Arthur

[serghei]

Xavi had an outrageous number of assists in 08/09 if I remember correctly. He was one of the most creative passers ever and saying that he was a conservative player is just wrong. Xavi has been a force of nature in through balls until 12/13. Arthur’s talent in through balls does not come near that, not even close.

In 2009 the front 3 were mostly finishers and dribblers. They received service more and Messi played RW. Once Messi dropped as a false 9 and Eto'o and Henry were replaced with more combinative players like Pedro and Villa, Xavi's assists dropped, but his influence in midfield increased.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Bunch of strawman shit as always. Do you even read other people's posts or just take a quick glimpses, while writing your pre meditated essays as you go? Also providing Xavi's stats from peak of his career as an argument of his superiority. Everyone knows he's best Barca midfielder ever without those silly numbers. No one in their right mind is compering his merit with Arthur's especially when the later has played like half and hour of official football for us.

 

[xXKonan]

Again there's a difference between comparing players in terms of style to their actual talents and how good they can be.

We don't know how good Arthur can be and we have guys like Messi and Suarez a number of people saying Arthur reminds them of Xavi in terms of Style. I just don't get why it's so hard for some people to really tell the difference.

We are comparing a 22-year-old Arthur to an at the time 28-29-year-old Xavi who I consider the best CM to ever walk the planet. Arthur won't reach that level, hell not even the likes of Modric could ever but Doesn't mean Arthur can be World Class in his own right.

 

[Jcar]

When i appeared saying he Washington playing too safe, people Just laughted at me. Well, look at that...

I still think that he can do It in Barcelona, but he has to stop up his game and take more risks. He is closet tô being thw new Fabio Rochemback rather than the New Xavi

 

[BBZ8800]

Dude, I'm comparing Arthur with Xavi in terms of player profile, not in terms of quality. Of course Xavi was much better, but was much better in the same way Arthur plays.

Halilovic is a similar player's profile to Messi also.
And 10 times weaker player.
Do we need a player ONLY because he resembles on Messi/Xavi in some aspects but lacks in tons of others?

Again there's a difference between comparing players in terms of style to their actual talents and how good they can be.

We don't know how good Arthur can be and we have guys like Messi and Suarez a number of people saying Arthur reminds them of Xavi in terms of Style. I just don't get why it's so hard for some people to really tell the difference.

We are comparing a 22-year-old Arthur to an at the time 28-29-year-old Xavi who I consider the best CM to ever walk the planet. Arthur won't reach that level, hell not even the likes of Modric could ever but Doesn't mean Arthur can be World Class in his own right.

I am comparing 22 years old Arthur to 22 years old Xavi since I watched both.
And even though Xavi is the best, for me Arthur's MAIN footballing virtue is that he REMINDS on Xavi but only in SOME of Xavi's aspects.

Also, I don't get that this: he "reminds" on him.
So, what?

If we see a kid who reminds on Messi in some aspects, but is in general a meh player, should we buy and play him just because he reminds on him in some aspects?

A lot of guys will get offended since Arthur is one of favorite hopes for the future, but I don't remember have I ever seen a more conservative midfielder at Barca.
Not after 2003.
I don't remember guys before that too well.

Bunch of strawman shit as always. Do you even read other people's posts or just take a quick glimpses, while writing your pre meditated essays as you go? Also providing Xavi's stats from peak of his career as an argument of his superiority. Everyone knows he's best Barca midfielder ever without those silly numbers. No one in their right mind is compering his merit with Arthur's especially when the later has played like half and hour of official football for us.

I get what people are saying:
1. Arthur resembles on Xavi in some traits, he has a similar style and similar player's profile.
Fine. At the end of a day, I still don't think that he is good enough, based on what he is offering for now.

2. the other thing is that we need a player who keeps the ball like Arthur and that we need players who will get the ball to those players who will make a final pass.
Fine.
Xavi was doing the same.
But he was able to play forward passes.
If Arthur's only trait is to keep and shield the ball, get it out of our half and play safepasses after that, my question is: what is he bringing to a team?
And then we go back to a good old classic question: are you one of those fans who think that we should try to replicate Pep's era in 2019 or we should evolve and move forward?
If you are one of those who would like to find player-for-player copies of Pep's style and try to play exactly the same, then Arthur makes sense.
He is a copy of Xavi, even though, quite flawed copy with huge holes in some aspects of a game (not only compared to Xavi, but to any Barca's midfielder).
On the other hand, if you want to turn the page and evolve to a faster type of football (Real Madrid and Liverpool from 2018), then Arthur is an opposite of that football.

One more time, I have no idea how would you guys play BOTH Busquets and Arthur in 2018.
With those two on a field, we would play with a double pivot in 433.
Currently, Arthur can play only as Busi's sub due to his ability to get the ball out of our half and a lack of forward passes, or he can play in the last 20 minutes when we need sterile possession and keep the ball.
If we are losing 0:1, subbing in a current Arthur makes zero sense.

 

[Jcar]

When i appeared saying he Was playing too safe, people Just laughted at me. Well, look at that...

I still think that he can do It in Barcelona, but he has to step up his game and take more risks. He is closer to being the new Fabio Rochemback rather than the New Xavi

 

[Joan]

When i appeared saying he Washington playing too safe, people Just laughted at me. Well, look at that...

I still think that he can do It in Barcelona, but he has to stop up his game and take more risks. He is closet tô being thw new Fabio Rochemback rather than the New Xavi

"But, but but I told you so"

Like told you the most obvious of things, but carry on. People were insisting you give him more time, nobody laughed at you - if I'm not mistaken.

 

[serghei]

Halilovic is a similar player's profile to Messi also.
And 10 times weaker player.
Do we need a player ONLY because he resembles on Messi/Xavi in some aspects but lacks in tons of others?



I am comparing 22 years old Arthur to 22 years old Xavi since I watched both.
And even though Xavi is the best, for me Arthur's MAIN footballing virtue is that he REMINDS on Xavi but only in SOME of Xavi's aspects.

Also, I don't get that this: he "reminds" on him.
So, what?

If we see a kid who reminds on Messi in some aspects, but is in general a meh player, should we buy and play him just because he reminds on him in some aspects?

A lot of guys will get offended since Arthur is one of favorite hopes for the future, but I don't remember have I ever seen a more conservative midfielder at Barca.
Not after 2003.
I don't remember guys before that too well.

Halilovic wasn't even a Barca first team player. Arthur is being spoken about as similar to Xavi in terms of playing style by big names like Messi and Suarez. And we paid 40m for him. Different level.

I get what people are saying:
1. Arthur resembles on Xavi in some traits, he has a similar style and similar player's profile.
Fine. At the end of a day, I still don't think that he is good enough, based on what he is offering for now.

You would be wrong. There are many factors that have to go hand in hand for a player to reach his potential. Xavi's best years at Barca might've never happened if Pep wouldn't have blocked the deal to Bayern - according to Xavi himself.

2. the other thing is that we need a player who keeps the ball like Arthur.
Fine.
Xavi was doing the same.
But he was able to play forward passes.

Arthur can play forward passes. Our movement is shit though and it makes that harder than normal. Xavi had 10 assists in 70 games in La Liga before Pep came. He went up to 22 in 35 after that. A lot of things matter in judging player performances. Arthur's quality is there. Other parts need to go right too so we can see that quality coming to fruition.

If Arthur's only trait is to keep and shield the ball, get it out of our half and play safepasses after that, my question is: what is he bringing to a team?
And then we go back to a good old classic question: are you one of those fans who think that we should try to replicate Pep's era in 2019 or we should evolve and move forward?
If you are one of those who would like to find player-for-player copies of Pep's style and try to play exactly the same, then Arthur makes sense.
He is a copy of Xavi, even though, quite flawed copy with huge holes in some aspects of a game (not only compared to Xavi, but to any Barca's midfielder).
On the other hand, if you want to turn the page and evolve to a faster type of football (Real Madrid and Liverpool from 2018), then Arthur is an opposite of that football.

A safe pass is a pass that is made when no better passes are available. Arthur makes safe passes mostly because our team doesn't do enough to give him better options. His own individual skills will improve too, no doubt, but root of the cause is that I've just said. Poor fluidity and poor off the ball movement due to a variety of systemic factors. We try to replace those inadequacies by giving Messi the ball and hoping he pulls something off. Hopefully Valverde wakes up and smells the coffee before it's too late, but I am skeptical.

The only player who can create stuff from nothing without much off the ball movement from teammates is Messi. And that only works against the smaller sides. All it takes is a Alba run and a perfect Messi service and these smaller teams are done and dusted. The big teams won't fall into that trap. Almost never happens these days. It's predictable and easily 'blockable'. You don't need drilled runs that are executed mechanically, meaning 1 player doing a run and everyone else standing still. You need bigger better movement and within that movement spaces to make forward passes into will appear. Then Arthur will do them frequently no problems. But until you make sure you have the proper tactics to move defenders around and quickly pass it into the hole, meaning basically the philosophy of generating a free man in possession, it's unreasonable to expect too many forward passes.

You seem to think about chance creation as in a sum of individual players doing unrelated things that magically fit together to a great result. It's rarely the case in modern football. It used to be the case back in the 90s when players had separate tasks and each was very specialized in his own thing. 99% of the times for a club like Barcelona, when you have too many safe passes it's because you're playing too rigid and players fail to get away from their markers. There's no target to pass to, there's no great pass.

There's no such thing as good forward passing without off the ball movement unless a) the opponent is piss poor at marking players and leaves holes (most La Liga sides on Camp Nou - which is why playing Arthur in these games is perfect for building confidence), or b) the ball carrier is willing to take a lot of risks to unlock and activate marked players. This b) case means Arthur, on the ball, has to dribble his own marker so that a 2nd player leaves his position to close him, thus leaving another player open.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Xavi was great in both play making and controlling.
I said it since we had interest in Arthur that my problem from his ighlight that his most impressive passes never reached the players he was passing to.
He need to be able to get those assist, or to be more percise we need him to do so if we want a creative midfield, otherwise he will struggle to remove Raki from our starting line up.

 

[Joan]

Convenient to say it's about movement. But it's been the case with Barca, preseason Barca, now Brazil and to a lesser extent Gremio. There's more to it but movement since he struggled with creating in 4 different setups. I'm not necessarily talking about assists here but also key passes or those defense-splitting passes khaled's been talking about since the beginning.

For me there is a lot to like, he surely protects the ball well, and surely pass a lot with accuracy and tries to do his defensive duties. There is a potential Verratti in him.
But what I don't like is that he has few defense breaking passes, In many of his game highlight videos those are usually the ones he fails to make. This will be the difference between him a starting CM like Verratti/Xavi etc, and being a smaller version of Gomes (who has 90% pass accuracy) but at the end he fails to make an impact in this team

It's certainly an issue he'll have to address.

 

[BBZ8800]

A safe pass is a pass that is made when no better passes are available. Arthur makes safe passes mostly because our team doesn't do enough to give him better options. His own individual skills will improve too, no doubt, but root of the cause is that I've just said. Poor fluidity and poor off the ball movement due to a variety of systemic factors. We try to replace those inadequacies by giving Messi the ball and hoping he pulls something off. Hopefully Valverde wakes up and smells the coffee before it's too late, but I am skeptical.

Open 90% of Arthur's matches from Gremio or this match from Brasil and he plays the same as at Barca.

My point: it is not because of a lack of movement at Barca.
It is because that is his natural&instinctive way of playing.

He is a weaker copy of Xavi minus Xavi's creative traits.

And my point again: a midfielder who naturally don't possess too much creativity, how can you guys ask for him to play more here?

While I was writing my post, I see that Joan said the same: Arthur played equally as sterile (in creative part) for Gremio and Brasil.
Also, Khaled said shorter than me:

Xavi was great in both play making and controlling.

Now, my general doubt is whether do we even need a controller in 2018.
And even if we somehow do need a controller today, do we need a controller who is only a controller with not too much creativity?

I have typed Arthur Melo vs in Youtube and this is one of the top matches for Gremio, from this spring.
Look at his passes there. The same thing as at Barca and Brasil.
Tons of too obvious passes to the closest player (usually sideway passes). His style of play would invite opponents to park the bus since he is slowing down our build up in the opponent's half in almost every single action:

 

[Joan]

(1) Now, my general doubt is whether do we even need a controller in 2018.
And even if we somehow do need a controller today, do we need a controller who is only a controller with not too much creativity?

(2) His style of play would invite opponents to park the bus since he is slowing down our build up in the opponent's half in almost every single action.

I'm highlighting these 2 because, imo, they're at the bottom of this debate. I have similar doubts. Recall some guys (DonAndres?) saying Arthur didn't need a single assist to succeed at Barca. That's not true, we're likely overestimating the impact controlling can have in modern fast-paced football. Without creativity, Arthur is not likely to make it here. However, I do give him time to improve, might be early to judge. From one of your previous posts, he went from 0,8 key passes in 2017 to 1,4 in 2018. That's a step forward (albeit, the sample wasn't huge). That's in line with what Felipetonelo said earlier:

Not impressed with him last night, but I'm optimistic with his/Barca future. He's playing his first games at Barca and for Brazil squad, just like he played his first games at Gremio: dropping to collect the ball, passing around, doing his turns to keep the ball and build the play, with caution, not risking much, slowly building confidence, and doing things that gives you some glimpses about what he can do.

During 2017 season, he started to play week in week out and doing more and more extraordinary things, like that Libertadores Final, his best performance so far. So I think he's being smart. For both club and country, Arthur doesn't know his teammates well, so he's building confidence by doing simple, but important stuff, like never losing the ball. At Gremio, it worked so well, so he's trying to do the same for Barca & Brazil, playing "safe", until he's fully adapted to both teams.

 

[soul24rage]

I'm highlighting these 2 because, imo, they're at the bottom of this debate. I have similar doubts. Recall some guys (DonAndres?) saying Arthur didn't need a single assist to succeed at Barca. That's not true, we're likely overestimating the impact controlling can have in modern fast-paced football. Without creativity, Arthur is not likely to make it here. However, I do give him time to improve, might be early to judge. From one of your previous posts, he went from 0,8 key passes in 2017 to 1,4 in 2018. That's a step forward (albeit, the sample wasn't huge). That's in line with what Felipetonelo said earlier:

I think it's too early to judge. He's just getting to know how his new teammates in Brazil and Barca play and you don't want to start with a bad impression if you mess up making risky passes in your first few games. I think he does have the talent to make risky passes as Felipe said when playing in Libertadores Final and I'm sure he'll show it soon. I think if we face a team this season who presses high like Liverpool and City, I think we'll need Arthur as he would be more suited to that kind of game than the likes of Rakitic. When facing a team that parks the bus, I would probably play someone else unless Arthur has shown that he can create something and be more risky when facing a bus.

Found a great analysis on Arthur's play
[youtube]DyTOZBBy_n8[/youtube]

 

[xXKonan]

I'm highlighting these 2 because, imo, they're at the bottom of this debate. I have similar doubts. Recall some guys (DonAndres?) saying Arthur didn't need a single assist to succeed at Barca. That's not true, we're likely overestimating the impact controlling can have in modern fast-paced football. Without creativity, Arthur is not likely to make it here. However, I do give him time to improve, might be early to judge. From one of your previous posts, he went from 0,8 key passes in 2017 to 1,4 in 2018. That's a step forward (albeit, the sample wasn't huge). That's in line with what Felipetonelo said earlier:

I mean you have to remember the dude is 22 years old and he has plenty of time to improve in that regard.

No one can convince me that Arthur can't improve over the coming seasons. I'd argue that BBZ needs to take a chill pill with the Cynicalism and just relax and let shit play out. I mean Rakitic is a fan favorite and trusted by the coaches and was our starting RCM for the last 4 seasons. And everyone knows of his limtations and yet he got the job done.

For me Arthur certainly has the tools and skill set and age to one day equal or surprass Rakitic in the coming years. the Mobility, being able to handle the press and his ablity to retain and recycle posession alone at his young age is not something to completely ignore.

Before I get ahead of myself it comes down to whether or not his development goes as well as it should or if he can prevent getting any series injuries. It also depends on if he can keep impressing the coaches as well. and so far going by what has been said it seems that he's doing that just fine.

 

[khaled_a_d]

I mean you have to remember the dude is 22 years old and he has plenty of time to improve in that regard.

No one can convince me that Arthur can't improve over the coming seasons. I'd argue that BBZ needs to take a chill pill with the Cynicalism and just relax and let shit play out. I mean Rakitic is a fan favorite and trusted by the coaches and was our starting RCM for the last 4 seasons. And everyone knows of his limtations and yet he got the job done.

1-Raki isn't really a fan favorite, at least not in this forum. He is one of the most underrated Barca player since he arrived with many undermines his role massively. Same fans will turn against Arthur himself if he doesn't became more creative

2-May be I've missed some of BBZ talking (sorry BBZ but not in mode for paying attention for details in long posts), but from what I've read he/we is/are talking about current Arthur and concerns about what he needs to succeed here.

3-Arthur being young and need development goes both ways, it should give both him and coach a leeway, he will be intergrated slowly in the team and probably will be see more time on bench than on pitch early in the season, but people will call EV names for it.

At the end I think Arthur will be a success here, whether a very good sub or a starter will depend on how he develops his creativity IMO. Also I think his game is more comparable to Verratti than Xavi

Now, my general doubt is whether do we even need a controller in 2018.
And even if we somehow do need a controller today, do we need a controller who is only a controller with not too much creativity?

In short, yes
There is a need for a controller in a team like Barca, a team that even with its most defensive coach still have the ball more than most opponents, that is under 3 different managers who were totally different than Pep.
You need at least one controller for that, and currently that one is Busquets, but with the way he is losing his defensive abilities we might need to replace him and the need for a controller will be urgent, regardless whether Arthur make it here or not.