David Villa

[Clockwise]

c-c-c-c-combobreaker.

LMAO

cliffs:

1-Did.Not.even.react.
2-Saw.It.Coming.

1+2 = deity detection alert

 

[numero]

love you David!More than anything.Hope sanity returns at BARCA and you retire here.

 

[jtmx12]

Happy Birthday!

Good Luck in your next trip in 2013 with a new club.

 

[King Leo]

yeh sad but true. I hope he gets more playing time but I know he wont

 

[barcanuck]

No wonder he didn't play against Bilbao. The guaje was just celebrating his bday. Geez guys, stop with the non sense.

 

[alex88bg]

Those 2 guys are getting on my nerves hardcore about villa cospiracy....If u gonna troll go troll somewhere else...Happy BDAY David !

 

[sabby]

Those 2 guys are getting on my nerves hardcore about villa conspiracy....If u gonna troll go troll somewhere else...Happy BDAY David !

+100

Anyway, Happy Birthday David !

 

[raskolnikov]

Vilanova: "Villa? He's doing fine. You can only play with 11, but he'll be important this season. When he plays, he does well and scores."

:eusa_think: so Villa isnt a starting player anymore? I have a feeling tito will stick to playing both Iniesta and Cesc over Villa.

 

[Stric]

Funny how we're ignoring the "he'll be important this season" part.

 

[raskolnikov]

I hope so, I would like it if I was wrong and they were just carefull with Villa to save him for the spring.

 

[footyfan]

Villa will probably play the unimportant games + the games where we might encounter a parked bus. IMO he should definitely play vs ultra-defensive opponents.

 

[lessthanjake]

David Villa: Goals 8 + 2 Assists (+10) playing 679 minutes (coming back from a bad injury, with like 15 shoots on target, getting subbed every time the opposite team is tired, getting completely ignored in some games, and barely getting enough assists or minutes to increase these stats)
Cesc: Goals 7 + 9 Assists (+16) playing 1414 minutes in liga+copa+champions (plus like 60 minutes from the Spanish Supercup)

The only reason why Cesc has "+6" more (goals | assists) in productivity (which isn't twice what Villa has) is because he has MORE than twice minutes played than Villa. You will notice by the time Villa gets those extra 795 minutes Cesc has right now, he will have better stats than Cesc, with like +20 at least.

So in therms of "productivity", Cesc isn't really doing any better than Villa. As I said before, the stats lie, because he also played twice the minutes Villa did [(679*2) = 1358].

Where I agree with you is that Iniesta should start every single time, and everyone knows that. However the reason why Villa was benched today wasn't because of Iniesta, it was Cesc.

The second reason was Pedro, even tho I love the guy, it seems impossible to bench him this season. He also has like 1500 minutes, with 2 goals + 7 assists (+9), worse stats than Villa, and playing twice as Villa.

Do you realize that Villa can't really play on the right side? That's why Pedro is so hard to displace; there aren't really many players who can play on the right side on the squad. Alexis, Villa, Iniesta, and Tello all play on the left for Barca. Naturally, it's harder for any of them to get minutes than it is for Pedro, even if they are playing better than Pedro.

 

[Stric]

Villa's ambidexterity should help, though... Just like Pedro's does. He mostly plays on the left for the NT and he's awesome there, as well.

 

[jtmx12]

Do you realize that Villa can't really play on the right side? That's why Pedro is so hard to displace; there aren't really many players who can play on the right side on the squad. Alexis, Villa, Iniesta, and Tello all play on the left for Barca. Naturally, it's harder for any of them to get minutes than it is for Pedro, even if they are playing better than Pedro.

The reason why all those you mentioned except Villa can't play in the right wing is because they don't have a great left foot like Villa. However, Villa has scored 5 goals out of 8 this season with his left foot. He can keep making his awesome runs from the right wing, just like he does from the left or from the center, and once he gets the ball, he can also shoot properly with his left foot from the right wing as shown by his stats.

Villa has probably played 5 times in the right wing out of 90 matches (and this usually happened with Pep Guardiola, when Messi-Pedro-Villa used to change their positions several times on the same match probably to confuse the opposite defense). You can't expect him to be great in the right wing if he never gets the chance to play there to get used to that position. Remember his main position was as a 9, but he learned how to play on the left wing. He can learn to play from the right wing as well easily, since the difference isn't big if you already play on the left wing, and plus, he already has the thing required to play from the right: a great left foot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC5R3C8Yiv8

Clearly in that video you can see that Villa's left foot is as good as Pedro's left foot and he's not afraid to use it if the play requires it.

 

[footyfan]

His left foot is as good as Pedro's or Messi's left foot.

Hyperbole. Anyways, you should've put this goal, it's much better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FIT877oU_o

Or this one, it's from the same match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZeDD0sxd_o

Or this beauty, one of my favorites (and what an awesome celebration)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYDpidsmK4E

The foot is not used just to shoot though. Pedro can dribble very well on his left foot which I don't think Villa can. Also, playing on the right is very different from playing on the left. If you've played football, you'll know this. On the right, if you're right footed, due to the nature of defending you will orient yourself outwards, away from the goal in most cases. Especially at RW position where Villa will probably need to cut in. Villa is still pretty OK at RW just because he's a very good player in general. But I wouldn't take him over Pedro in that position.

When he was at Valencia, and even for Spain a lot of the time, he would start out on the left (where he's playing now). With Spain, Torres was the one who would play centrally. He always knew how to play on the left, he didn't learn it after coming here.