Eric has only played 216 minutes in the Premier League this season. Ake who has been injured on and off all season long has played around 700 mins.

He's CB5 for them.

 

[Bobo32]

Well, here is where we disagree again. Being competent with the ball is needed, but being actually good at defending should be even more important criteria when deciding which player we should sign. When Araujo first came to Barca B I've watched him a few times. He was poor on the ball back then so I've never expected him to make it here. But the club believed in him as a defender enough to let him work on his weakness and he's improved his passing skills a lot under Pimienta while he already had good defending skills (which have obviously also improved in time) and this paired with his athleticism (which is one thing you can't teach) makes him our best defender at this point eventhough he's still worse on the ball than our other CBs. It's just a shame he seems to be injury prone so we can't pencil him in as one of our potential future starting CBs until he proves he can stay fit.

Remember when back in the days Pep fall in love with Chygrinskiy's passing skills so much he totally overlooked the guy had no clue how to defend? So obviously his stay at the club was short-term. Now if he would be an above average defender with average ball skills I'm sure Pep would improve that aspect of his game enough for him to have better chances to succeed.

Also, don't know what exactly do you mean by Umtiti and Lenglet were different to the other three. They're both good passers and Umtiti was a very good defender before his injuries. We'll never know for sure but I think if he'd be fit over the last three seasons a lot of things would be different. He's still only 27 and should be in his prime years now but he has ruined his career by playing WC 2018 with painkillers. Luckily for him at least they've won but still very questionable if it was really worth it. For Barca obviously things couldn't have turned out worse.

Chygrynskiy came to a new country, language and alphabet I think. He struggled in his year there, but Pep still believed in him long term.
Rosell didn't believe in him, and shipped him away to get one up at Laporta, who bought him one year earlier on Peps will. Rosell claimed economic crisis, but went on to buy players the next window as if nothing had happened.
Through nuggets it can be seen that this handling of Chygrinskiy was a major disappointment for Pep, and I believe it to be one of the reasons he went away from the club.

Araujo is still poor on the ball today, and his defending skills are also questionable. Let's see in a couple of years if he'll be a great starting CB. I don't believe it regardless of injuries, but he might.

 

[Porque]

Chygrynskiy didn't do much once he returned to Shakhtar. Lost his starting place and I don't think that can be amounted to his stint at Barcelona. To be fair, the other Shakhtar defender was always the much better defender and went on to have a more respectable career. Yaroslav Rakitskiy.

But that is the dangers of buying someone off of a one-off game. One where the whole team play at 150% because it is a final (or play it like a final). Pep overestimated his assessment.

 

[Bobo32]

Chygrynskiy didn't do much once he returned to Shakhtar. Lost his starting place and I don't think that can be amounted to his stint at Barcelona. To be fair, the other Shakhtar defender was always the much better defender and went on to have a more respectable career. Yaroslav Rakitskiy.

But that is the dangers of buying someone off of a one-off game. One where the whole team play at 150% because it is a final (or play it like a final). Pep overestimated his assessment.

Yeah he may have done.
But football carreers are also a bit chaotic, Chygrynskiy spoke a bit about how hard he took the failure at Barcelona IIRC, or it was just my interpretation/memory.

In anyway, Chygrinskiy is a bit outside the point. I just thought it a bit funny to bring him up today, when we stand to see what has happened with Pep, Rosell and Barcelona since.

 

[Messi983]

Chygrynskiy came to a new country, language and alphabet I think. He struggled in his year there, but Pep still believed in him long term.
Rosell didn't believe in him, and shipped him away to get one up at Laporta, who bought him one year earlier on Peps will. Rosell claimed economic crisis, but went on to buy players the next window as if nothing had happened.
Through nuggets it can be seen that this handling of Chygrinskiy was a major disappointment for Pep, and I believe it to be one of the reasons he went away from the club.

Araujo is still poor on the ball today, and his defending skills are also questionable. Let's see in a couple of years if he'll be a great starting CB. I don't believe it regardless of injuries, but he might.

Chigrinsky was a starter in most games in first two months of the season because Pep wanted to give his guy a chance but IIRC he made some costly mistakes and lost his trust. If Pep would still believe in him we wouldn't have sold him especially not with Marquez leaving for MLS and Milito being injured most of the times.

 

[fergus90]

In the take the ball, pass the ball documentary it was mentioned that Pep was furious as Chygrynskiy basically kept lumping the ball forward to Ibra and ignored patterns that had been worked on against Osasuna.

Basically never got a chance after that much and then Rossell took the decision to sell him.

 

[Bobo32]

In the take the ball, pass the ball documentary it was mentioned that Pep was furious as Chygrynskiy basically kept lumping the ball forward to Ibra and ignored patterns that had been worked on against Osasuna.

Basically never got a chance after that much and then Rossell took the decision to sell him.

Yeah I remember this from the documentary when you say it.
He really fell in Pep's eyes after a while, it sounds logical now that this was the reason, but I think most people at the time thought that the mistakes in defence were more important...
However, I am quite sure Pep didn't want him to go, but wanted to work with him for years and improve him. Pep is often furious, but I think he was almost in love with that defender.

If I am to speculate, the situation made the decision taken over his head all the more frustrating for him.

 

[khaled_a_d]

In the take the ball, pass the ball documentary it was mentioned that Pep was furious as Chygrynskiy basically kept lumping the ball forward to Ibra and ignored patterns that had been worked on against Osasuna.

Basically never got a chance after that much and then Rossell took the decision to sell him.

I remember that.
But that was from Henry, it was reported during that time Pep wanted to keep him and Rosell thought it would be a waste and sold him.

 

[DonAK]

Rosell wasn't wrong about that one.

 

[Devils]

Eric Garcia, 5th choice CB at Manchester City, walking into the Barca team next season:

 

[Nazario1985]

One might think he is 5th for a reason

 

[fergus90]

Big Eric gets a start tonight, along with Scott Carson making his Man City debut after 2 years at the club.