honestly other than dribbling what does he bring for us??
I honestly can't remember an attempt in throughball from this guy all season.. all he does is try and dribble three people, then short backpass or sidepass to alba
People are blinded by that "but he is trying" thing.
Since Rakitic and others are playing only safe sidepasses or back passes, when they see someone like Denis trying to do something, people see that as an extremely positive thing.
But then, if Denis has 3/10 success rate of tricky passes/dribbles, then he is just killing/wasting way too many actions and we are losing more with his attempts than with safepasses from Rakitic.
People are obssessed with that "he is trying to create" thing.
Even if you are "trying", there are players who will have 1/10 success rate in actions when they are trying to create something.
Others will have 3/10 success rate.
Some will have 5/10 success rate.
Some will have 7/10 success rate.
These numbers are just an example, and don't take them for facts.
But the point is: for Barca's level, it is not enough that a player is ONLY "trying to create" something.
He needs to both" try to do something" and have at least some decent success rate of his attempts.
If a player is just trying and trying and trying, but nothing happens in majority of his actions, what is the point?
Some users will now reply: but then, no one is trying to create anything and we won't do anything...
Well, a player like Rakitic who is playing only safe passes is NOT a solution for Barca.
But neither are players like Denis, who are "brave" and yet they are turnover machines with losing balls over and over all the time.
We will need players who are:
1. willing to risk
2. but plus, who's success rate is not as horrible like for example 3/10 good passes/dribbles
So, Rakitic is horrible in one way.
But players like Denis are also horrible in a totally different vay.