Barça's Transfers and Rumors

[JamDav1982]

People seem to overrate defenders becouse they played in LaLiga, which doesnt have the best defensive play to start with.

Pique is good if he jsut gets his act together, which he havent done the last 2 years.
Bartra is not a world class starter CB yet, and i dont see him becoming one either. LaMasia doesnt equal future star.
Mathieu is below mediocre if you look at top clubs in the world and 30 year old.
Vermaelen is not even close.
Mascherano has 0 awareness and only looks at the ball. Really bad at man marking.

Our central defence is very weak still if you compare to other top clubs.

Which team has the best strength in depth for CBs?

 

[Ryu Hayabusa]

Which team has the best strength in depth for CBs?

Purely defensively, certainly Chelshit.

 

[JamDav1982]

Purely defensively, certainly Chelshit.

Dont agree with that at all - Cahill, Terry and Ivanovic?

Dont think any one of them is remotely near the best CBs in the world and they are heavily protected by full backs and DMs.

Personally the best CBs are not always the ones that let in the least goals but the ones that can produce a platform for the attacking players to perform. Those Chelsea CBs for me dont do that.

 

[Flavia]

"Alves stays, and they go for Vermaelen"


Sport gave up on agger

 

[Ini8]

Which team has the best strength in depth for CBs?

Juventus comes to mind. Every coach must love to have Bonucci, Chiellini, Barzagli, Ogbonna and Caceres to select from.

 

[Hamzah]

Juventus comes to mind. Every coach must love to have Bonucci, Chiellini, Barzagli, Ogbonna and Caceres to select from.

I disagree. The defensive unit is getting worse with time.

 

[DonAK]

I like Dortmund's CB unit(Not comparing btw)

Mats Hummels, Neven Subotic, Sokratis Papastathopoulos(Who had a great season) and young and very talented Matthias Ginter.

 

[Ini8]

I disagree. The defensive unit is getting worse with time.

How? Conceding just 23 goals in 38 league games deserves credit where it's due, and that's their defence. In 12/13, it was 24 goals, and the season before that, 20 goals. That's really impressive.

 

[mittchan82]

Mathieu performed well for Valencia last season but will that translate into another great season in a different team? I guess this can go either way.
I'm not sold about Vermaelen. He's a defender that does his job, nothing special IMO.
Mascherano did well for a converted CB but alas, he is not a pure defender and lacks the qualities to make him a complete defender we are looking for.
Bartra IMO had a very consistent season last year if you count his inconsistent appearances.
Right now, the board screwed the team up real bad and it seems there's no way out of this sticky situation of lacking descent defenders in our squad other than forking out a fortune. All the clubs know that we are desperate for some CB's and they will take advantage of this.
The board should have moved quickly (like 3 years ago) but oh well, we're here now.

 

[SeloBarca]

I would say Dortmund, BM with Badstuber aswell, ManC, PSG (Questionable. TS and Luiz is better then Pique and Bartra though) and Juventus all have better defence and depth then us overall.
AM is pretty much on par with us, better younger ones aswell.
Chelsea has a better defensive unit then us, they work better together, whereas our defenders are very individual.

 

[SocalBarcaFan]

I would say Dortmund, BM with Badstuber aswell, ManC, PSG (Questionable. TS and Luiz is better then Pique and Bartra though) and Juventus all have better defence and depth then us overall.
AM is pretty much on par with us, better younger ones aswell.
Chelsea has a better defensive unit then us, they work better together, whereas our defenders are very individual.

Let's wait until the season gets underway to claim that basically every top team has a better defense than us. The Tactics of Lucho could change the way the defensive unit operates as a whole. And Personnel wise we are already on paper better than last year. Bartra has some experience and is hungry to prove himself. Pique seems more motivated based off his comments to start the year (first preseason game didn't show that though). And we actually signed 1 good cb who's attributes fit the club perfectly.

I'd actually be shocked if our defense is as bad as last year. Only Alves can hold us back

 

[i_bleed_blaugrana]

I'm standing by my statement that Bartra, all things considered, was our best CB last season. It wasn't by much and Pique certainly improved but for me, Bartra was more consistent than Pique was. Keep in mind that Pique always had Valdes to bail him out and when they both went down, Bartra stepped up immensely.

Bullshit to anyone who says he doesn't have world class potential. Go check his stats. I compared him to Mascherano and Pique and considering he had close to 800 mins less than both of them, his stats were on par with theirs, meaning that if he had played more, he probably would have been statistically as well our best overall defender (I compared tackles, successful take ons, aerial duels won, total duels, blocks, interceptions, clearances and tackles lost.)

Here is the link if you want to see for yourself: http://www.squawka.com/comparison-matrix#la_liga/2013/2014/marc_bartra/136/69/1576/0/p|la_liga/2013/2014/javier_mascherano/136/69/1579/0/p|la_liga/2013/2014/gerard_piqué/136/69/314/0/p#tackles_won/successful_take_ons_%/aerial_duels_won_%/total_duels_%/interceptions/blocks/clearances/tackles_lost#avg

If you did the same with Mathieu and Bartra, the only thing Mathieu beats Bartra in is clearances, blocks (by a paltry 0.02) and tackles lost (which Bartra wasn't far behind at all in). Other than that Bartra, was again hands down the better defender and he played 1300 less minutues!

Considering how he couldn't get a string of games to save his life in the first half of the season and in the second half the absolute circus that was going on then, those are very impressive and telling stats that showcase that he isn't just La Masia hype.

Back to my original point however: since day one I have always said that it doesn't make sense signing a CB if he isn't better than Bartra and sub par players taking his minutes away only hinders his progress and hinders us from getting the player we need out of him. Neither Mathieu nor Vermaelen are better than Bartra, so why have them? I understand Mathieu brings depth and that's why I wasn't terribly upset when we got him but Vermaelen is a stupid signing and we can and should get better quality than that. Being solid for Valencia or Arsenal is night and day compared to being solid for a team that plays the way we do.

 

[Paganinisrvnge]

I completely agree. We should either have faith in Bartra or go for someone already world class. Thiago Silva is too old now and PSG won't sell, Dortmund won't let go of Hummels, Roma don't want to let go of Benatia, etc etc. I'm fine where we are actually. Deulofeu, Rafinha, and Bartra could step up and give the team a new boost from la masia.

 

[Egert]

Because both selling Dani Alves and buying another defender is difficult, Barcelona could accept that Alves stays for another season. [as]

Barcelona have almost ruled out signing Fiorentina right wing player Juan Cuadrado (26) because the asking price is very high. [ser]
Fiorentina right wing player Juan Cuadrado (26) prefers to join Barcelona. He's willing to wait some more and make a financial effort [cope]

 

[BarçAjax8]

Bartra is not a world class starter CB yet, and i dont see him becoming one either. LaMasia doesnt equal future star.

Bartra has potential but still far from world class IMO. He also lacks consistency.

BS
People throw around the term "World Class" far too much on this forum. What does that even mean? Thiago Silva?
The best defenders are ones that compliment their team's system and stay organized under pressure. I've said it before that at their peak even Baresi, Maldini, Puyol or "the great" Thiago Silva could be made to look foolish if left 1v1 against the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, Ribery, Suarez. Defending is done as a team and if the attack has made it to your team's CBs then that team has made a mistake.

Bartra was our most consistent CB last year and did a great job in Pique's absence the last stretch of games. Tactically and personel wise is where we were crap.