Ernesto Valverde: An Analysis of his tenure

[messi2140]

I would be in favour of changing Ernie's thread title, but seeing how much it bothers Messigician I vote for keeping it like it is.

Messigician

 

[serghei]

Only if you think Valverde wouldn't have won the league or gotten past Bayern

Meaning following logic.

 

[Messigician]

Meaning following logic.

Do you honestly beleive Valverde would have blown a 2 point lead to the worst Madrid in decades?

 

[snowy]

With the dust finally settling on Valverde's tenure let's analyse his pros and cons and see whether he was given enough credit or not. I will attempt to be as bias free as possible.

I will start at the beginning, we just lost Neymar and we were hammered at the super cup, Valverde realised we could no longer play a 433 and quickly changed the system to a solid 442, we had the best defence in Europe at this time, we demolished a prime eventual UCL winners Madrid won the double twice and nearly went undefeated.
What game did we lose? A game Messi was rested for a bullshit international friendly and Mina conceding 5 to a nearly relegated. Side. Overall an amazing season. The only blight is a 4-4 aggregate loss to Roma.

Reminder under Enrique we were one of the worst teams defensively.

Second season, won the league comfortably, was even with Liverpool on xg over the two legs and had bad luck to lose by 4 goals at Anfield. Imo had Dembele put away the sitter unfair or not we break Liverpool and win the treble with a 4-0 win and destroy a spurs we beat easily in the group stage.

3rd season the apparent disaster season. Ok so he's had no Suarez, and no Messi for most of it, disaster right? Well is it? Let's review at the time of his sacking our results. Unbeaten in UCL, top of the league by 2 points and unbeaten in the Copa. Lost the supercup to athletico in one of the best games in the season we played well and deserved to win it. All this without Messi and Suarez for most of it and key injuries to Roberto Alba etc.

Now let's look at some other aspects

Squad management

Players loved him, nuff said never defended Setien at all while accepting the blame for the losses.

Transfers

People forget the deadweight we had with LE, Aleix Vidal, Turan, Gomes etc was a disaster, we shipped out all the deadweight while EV made players like Paulinho work.

Didn't play Semedo, Arthur, Mina, Alena, etc wildly critiqued for this proven right in the end. Quickly preferred Araujo over Tobido with good reason too.

Wanted Willian which people hated, now they cry out for actual wingers, with Willian we would get one of the hardest working players who can play either side. Would offer pace to a side that needs it as well as pressing.

Stats
Undefeated against Real Madrid has the best Clasico win percentage along with Pep.

Has the best champions league win % out of any modern manager in history only losing 2 games in 3 years.

Myths

Only beat a weak real Madrid side... right so a prime madrid with CR7, Modric, kroos, casemiro is weak fyi they won UCL that season and we won the league both times with points to spare.

Choking began under EV... our away games against European opposition has a sad 20% win rate stat kindly shared by BBZ. The last time we were decent away was under Rijkard this problem goes beyond EV.

Played awful football. Board squandered the Neymar money, EV learned fast in the supercup demolitions that this squad can't play beautiful football, regardless showed glimpses of what he can do with a proper squad look at the Copa final in Iniesta's final game as an example.

It is not his fault the board squandered 220m euros plus freeing up Neymar's immense wages. EV showed he can win with the seniors.

The plan, so imagine this. We actually had the perfect plan.

200m in the bank from Neymar. Valverde in to get the best out of the seniors for 3 years.

And we can slowly phase them out while having mountains of cash to rebuild for the next coach to come in a progressive manager who plays youth and has the funds to invest where it's needed.

EV keeps us competitive while a new board appoints Xavi and we can actually rebuild with funds and reputation.

What has sacking EV gotten us? A trophy less season if you're going to sack him do it at the end of S2 not midway through it is disrespectful to him. And speaking of disrespect the man who bought is trophies is called Retardo but a joke who watched Bayern put 8 past us and not even move gets the respect to be called Setien? Disgraceful...

At least now people can see the squad has been finished and EV was overachieving with what he bad.

PS I do think if ter clown had one masterclass like Navas and Valdes did before him we win at least another treble and deny real the threepeat

Before EV
2016 won laliga by a point
2017 no laliga

During EV
2018 laliga
2019 laliga

After EV
2020 no laliga

2 leagues in 2 years is nothing to take for granted Real and CR7 won 2 in 9 years spending millions.

PPS in the Bayern game everyone was awful, in EVs lost games individual errors and poor finishing cost us the wins not bad preparation or formations. Look at Umtiti, Dembele, Rakutic as the main culprits.

Please at least show some respect and change the thread title to what he deserves as a valued part of our history.

woaouou MessiG! This gotta be you're longest and most serious post right?

Not too shabby at all. Lots'a good points in there

Always said, before even Ernie, squad needed a major overhaul. He could've played Araujo, Fati and Puig more. Maybe even Alena unless he really sucked at training... and even if you really like him, you gotta admit he went full on Mr Freeze in the CL elis. Dembouze woulda/coulda/mighta punished that Roma sexy Highline in a bad bad way ... maybe jeje

Dude got way too much hate! Supanice guy and he didn't even take his parachute bonus

 

[serghei]

Do you honestly beleive Valverde would have blown a 2 point lead to the worst Madrid in decades?

Absolutely. Setien was crap and even he made more points than EV this season. EV was finished after Liverpool. Since then he got us to a state were we were being played off the park by Granada and Levante.

 

[Messigician]

Absolutely. Setien was crap and even he made more points than EV this season. EV was finished this season. Got us to a state were we were being played off the park by Granada and Levante.

Setien had Messi and Suarez...

Valverde had us top without them. Valverde has never lost a league game to Real Madrid i reckon we go 5 points clear easily.

 

[serghei]

Setien had Messi and Suarez...

Valverde had us top without them. Valverde has never lost a league game to Real Madrid i reckon we go 5 points clear easily.

Sure, you can imagine it however you want it.

 

[Messigician]

Then you are lost

 

[khaled_a_d]

Here is the core of the EV debate in my opinion. There are those who follow glory, and glory to them is what is written in the history books; and there are those who follow beautiful football, and beautiful football is what makes the heart smile.

We need to realize that there are a lot of Barca fan who care much less about the trophy and more about the pride that comes with Barcelona. Barcelona is indeed more than a club, it is the pride of the Catalan.

We need to realize that there are those who would much prefer a trophy less season where youngsters and Catalan players are playing and presenting the spirit and the club with their fire and attitude.

I can get the hatred toward EV, but this is such a naive argument.

The essence of sport is competition, no one enjoys losing.
The whole "Barca fans follow beautiful football" is all good until we have a half decade of no trophy like we did under Gaspart. After that fans becomes desperate
We have seen it with Arsenal, you think their fans will cry if they win EPL with ugly football?

This is the same thing naive argument we see about domestic league, It doesn't matter because we got humiliated in CL? Yeah it doesn't matter because we were spoiled with 8 league titles in 11 years, 10 in 15 years. And it feels normal.

The truth is we feel entitled for both trophies and beautiful football, because we have witnessed an all time great era that might have never been seen before in football history.
I get that.
But saying trophies doesn't matter, or fans who care about them "follow glory" ? give me a break. This is football, a sport. I want my fuckin team to win, I want them to win as much as they can and I will hate it when I see opponents left trophies.

 

[Raketa10]

Valverde was bad but Setien was even worse. There is nothing more to say. Those two should have never been appointed in the first place.

 

[Neymessi]

Our current results don't change my opinion on him.

Forget that bbz-esque 1000 word post that op wrote and remember this, he subbed in gomes for iniesta at 82nd minute while we were on the brink of exit.

He was horrendous, from lineups to subs to tactics, everything. But I believe the club has been unfair to Tata martino, he had a really good first half of a season before everyone decided to be shit including our most important player who walked the rest of the season. Even pep would have struggled to get trophies with Messi walking.

 

[Messigician]

Some odd takes on here ngll

 

[kattanib]

I can get the hatred toward EV, but this is such a naive argument.

The essence of sport is competition, no one enjoys losing.
The whole "Barca fans follow beautiful football" is all good until we have a half decade of no trophy like we did under Gaspart. After that fans becomes desperate
We have seen it with Arsenal, you think their fans will cry if they win EPL with ugly football?

This is the same thing naive argument we see about domestic league, It doesn't matter because we got humiliated in CL? Yeah it doesn't matter because we were spoiled with 8 league titles in 11 years, 10 in 15 years. And it feels normal.

The truth is we feel entitled for both trophies and beautiful football, because we have witnessed an all time great era that might have never been seen before in football history.
I get that.
But saying trophies doesn't matter, or fans who care about them "follow glory" ? give me a break. This is football, a sport. I want my fuckin team to win, I want them to win as much as they can and I will hate it when I see opponents left trophies.

Sure, a club like Barcelona expects results and I doubt anyone disagrees with this. But we expect results and a good possession football even if we need to sacrifice a trophy less season or two to build something beautiful we are proud off. EV was in survival mode using the same squad over and over while losing sight of the big picture, building a sustained beautiful proudful solution. Where were the youth?

Also regarding EV, part of football beauty is problem solving and second half tactical interventions .. he was saved many times by Messi without doing any significant intervention

 

[MTL_Barca]

"It is what it is" - the GOAT.

 

[Messigician]

Sure, a club like Barcelona expects results and I doubt anyone disagrees with this. But we expect results and a good possession football even if we need to sacrifice a trophy less season or two to build something beautiful we are proud off. EV was in survival mode using the same squad over and over while losing sight of the big picture, building a sustained beautiful proudful solution. Where were the youth?

Also regarding EV, part of football beauty is problem solving and second half tactical interventions .. he was saved many times by Messi without doing any significant intervention

Every coach would rely on Messi