Ernesto Valverde - V1

Horatio

You're welcome
II do wish to be optimistic but best case scenario, imo, is: we win La Liga - get a wake up call in CL but Valverde stays (because of La Liga) and then gets completely found out next year. 2 more years of getting by and wasting Messi's zenith.

I don't understand the notion of Valverde being incapable of having us play attractive football. Maybe he is working with what we have got, and has the same view on some of the players as the fans. Things could change with Dembele and next season's transfer window.
 

serghei

Senior Member
I don't understand the notion of Valverde being incapable of having us play attractive football. Maybe he is working with what we have got, and has the same view on some of the players as the fans. Things could change with Dembele and next season's transfer window.

What we have is enough to dominate 80% of the teams in La Liga. But he's not going that route. He's happy to get the win while playing conservative football, often on the defensive side.

The biggest problem for Valverde is that his approach does not stop teams from creating chances, and us not receving goals every game is not down to our amazing defense, but to the often poor finishing from the teams we face. And that will change with better opponents.

Valverde will have a real test vs Juventus on wednesday. If he doesn't lose and we play well, maybe he can do something with his approach. But if we lose with it like we lost vs Madrid in the Supercup, then he must fix it.
 

Barcaman

Administrator
Staff member
I don't understand the notion of Valverde being incapable of having us play attractive football. Maybe he is working with what we have got, and has the same view on some of the players as the fans. Things could change with Dembele and next season's transfer window.

We should be playing better football. Leganes is not the first team that made us look like this. 10-3 shots on target for crying out loud. Who are our best players bar Messi this season? Umtiti, Steven and Mascherano.
 

likeafire

New member
Huge news, Dutch media are reporting that de Ligt is joining barca in Jan for 45mil euros.

He's scored two goals today for Ajax
 

Gilberto

New member
Huge news, Dutch media are reporting that de Ligt is joining barca in Jan for 45mil euros.

He's scored two goals today for Ajax

We should have splashed that money on Davinson Sanchez when we still had the chance. I haven't been convinced by de Ligt at all thus far. It was Sanchez that made de Ligt look a whole lot better than he actually was.
 

BBZ8800

Senior Member
The results are there. But today we were incredibly lucky. We scored the 2nd second just seconds after he did probably the stupidest substitution this season. I believe that it was suicidal to bring Aleix on with being only 1 goal in front. Hopefully he doesn't start Aleix against Juventus, since Douglas Costa will probably eat him alive.

I'll repeat once more, in normal football, for all NORMAL football clubs ever, there is a saying: Champions are winning even when they aren't playing great and that is how you are winning trophies.
Around 2000's when Real won 3 CLs, they often played bad and were outplayed, but scored goals due to opponent's individual mistakes or by some individual magic (like Zidane's goal againt Leverkusen in a CL final 2002').

Papers back then even started to use the phrase "luck of champions".
I hope that you get what it meant.
For some reason, this or that way, they always found a way how to score and win, regardless of how good or bad they played.

Also, in numbers, this is my way of describing it, but for YOUNGER fans, who watched Barca only since 2009 or since 2006, this is how clubs can win titles:

1. playing 5/10 in terms of beauty and 10/10 efficient, style of Chelsea, Mourinho's teams, Atletico Madrid
2. playing 7-8/10 beautiful and winning trophies, let's say Cruijff's Barca, Van Gaal's Barca, Rijkaard's Barca
********************************************
3. and then, there is FC BARCELONA from 2009-2012, who was playing 10/10 beautiful, winning trophies 10/10 and breaking all possible records

Now, we raised the bar too high.
None team ever played as beautiful and as efficient as that Barca.
So, we shouldn't expect anything like that ever again.

Since we don't have prime Xavi-Iniesta in our team and Messi is 30 year old, our only ways to win trophies are:
1. playing 5/10 like Juve/Chelsea/AM and win trophies
2. or try to play somewhat beautiful, let's say 7-8/10 and win trophies

Current Barca is still playing way better than Mou's teams, Atletico and similar.
We aren't playing as nice as Cruijff's Barca, though.

No offense to anyone, but while reading posts: Barca sucks, this is unwatchable, sack Valverde for being +8 or +10 on top of table infront of RM, I have an impression that 90% of those posters are younger guys who are too spoiled by Pep's Xavi-Iniesta-Messi Barca and who think that those days are actually our standard and how we have always played like that, or at least close to that.

Again, you probably haven't watched Barca when our target man was a smurf Saviola and our key playmakers Riquelme and Fabio Rochemback.
A current season looks like heaven compared to some of those days. Both in terms of beauty, I won't even mention our number of points.

In short: mortal teams don't always outplay opponents (like Pep's Barca).
Mortal teams are winning:
1. due to being better on some days
2. due to being more experienced and scoring after opponent's rookie mistakes
3. winning when playing bad/mediocre due to an individual talent of their star players

Again, Barca during Pep was winning majority of matches with:
75% possession
20:5 in shots
4:0 score
Beautiful plays, domination, pure magic.

Well, there is a 99% chance that you won't ever again see that level at Barca.
 

BBZ8800

Senior Member
But players are aging and decling, who could have thought that Iniesta won't be able to play for 90 minutes every match and stay healthy:thinking:. All summer we were talking that we need reinforments in midfield and now we see the results because of boards inaction.

The board and director Robert played "all in" on 150-180M Dembele and Coutinho.

They discarded some other positions also to be able to go all in till the last minute.
Valverde probably believed that he will get Coutinho and Dembele.

Or, is EV guilty again?
He should have fought with the board (who gave him a job 30 days before that)?

Should he have said: don't buy Coutinho, give me Seri/Di Maria (who can't run) or some other options who were there for 50-80M?
Those players would have ruined our club and finances even more.
 

Ghostmaster

Danger Ahead
The board and director Robert played "all in" on 150-180M Dembele and Coutinho.

They discarded some other positions also to be able to go all in till the last minute.
Valverde probably believed that he will get Coutinho and Dembele.

Or, is EV guilty again?
He should have fought with the board (who gave him a job 30 days before that)?

Should he have said: don't buy Coutinho, give me Seri/Di Maria (who can't run) or some other options who were there for 50-80M?
Those players would have ruined our club and finances even more.

I get what you are saying, but they should have went for Coutinho way earlier, probably last summer before he has renewed.

And that's not just Coutinho, we missed many other oportunities to sign midfielders even 3 years ago, Kroos for example. I mean he was offered for us for 25M and we declined him.:lol:
 
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We're very good defensively, although the CB spot next to Umtiti is still a weak link. Pretty sure we have the best defensive record in Europe. Otherwise, we're nothing special.

It's the kind of team that may win titles (probably will win at least 1 with the gap in La Liga) but will do so very unspectacularly. Also I fear we'll have a hard time scoring against better teams in the CL and that they'll punish us for it.

Maybe Dembele's return will help us in the offensive department. We shall see. Midfield I'm afraid will be a problem no matter what, and Paulinho alone won't be able to fix it.
 
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dakt

Active member
Point being we are being overrun and saved by defensive heroics.

Well you still have to score to win the games. It's hard to have perfect balance consistently. Having strong defense is just as important as having good attack or midfield.
So we are slightly above average in attack, average in midfield and strong in defense. Maybe with Dembele coming back and God forbid should Suarez resurrect, we could be more competitive for bigger set of titles.
 

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