Well, you are right of course. Gomes is not a "shit player" as you put it, he is a young and talented player, on a certain level.
He is not bad with the ball, not too good either. He is dead slow, both on the field as well as in his mind (just as you have mentioned).
Nevertheless he has outstanding shortcomings, namely:
- Tall but awful in the air
- His situational awareness is bad
- Slow with the ball and even without it
- Not too effective in attack, even less in defense
- Needs a lot of space to do anything with the ball (sluggish)
- No brain for unexpected solutions or creative thinking at all
These are his major characteristics. What positive aspects can you name in his relation?
That in a mediocre average team he would be a mediocre average midfielder? Yes, he would be... Doing safe back and side-passes only.
But in Barca??? In Iniesta's or Xavi's positions???
Well, we seem to be in some sort of agreement with this, so I'll take it each point at a time.
- Tall, but awful in the air.
Not true. He is normal in the air. At best, you could say that he doesn't use his height well enough. Anything other than that is hyperbolisation.
- His situational awareness is bad
True, but with explanations regarding some bad tactics used by Barca as a team, as well as the fact that he has been used in a lot of positions. He is also a new transfer, so his sense of awareness is expected to suffer as a result, even more considering the poor tactics used by Enrique. However, I'd concur with the idea that he is used more to play in a counter attacking team, like Valencia was, and like Portugal is.
- Slow with the ball and even without it.
IMO, he is only slow in thinking, not concerning the actual quality of being fast. Once he knows what to do, he is quite fast from a physical standpoint. So he is indeed slow as in he isn't used to thinking fast. At this point, I don't believe we can spend time training our players to think faster. You either have it, or don't. And if you don't, we can't invest more than a seaosn into you, trying to play this way. So I would say him not thinking very fast after a whole full season, is one of the reasons I'd move him to a team where he has more time to make a decision (meaning he can stay on the ball, taking it from point A to point B, and using the increased time on the ball to think about a good passing option). In football, I'm sure you know this, the more time you have on the ball means more time to process the situation on the field, and make the right decision. Similarly, the less time you have to think, the higher the chances are to screw up.
- Not too effective in attack, and even less in defence.
He was rarely used in attack. But not good enough to be a starter, true. Good enough to be a back-up in attack. But I won't block a 24 years old who could start at some other good team to play as a back-up in attack for us, when other players, less talented, could do that.
- Need a lot of space to do anything with the ball.
True. No1 reason why I would sell him. He is unable to see the best follow-up option in a short amount of time. Meaning he either stays on the ball and is dispossessed (but only at Barca, where the space and the time is very limted, at other teams he can stay on the ball and have nobody around him in a 10m. radius), or he makes a safety pass. Neither of those is good enough for Barca. We need our midfielders to think fast, and always choose the ambitious passing option when that option can be made under reasonable conditions (reasonable conditions refers to a pass that a top passer can make, but not an impossible pass that could lead to turnovers; this was the key influence of Xavi imo, he used to make the most passes that he had under control, he also refused to pass the ball in conditions where cocky players would try a fancy pass and lose the ball. Xavi's passing decision making was the best of all time. Xavi did a lot of passes which had... let's say... a 30-40% chances of leading to turnovers; if the pass was more difficult than what he deemed as reasonable risk conditions - for him, Xavi, not for the likes of Douglas, as risk is always dependant on the risk taker - he would rather keep possession than try to make it. The amount of game intelligence Xavi had in the Barca system will never be seen again by all Barca fans living in the present).
- No brain for unexpected solutions or creative thinking at all.
Partly agree, partly disagree. I agree he is unable to think fast and come up with a great solution under limited space and under pressing. He is uncomfortable in these situations, and he'd rather move the weight of the pass to a teammate. Not good enough for Barca. We need our players to pass forward when there is an opportunity to do so. If you pass forward only when there is zero risk, you'll never do it at Barca since most teams play with 10 men behind the ball.
So, you see, my problem with Gomes is that he can be a great midfielder, but is a limited player. In a team which exposes his limitations, more than shows his abilities, he will look bad. But in a team who's style hides his problems and shows his qualities more, he will play well. Madrid and Juventus weren't interested in him because they are shit at rating players, but because they saw something in him. These players show enough good things and bad things to make it complicated when rating him as a payer (as a general player, not as a Barca player mind you). This is one of the challenges of not just signing the talented players on the market. But signing the players that fit our style. But I'm not sure that all Barca supporters are in agreement regarding our style. I'm not sure about that at all. In fact, this is the question that is the most important regarding our beloved team, and the way forward. Do we have a style? Have Cruyff and Pep done enough that most fans see their ideas as our style, the ones that are worth pursuing at all costs? I personally say that they have done enough. Barca's greatest teams were Cruyff's Dream Team, and the 2009-2011 Barca. These are the teams that Barca fans around the world fell in love with. So, naturally, I'd be inclined to say that this is our style, the one the fans and the players want to see being displayed on the field. The way forward. Based on La Masia.
The problem with Barca is that the board and the manager that was in charge, tried to move Barca from the style of Cruyff into a different style, a less Cruyff-infusioned one. Into a style of fast-transitions. The board didn't sign Paulinho for nothing. They signed him because they do no embrace the Cruyff philosophy. Instead of focusing on how they can dominate games, they think about how to stop the domination of the other teams. You see, they are already making the assumption that we can't dominate games anymore. When you make that assuption, you can't dominate the games anymore, because you move away from that purpose. It's a vicious circle. They are part of a culture who doesn't think that Cruyff's ideas are worth following. I wasn't against their ideas from the start, as every board has the right to think about their version of Barca, but seeing that it doesn't work, and not only that it doesn't work, but that Madrid have, tragically and comically, have adopted with Zidane some of Cruyff's ideas, making it work and playing more like Barca than Barca itself, this is saddening to say the least.
Bottom line, we need to make a difference between our style, and what players do we sign. We can sign good talented players who, under what we view as our style, could still be a bad fit even if under some circumstances they could thrive. I gave Gomes a season to see if he can adapt to what is required here. He didn't. I gave him a season because playing at Barcelona is like nothing a player has experienced before, and the difference can probably be seen since the first few trainings. But the reality is, and here you and others are right, we can't just sign players and wait to see if they can adapt or not. We need to be more selective concerning the type of players we bring in, to make sure that the chances of them adapting to Barca are bigger and that the adaptation is shorter and smoother. There are players out there who, whether they chose to or not, play like they are Barca players in spirit. We need to see which are the good teams in Europe which play a style which has some of the elements that Pep's Barca or Cruyff's Barca used to implement in their teams. Teams who use fluid systems, where players have liberty of actions, teams who like possession, who aren't afraid to pass into crowded areas, teams who are attacking and who look to be proactive both in attack and in the defensve aspects of the game. Teams like Dortmund, Napoli, even Ajax, teams like Porto, Benfica, even teams like Las Palmas FFS.
