Xaviniesta
Senior Member
This week will pretty much prove if Valverde is just another Tata or not
BBZ8800
Senior Member
He is at Napoli for 2 full seasons and 13 rounds of this season.
Before that he coached Empoli, Sorento, Alessandria, Grosseto, Perugia, Verona etc.
Napoli finished 2nd, 3rd and 5th in 3 seasons before Sarri.
With Sarri they finished 2nd and 3rd.
So, yes, he improved them, but it is not as if he turned the 8th placed club into a current leader.
Napoli is Italian Atletico Madrid or Sevilla, with or without Sarri.
Anyway, if his team won't win a title this year, what is exactly a reason to hire him?
= his team plays a nice passing-based football?
When he'll mix both a title and a nice football, we should consider him as one of candidates.
As I have wrote earlier today, Sampaoli's Sevilla played the most beautiful football only 12 Months ago.
12 Months later, luckily, we didn't hire that crazy guy and we are on top of the table with +10 points infront of RM.
Anyway, a random question for guys who talk a lot about beauty:
1. do you think that Real plays more beautiful than us this season?
2. and is there any team in Spain for whom you think that they play more beautiful than us, but don't post crazy answers like Rayo and Las Palmas. I mean, is there any top team, who is BOTH winning points and playing more beautiful than us?
Thanks
Lelouch vi Britannia
Banned
Where's Umtiti?
Ousmane Dembélé
Banned
Racism.
Barcilliant
Senior Member
Will be very interesting to see Valverdes line ups against Juve and Valencia.
I watched Valencia against Leganes and wasn't impressed with them. Having said that we sucked against Leganes too.
Really disappointed with Valverde not giving the B team players any minutes. It's one of the reasons he was hired. Also Messi is playing way too deep, He needs to be closer to the opposition penalty box. At the moment I see him at the half way line o4 in our half.
Also Valverde needs to reward performance. His handling of Semedo is abysmal. Ditto Denis.
No real minutes for Alena, Arnaiz.
I watched Valencia against Leganes and wasn't impressed with them. Having said that we sucked against Leganes too.
Really disappointed with Valverde not giving the B team players any minutes. It's one of the reasons he was hired. Also Messi is playing way too deep, He needs to be closer to the opposition penalty box. At the moment I see him at the half way line o4 in our half.
Also Valverde needs to reward performance. His handling of Semedo is abysmal. Ditto Denis.
No real minutes for Alena, Arnaiz.
Valverde docent give me the impression of being a maneger able to develop a player. Not just in terms of youngsters but already established players. Thats another thing people never mention about Pep and Sarri as well. These manegers improve their players. Bayern players have previously accused Ancelotti for not focusing on improving each individual player.
Imagine if Pep or Sarri had Alena, Roberto or even Denis Suarez. These players would shine under those manegers. Valverde seems to ignore Alena and play Rakitic who has been underperforming for some time. He simply needs to get more out of those players otherwise they will leave.
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BBZ8800
Senior Member
You make it sound as if Roberto, Denis and Alena are more important than some other players.
If Roberto will play as a RB, Semedo will be sad. So, Semedo might leave.
If Roberto will play as a CM, Rakitic, Paulinho, Rafinha, Alena, Gomes will be sad and they might all leave.
If Alena will plays as a CM, Rakitic, Paulinho, Rafinha, Denis, Gomes, Alena will be sad and they might all leave.
Unless if you think that Roberto, Denis are more important than any other player in the team. And that their sadness is more important than sadness of Rakitic, Paulinho or Gomes.
I could understand a point about Alena, since he has a lot of potential.
I don't get the point about Denis or Roberto and why those 2 should play more than some other players. If they had such a great quality and potential, they would have already earned their starting place here.
About developing a player, Pep had Busquets, Pedro, Pique and similar.
Luis Enrique and Valverde have a level of quality of Sandro, Munir, Halilovic, Adama, Samper, Bartra and similar.
With this level of quality, nor Pep nor all magicians in the world would be able to do something.
Also, Valverde is here for 3 Months and you say that he is not good in developing or improving current players.
Mats improved a lot this season? With that logic, we could say that EV is a reason for that.
Semedo is improving since he came.
Deulofeu is improving.
Paulinho is improving.
Gomes is less bad than last season.
Denis is better than in his ghost season.
Alba is better than last season.
Umtiti is improving all the time.
Roberto is a better RB than last season.
Under any coach there will be 5-10 players who are improving and who are declining.
And yet, EV is here for only 3 Months.
In short, these are some remarks from our forum from the last few pages, a list of things which EV should have done in 3 Months:
1. we need to win points, win matches, win La Liga and be a Champions league contender
2. we need to play both beautiful and win matches in the same time, and be the most dominating force in the world
3. while playing beautiful and winning points (infront of RM who won 3 CLs in the last 4 years), EV should in the same time find enough of time to play Alena and Arnaiz, plus Semedo, Denis, Roberto, possibly Samper, Marlon, Mina.
4. we should buy more promising youngsters (Lemar, Goretzka etc) and play them right away (along with Denis, Roberto, Semedo, Alena, Arnaiz, Samper, Marlon, Mina), and maintain our beautiful play, rotations, winning points, winning trophies, dominating in possession, dominating in attack, dominating in pressure, dominating in defense, playing triangles, one-twos, awesome actions etc.
You guys have raised the bar insanely high and you have insanely unrealistic expectations.
For the 100th time, I can't shake off an impression that Pep's era has raised the bar way too high in minds of 90% of our fans.
Not to mention that it is almost impossible to:
1. play beautiful and win all the time (unless you are Barca from 2008-2012)
2. winning trophies and play with lots of youngsters in your team whom you are trying to develop
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FCBfan22
Senior Member
I don't give a fuck if Rakitić is sad, because he makes me sad most of the time when he plays. He feels like pig in a mud currently with his privileges and needs a kick up his arse (We have seen what can he do when he is motivated, sadly that is in 20% of the games, the other games are mainly sidepasses). Same for Gomes. Rafinha is injured 90% of the time.
BBZ8800
Senior Member
So, feelings of some players ARE important and feelings of some others AREN'T important. Nice to hear.
Further, for who's feelings do you care then?
Horatio
You're welcome
Once in a blue moon I can find something to agree with you on. I liked this part as you provide some welcoming optimism.
Alik
Moderator
Birdy
Senior Member
Having known EV's past, i can confirm that he is capable of building a team that can play beautiful football and win at the same time.
Why he hasn't done that so far? I don't know.
Maybe it's too early to judge conclusively, (and i will pass my first judgement after the Classico in December and my second and final judgment at the end of the season), but from the little we have seen, it seems that the re-introduction of Suarez destroyed the promising start with Messi being false 9 and two natural wingers moving diagonally. And this when discussing about beauty, because the results in terms of XGoals improved since then.
People saying we have been lucky so far, and it's because of TerStegen that we are where we are: not true at all! As i said before, with modern statistics we can measure when we play effectively (not beautifully) and when we deserve the win. Letting the opposition shoot from positions that are not dangerous is not a sign of weakness, as it has been said here; it is a sign of weakness on the contrary only if these shots come from positions with significant chances of scoring.
And what the statistics say is that so far in LaLiga only vs Getafe we didn't deserve the win, whereas we deserved the win vs Atletico that we didn't get. In all other games the scoreline reflected pretty much accurately the chances created.
Having said that i cannot pretend to say i like seeing Rakitic play, or Suarez in that bad form, or the 33yr old Iniesta starting every game, or Gomez or Vidal a couple of times. And i miss the football we played under Pep, as most people in this forum i guess. Under Enrique we played more beautifully than now, but solely relying on the individual brilliance of MSN (with Suarez in diabolic form during 14-16) and the rest of the team kind of disjointed from them.. Had EV had that MSN of 14-16 right now, or Rakitic-iniesta 3 years younger, i am sure he could play even more beautifully.. The question is can Valverde play more beautifully with squad he has now and retain the effectiveness he has showed so far?
Why he hasn't done that so far? I don't know.
Maybe it's too early to judge conclusively, (and i will pass my first judgement after the Classico in December and my second and final judgment at the end of the season), but from the little we have seen, it seems that the re-introduction of Suarez destroyed the promising start with Messi being false 9 and two natural wingers moving diagonally. And this when discussing about beauty, because the results in terms of XGoals improved since then.
People saying we have been lucky so far, and it's because of TerStegen that we are where we are: not true at all! As i said before, with modern statistics we can measure when we play effectively (not beautifully) and when we deserve the win. Letting the opposition shoot from positions that are not dangerous is not a sign of weakness, as it has been said here; it is a sign of weakness on the contrary only if these shots come from positions with significant chances of scoring.
And what the statistics say is that so far in LaLiga only vs Getafe we didn't deserve the win, whereas we deserved the win vs Atletico that we didn't get. In all other games the scoreline reflected pretty much accurately the chances created.
Having said that i cannot pretend to say i like seeing Rakitic play, or Suarez in that bad form, or the 33yr old Iniesta starting every game, or Gomez or Vidal a couple of times. And i miss the football we played under Pep, as most people in this forum i guess. Under Enrique we played more beautifully than now, but solely relying on the individual brilliance of MSN (with Suarez in diabolic form during 14-16) and the rest of the team kind of disjointed from them.. Had EV had that MSN of 14-16 right now, or Rakitic-iniesta 3 years younger, i am sure he could play even more beautifully.. The question is can Valverde play more beautifully with squad he has now and retain the effectiveness he has showed so far?
Ursegor
World Champion
Your quoted "expected goals" statistic is useless as it doesn't count opportunities which don't lead to shots.
Cross which would put the striker 1-on-1 with the goalkeeper but the striker is half a step to late to get to the ball? No expected goal.
Player fucking up the pass wich would easily put the striker 1-on-1 with the goalkeeper? No expected goal.
Striker shooting from within the box from an amazing position where he is "expected" to score 9 out of 10 times position-wise but a great defender makes a last-ditch tackle to block and completely deflect the shot. Why should that be an "expected goal"?
Etc.
There are countless situations where teams can get past and open up this Barca defense easily which only the eye-test can confirm and that's why most are disappointed.
And even if by statistics we "deserve" to be where we are point-wise, it still doesn't imply that we are actually doing well. An "expected" scoreline of 1.8 vs. 1.4 vs. a team like Leganes isn't great at all.
Cross which would put the striker 1-on-1 with the goalkeeper but the striker is half a step to late to get to the ball? No expected goal.
Player fucking up the pass wich would easily put the striker 1-on-1 with the goalkeeper? No expected goal.
Striker shooting from within the box from an amazing position where he is "expected" to score 9 out of 10 times position-wise but a great defender makes a last-ditch tackle to block and completely deflect the shot. Why should that be an "expected goal"?
Etc.
There are countless situations where teams can get past and open up this Barca defense easily which only the eye-test can confirm and that's why most are disappointed.
And even if by statistics we "deserve" to be where we are point-wise, it still doesn't imply that we are actually doing well. An "expected" scoreline of 1.8 vs. 1.4 vs. a team like Leganes isn't great at all.
M
MessiCam
Guest
I am more than happy to consider the x statistics but don't be fooled by the 4-4-2's xG statistics because they're largely influenced by 2 games...
The 4-4-2 has resulted in an increased xG for Suarez but it has also resulted in Messi's xG significantly tailing off especially with the 4-4-2 diamond so we'd have to dig deeper to to assess if it has been worth it. Also by playing 2 strikers in this narrow formation the expected assists figure goes down so it's not as black and white as just comparing the xG. You have big problems when your xA90 is largely influenced by your full backs (Alba xA90 - 0.32, Digne xA90 - 0.39, Roberto xA90 - 0.27) seeing that Deulofeu (xA90 - 0.33), Denis (xA90 - 0.53) and Dembele (xA90 - 0.81) are not playing much.
As for Ter Stegen he is being called on too much even if we consider the low xGA where the difference between the 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 is marginal. He has had to make 34 saves from 39 shots of which 22 saves have come from shots inside the box against sides with a average league position of 12.5. That's really nothing to write home about...
So, If I had to base my opinion on x stats as opposed to what I see I would still dump the 4-4-2 for a 4-3-3 but I would have a front 3 of Denis (LW) - Suarez (CF) - Messi (RW) to get a balance of xG and xA90. That is until Dembele returns at which time I'd switch to a 4-3-3 False 9 again.
Edit: If Messi is to play on the right wing I'd have Paulinho as a starter in the RCM position due to the chemistry between the two and his innate ability to man mark. He could be the perfect foil to Messi drifting centrally by keeping the left back occupied.
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