Arthur

serghei

Senior Member
No the only reason you think we are talking rubbish is because you have not understood what we are trying to say. Nobody has said that 'he should be a hero spraying error after error going for gaps that are not there.

We are saying that when the gaps are there he needs to improve his passing so that he makes the pass rather than the pass not succeeding due to the inaccuracy of his delivery. Something he did on Wednesday and pretty much the main criticism of him from this fan base since he arrived at the club.

But this is obviously false and has nothing to do with reality. It's actually the opposite, gaps aren't there very often and Arthur and De Jong still make a great service form time to time.

Why don't you back what you say like I did in the past? Post some footage or some pictures with Arthur having pass options and not making them because he doesn't have the ability. And we will comment those together.

My 2 posts on this specific subject, from page 323 of this thread, prove what you say doesn't exist. And I'm referring there to a weaker version of Arthur. Arthur from this season is even better.
 
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But this is obviously false and has nothing to do with reality. It's actually the opposite, gaps aren't there very often and Arthur and De Jong still make a great service form time to time.

Why don't you back what you say like I did in the past? Post some footage or some pictures with Arthur having pass options and not making them because he doesn't have the ability. And we will comment those together.

My 2 posts on this specific subject, from page 323 of this thread, prove what you say doesn't exist. And I'm referring there to a weaker version of Arthur. Arthur from this season is even better.

No its true, very true. I dont care enough about arguments enough to post videos or pictures. If you want to disagree that doesnt hurt my ego one bit. But many of us here see it. The Catalan media talked at length about it. It was glaringly obvious when he first came but he has improved since and no doubt will improve further. To deny it is venturing in to the realms of fanboyism. He is allowed to have a weakness you know.
 

serghei

Senior Member
No its true, very true. I dont care enough about arguments enough to post videos or pictures. If you want to disagree that doesnt hurt my ego one bit. But many of us here see it. The Catalan media talked at length about it. It was glaringly obvious when he first came but he has improved since and no doubt will improve further. To deny it is venturing in to the realms of fanboyism. He is allowed to have a weakness you know.

He has weaknesses, just not the one you mention. That's like one of his strongest points.

I don't think there are many here who think Arthur lacks the quality to make good passes when options are available. I bet 90% of the good posters would completely disagree with that statement for what it's worth.
 
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serghei

Senior Member
I think it's fairly obvious what we lack. Support for the player on the ball. That's a key part of possession football that is terrible under Valverde. Ensuring that the player who has the ball has multiple follow-up options is like the staple of great possession based football.
 
He has weaknesses, just not the one you mention. That's like one of his strongest points.

I don't think there are many here who think Arthur lacks the quality to make good passes when options are available. I bet 90% of the good posters would completely disagree with that statement for what it's worth.

No again. I've never said he lacks the quality to make good passes. He already made a great one for Perez in an away game. I only said he needs to improve the percentage of success rate that he presently has.

What constitutes a ' good poster '? We are all Barca fans here. All opinions should be respected in the same fashion. Or are we to view posters who agree with our opinions as 'good posters '?
 

BBZ8800

Senior Member
Do you still think that Arthur is a 4-6th pick? Valverde said that his fitness problems of the last season were due to a groin injury, and he continues to become more and more important to us with each passing game. Your opinion of him may have began to shift after his great attacking input in dribbles and forward passes.

Do you think there is any potential in a De Jong - Arthur double pivot with an energetic CM in front of them like we saw against Inter?

Well, he is not 4th-6th pick anymore.
Raki is dead, Busi is almost dead, Alena is suddenly MIA which leaves us with 2 midfielders: Frenkie and Arthur.

Regarding my comments about Arthur, I don't think that he is as bad as my posts were saying.
For years, I have some "problems" when fans are overrating our players way too much.
I can't resist the urge to bring back the balance with excessive shitting then.

So, I don't think that he is as bad as my posts were saying.
But still, I think that he is currently nowhere near the level of how our forum sees him.

Regarding his passing and shooting attempts lately.
It is obvious that EV or someone from a coaching team talked to him and told him the obvious: Arthur, you need to work more on your forward passes and an impact in the attacking third.
He is trying to work on those areas.
And btw, no one have gave a credit to EV regarding this. I know, why should anyone give a credit to our coach? Arthur has probably improved in that area "by himself" :rolleyes:

Regarding his improvements in the final 3rd, yes, he has improved.
But still, for me, you can see that his forward game today is forced and not natural.
Imo, his DNA and natural instincts are saying to him: calma, calma, play it safe, that's your game. Keep possession.
While a coach, fans (and teammates) are saying: play it faster, play riskier, try more forward passes.
And then, you get a current Arthur, who is surely trying more forward passes, but lots of those passes are still kinda awkward and some of them are on a wtf level?

Khaled was one of the rare users who said the same even in his Gremio days, Khaled said something like: I think that he is not trying forward passes and long balls because he is very inaccurate in them.
Someone will reply: when you try forward passes, you will make some mistakes.
True.
But Arthur's forward passes have (imo) way lower percentage of a success than passes of guys who have forward passes in their blood/DNA.

All in all, even though he has improved, I don't want to see him too close to an opponent's box.
He should play only as a double pivot with Frenkie and do what he does the best: get the ball into an opponent's half, resist press, press on the opponents when we lose the ball and recycle possession till death.
He can do a forward pass here and there, but a club of Barca's level should really have a world class Cam/Iniesta and not guys like Frenkie and Arthur in advanced positions, who are good, but not natural and not world class in those positions.
Other position for Arthur is a CM in 433 with Frenkie pivot, Arthur CM and someone else as the 3rd, the most attacking guy.

Further, my estimation of Arthur's development on this forum: now, when he will play more, he will be tested more and more both against small La Liga teams and against teams like Liverpool.
Till now, probably no one really knows how good is he in defending.
We know that he is "there", he is playing and running, but he was never really tested at Barca in matches like Anfield.
In the past, if defense sucked, we could have always accused Raki or Busi for being turtles.
Now, if those two will be gone, if we will be eaten alive against some bigger opponents, people will start to point fingers into new scapegoats.

Look at the last few days, some posters (not haters like me), started to also point into some flaws, which is natural once when a player starts to play more.
And that is some weird nature of our forum, we all do that.
We are all pointing at flaws of majority of our players.
Messi lost pace, he is sulking, he is lazy, he doesn't move too much off the ball.
Suarez is fat, old, yelling at everyone, has a horrible first touch, can't make a pass etc.
Dembele is dumb, has a horrible touch, has horrible shortpasses, is a bad fit.
Coutinho is slow, lazy, low workrate, bad in defense, weak mentally, a bad fit.
Malcom is kinda slow for a winger, he doesn't have any obvious strengths.
Raki is old, slow, a turtle, bad against press.
Busi is old, slow, a turtle, bad against counters, prone to errors lately.
Vidal is old, sometimes wild and unpredictable, hot headed, sometimes not suitable for our possession play.
Alba is dumb, prone to errors, weakish in defense lately.
Roberto is bad in defense, bad as a midfielder.
Semedo is bad in attack.
Pique is done and prone to errors.
Lenglet is slow, prone to errors, not on Barca's level lately.

On the other hand, in early days:
Roberto was hailed as maybe one of the best RBs in the world, what a player.
Dembele was a generational talent.
Malcom was a beast.
Raki was: an awesome signing in the first season.
Busi was one of top3 midfielders of all time.
Semedo was the best RB in the world when we bought him.
Lenglet was a cheap world class NT player in the first season.

In short:
1. I don't think that Arthur is as bad as my posts are claiming, explained above
2. still, currently fans are still on a honeymoon with Arthur and this season he will finally be properly tested in lots of different matches and scenarios.
No matter how will he play, some new flaws will surface, like with any of our players.
 

serghei

Senior Member
:lol: Credit to Valverde for developing Arthur? You must have some serious nerve to say this after the Liverpool episode. Only thing EV does is limit both Arthur and De Jong. At least he plays them though so that's a plus that has been noted by most users.
 

serghei

Senior Member
No again. I've never said he lacks the quality to make good passes. He already made a great one for Perez in an away game. I only said he needs to improve the percentage of success rate that he presently has.

What constitutes a ' good poster '? We are all Barca fans here. All opinions should be respected in the same fashion. Or are we to view posters who agree with our opinions as 'good posters '?

You mean to improve his 90+ % pass completion rate? What do you want, 98%-100% every game? His pass success rate is among the very best in Europe out of all CMs.
 

khaled_a_d

Senior Member
:lol: Credit to Valverde for developing Arthur? You must have some serious nerve to say this after the Liverpool episode.

How are those related? Arthur has been improving steadily under EV, with only injury he had last season making a setback for him.
Not playing an important game is a tactical error (assuming Arthur would have really made a difference, we would never know) but it isn't about player development. It doesn't hinder him that he had not play in such game
 

serghei

Senior Member
How are those related? Arthur has been improving steadily under EV, with only injury he had last season making a setback for him.
Not playing an important game is a tactical error (assuming Arthur would have really made a difference, we would never know) but it isn't about player development. It doesn't hinder him that he had not play in such game

It's just a stupid thing to say Valverde developed Arthur. He was just there simultaneously with Arthur. That's like saying Emery developed Mbappe.
 

DonAK

President of FC Barcelona
Not always easy to make those passes when you have so few chances every game to do so.

Our movement up front must be the worst among all the top 10 teams in Europe.
 
You mean to improve his 90+ % pass completion rate? What do you want, 98%-100% every game? His pass success rate is among the very best in Europe out of all CMs.

Come on now. How obvious is it that I'm talking about the improvement in his progressive / through balls. The same issue we have been talking about the last 8 posts. You are simply misconstruing everything I'm saying for no apparent reason apart from clinging on to superiority in the debate. And for that reason I'm done debating this.
 

serghei

Senior Member
Come on now. How obvious is it that I'm talking about the improvement in his progressive / through balls. The same issue we have been talking about the last 8 posts. You are simply misconstruing everything I'm saying for no apparent reason apart from clinging on to superiority in the debate. And for that reason I'm done debating this.

Progressive / through balls in conditions of poor off the ball movement will always have low percentage success rate no matter the quality of the player. The only way to up that is by fixing the systemic problems of the team.

In other words, in order for skilled players to play those kind of passes frequently, you need to improve the movement of the team and the positioning of the players. Where do you think the enormous difference between Guardiola & Klopp and managers like Valverde is made the most? Exactly in this area.

You guys just fail to grasp the inter-dependency of possession football. The manager of a team regulates this inter-dependency. He makes sure players have the tools to showcase their skills. For creative midfielders, the requirement is to have moving targets who take over the right spaces and clear themselves of markers. If you do not provide this to the passer, his output is severely limited. That's what it's all about.
 
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khaled_a_d

Senior Member
Not always easy to make those passes when you have so few chances every game to do so.

Our movement up front must be the worst among all the top 10 teams in Europe.

In fairness, FDJ seems better in that aspect. But Arthur is improving as playmaker and proving to be better goal scorer too.
My main concern about him is he seem to lose focus on the defensive end tbh. But he has the potential to improve it with time
 

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