8 - Pedri

[BBZ8800]

Again BBZ with the 'tiki taka is dead' argument then uses Xavi in tiki taka to make some essay on taking aim at Pedri.

Flips argument daily to fit.

It has nothing to do with TikiTaka.

In the past, I often wrote about player's instinctive/DNA/coded traits which are hard to change.

Dembele is dumb. You can't change his brain.
Halilovic is dumb and bought his hype. You can't change that.
Bartra and Samper were too scared for the highest level.
Neymar loves to showboat, that's his DNA. In 2015 Lucho managed to tame him, but after 12 Months Neymar returned to his regular DNA self.
Arthur's DNA is: his first instinct is to keep the ball no matter what. After that thought, he is forcing himself in a conscious way to make a forward pass. But he is not a natural forward passer.
The same is with Pedri. He has a lot of nice instinctive skills, but also he has some huge flaws which will be impossible to fix due to their DNA nature.
Some of them:
1. A lack of shooting instincts
2. Too many flashy first touch passes which lead to nothing and kinda ruin possession of a team
3. A lack of off the ball movement after a pass
4. A tendency to pass the ball to a safe place on wings instead of where the action is

It has nothing to do with TikiTaka being dead or alive.
Those are football/midfield/possession basics.

If I would bet any money, you'll see how opinion about him and these flaws will change on this forum till the end of the next season.

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

It has nothing to do with TikiTaka.

In the past, I often wrote about player's instinctive/DNA/coded traits which are hard to change.

Dembele is dumb. You can't change his brain.
Halilovic is dumb and bought his hype. You can't change that.
Bartra and Samper were too scared for the highest level.
Neymar loves to showboat, that's his DNA. In 2015 Lucho managed to tame him, but after 12 Months Neymar returned to his regular DNA self.
Arthur's DNA is: his first instinct is to keep the ball no matter what. After that thought, he is forcing himself in a conscious way to make a forward pass. But he is not a natural forward passer.
The same is with Pedri. He has a lot of nice instinctive skills, but also he has some huge flaws which will be impossible to fix due to their DNA nature.
Some of them:
1. A lack of shooting instincts
2. Too many flashy first touch passes which lead to nothing and kinda ruin possession of a team
3. A lack of off the ball movement after a pass
4. A tendency to pass the ball to a safe place on wings instead of where the action is

It has nothing to do with TikiTaka being dead or alive.
Those are football/midfield/possession basics.

If I would bet any many, you'll see how opinion about him and these flaws will change on this forum till the end of the next season.

A lot of people criticized him at the end of the last season. He wasn't the same anymore. He was just playing the 90 minutes without much impact.

Overplayed, simply too many minutes for his brain/body at that point IMO.

 

[Porque]

BBZ is getting off early on the Pedri train just in case.

After all he can always slip back on at a later stage and say he had doubts as players regularly fail to reach their potential.

But if he is right he can be Nostradamus and bury the shitstain of Coutinho once and for all.

 

[JohnN]

Most important thing to keep in mind: is he is just 18. He is a child in all the sense of the word. Pretty hard to predict how he will evolve from now on. The constant playing with no rest doesn't do him any favors. He has regressed compared to last season's start.

 

[Bobo32]

Most important thing to keep in mind: is he is just 18. He is a child in all the sense of the word. Pretty hard to predict how he will evolve from now on. The constant playing with no rest doesn't do him any favors. He has regressed compared to last season's start.

No, he wasn't that hyped in the beginning of the season.
The hype arrived at the same time that people realized that the thick and fat dutch pig in charge rated him very much, and also realized the player was very young.
I think a lot can be said after watching him for 50+ games. He has glaring weaknesses and stylistic preferences, but also time to correct or change stuff. I don't think it will happen naturally, and I don't think Koeman is the one to guide him, but let's see!
I think the same guys overrating him last season and now (or taking a lot of progress for granted due to his age) will underrate him later, just like the case was with Bojan for example.

 

[JohnN]

No, he wasn't that hyped in the beginning of the season.
I think a lot can be said after watching him for 50+ games. He has glaring weaknesses and stylistic preferences, and time to correct or change stuff.
I think the same guys overrating him last season and now (or taking a lot of progress for granted due to his age) will underrate him later, just like the case was with Bojan for example.

I am not judging his hype from last season to this, but his performances. His level gradually dropped as the season progressed. The hope is that is due to fatigue but it's not certain.
Bojan was not overly hyped. The man had other issues that kept him from developing.

 

[Kul_z]

Well bbz has the point. He hit the jackpot in xavi/arthur/pedri comparisons. Xavi was a total fucking general, his movement after deploying the ball was yet to be seen in world football, nobody comes even close in that department, he made tiki taka exciting not boring. He loved those high pressure moments, like messi said in one interview, when they faced a compact opponent, xavi 'called' him and iniesta to drop deep to make opponents run after them so they can make space for others, meaning they loved when opponents were going after them, unlike pedri who just want to get rid of the ball in middle. Which is not that bad if he feels insecure, but xavi was on another level, like bbz said, xavi used to hold on the ball as long as it takes to make opponent nervous and go after him, which leaves space that messi/iniesta/busi/alves exploited so efficiently.

Damn, nostalgia

 

[Horatio]

It's clear people are heavily romanticizing about Xavi. Why? They somehow always tend to revision the part where Xavi wasn't as great at the age of 18 as he would later become. And they will admit it to be true. But once they enter a new discussion the Xavi romanticists have already changed it back to "yeah, he was pretty much that great from the moment he made it to the big stage" in their head somehow and you have to remind them again.

Anyway, Pedri is 18. Calma with the comparisons.

 

[Bobo32]

I am not judging his hype from last season to this, but his performances. His level gradually dropped as the season progressed. The hope is that is due to fatigue but it's not certain.
Bojan was not overly hyped. The man had other issues that kept him from developing.

Maybe you don't remember, but people compared him to Messi, and even speculated he would outperform him because of his superior goalscoring record in the youth teams.
It wasn't everybody who was that retarded and believed so, but I am sure the consensus on a forum like this was that he would become a clear starter for Barcelona A.
Later he was deemed completely useless and a joke, mostly by what seemed like the same sort of people, when he could've been a very good option from the bench.

 

[Windhook]

The main problem in this thread is that we forget the fact that he is still a teenager and compare him to prime Xavi and Iniesta. Both players had solid experience before the 2008-11 explosion. Some would remember the times when Puyol, Xavi, Gabri and Iniesta were introduced in the squad in the 2000-2003 period - the worst period in club's modern history and most of these La Masia players were a rare feature in games in the beginning.

 

[Porque]

Bobo, would you say that alot or most of Bojan problems were mental rather than technical.

I mean, he was no Messi on the ball, and a tad small in the end though no Puig, but he did have the complete game for the highest level. What he lacked were mentality and suffered to the extreme with anxiety. I guess like that Tennis lass is right now after having hit premature success.

I'm not sure where I am going with this. I guess partly to say that the early hype of Bojan was warranted, but also to say that Pedri with his Euro displays has shown he is mentally built for the highest level and will continue to grow into a top player.

And yes, for the record his movement frustrates me alot of the time off the ball and I hope this is just a Koemanism as Ilaix was too, removing himself from the play.

 

[JamDav1982]

Bojan was massively hyped for what he did in youth ranks not the first teams despite scoring some goals when broke through.

Comparisons with Messi were never for what showed at first team level bar age Kirkic scored at.

Pedri in past year has been on a different level to anything Bojan showed his whole career.

 

[JamDav1982]

It has nothing to do with TikiTaka.

In the past, I often wrote about player's instinctive/DNA/coded traits which are hard to change.

Dembele is dumb. You can't change his brain.
Halilovic is dumb and bought his hype. You can't change that.
Bartra and Samper were too scared for the highest level.
Neymar loves to showboat, that's his DNA. In 2015 Lucho managed to tame him, but after 12 Months Neymar returned to his regular DNA self.
Arthur's DNA is: his first instinct is to keep the ball no matter what. After that thought, he is forcing himself in a conscious way to make a forward pass. But he is not a natural forward passer.
The same is with Pedri. He has a lot of nice instinctive skills, but also he has some huge flaws which will be impossible to fix due to their DNA nature.
Some of them:
1. A lack of shooting instincts
2. Too many flashy first touch passes which lead to nothing and kinda ruin possession of a team
3. A lack of off the ball movement after a pass
4. A tendency to pass the ball to a safe place on wings instead of where the action is

It has nothing to do with TikiTaka being dead or alive.
Those are football/midfield/possession basics.

If I would bet any money, you'll see how opinion about him and these flaws will change on this forum till the end of the next season.

You make out likes of Pedri will be a failure... then he does very well and you change it to unless he is next Xavi he is a failure.

Constant changing of argument.

Folk can see what Pedri does and doesnt do well. You are not breaking any ground on that.

He has been a hugely successful signing for Barca to this point.

 

[Bobo32]

Bobo, would you say that alot or most of Bojan problems were mental rather than technical.

I mean, he was no Messi on the ball, and a tad small in the end though no Puig, but he did have the complete game for the highest level. What he lacked were mentality and suffered to the extreme with anxiety. I guess like that Tennis lass is right now after having hit premature success.

I'm not sure where I am going with this. I guess partly to say that the early hype of Bojan was warranted, but also to say that Pedri with his Euro displays has shown he is mentally built for the highest level and will continue to grow into a top player.

And yes, for the record his movement frustrates me alot of the time off the ball and I hope this is just a Koemanism as Ilaix was too, removing himself from the play.

I think Bojans max potential "technically" was somewhere around David Villas level.
Villa obviously was a mental giant, whereas Bojan maybe wasn't? It's tought to speculate.
I don't know that much about his anxiety problems, but it was clear that he suffered from the extreme expectations, just from the outside. From the little I saw from Stoke, he really showed some class from a more withdrawn position.
I see that he'll play with Iniesta and Samper now? He is only 31 still...

Everything looks fine for Pedri right now, he has gotten the trust from a couple of managers and everything goes well. Let's compare him to Fabregas instead maybe?

 

[JamDav1982]

Bojan had nowhere near the technical level of David Villa.

Did not have the pace, the ability to run with ball or the finishing and was horrendous when asked to shield the ball.

Mentally seemed to be impacted when other teams rag dolled up when up against big lump of defenders and shied away from it and shrank but technical level wasnt great or consistent with it.