Ernesto Valverde - V1

[DonAndres]

Many teams played like this (and worse!) and won the CL.

Many teams have played much better and still lost. The CL is often a crapshoot for even elite tier 1 teams. It's rare for a team to be comfortable favorites above everyone else going into the season or the KO stages and then deliver perfectly on those expectations. Even for the best teams it usually involves lucky injuries, ref shenanigans, and overcoming some very testing adversity to get the W in the end.

If the probability isn't even favorable for the very best sides then a squad/team like this playing not so great football has a mountain to climb to even get to the final let alone win it all. Unless all the competition is screwed over, you can never expect a team (no matter how good) to guarantee a CL win. You can only put yourself in the best position to do so and hope the odds are in your favor. Right now though, Barca is anything but in that position.

 

[Chainsaw]

Many teams have played much better and still lost. The CL is often a crapshoot for even elite tier 1 teams. It's rare for a team to be comfortable favorites above everyone else going into the season or the KO stages and then deliver perfectly on those expectations. Even for the best teams it usually involves lucky injuries, ref shenanigans, and overcoming some very testing adversity to get the W in the end.

If the probability isn't even favorable for the very best sides then a squad/team like this playing not so great football has a mountain to climb to even get to the final let alone win it all. Unless all the competition is screwed over, you can never expect a team (no matter how good) to guarantee a CL win. You can only put yourself in the best position to do so and hope the odds are in your favor. Right now though, Barca is anything but in that position.

I agree with the first paragraph but you are exaggerating in your second paragraph. Barca is no way as poor as some of you are making it out to be. On the contrary, Barca has gone beyond my expectations this season so far. Base on what we did in the transfer market I was expecting way worse, but Valverde and the team did good so far. I don't know what you guys expect to see from an obviously declined and older squad which hasn't been properly strenghtened for sometime now. Base on what we have Valverde is doing a good job. It might not be as pretty as great as Pep's Barca, but if you really expecting to see that kind of football from this squad then you are deluding yourself.

 

[Birdy]

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.

First of all, vs Leganes the XG score is 1.32 - 2.81, which normally renders as at least 1-2, and in most cases 1-3.
Secondly, all the examples you mention are correct observations, but have nothing to do with xG, they are about the build-up. So, a striker who messes his steps and cannot take the correct position is causing problems in the build-up and that leads to less xGs. The same can be said almost about everything: good or killer passers create XGs, good strikers that know how to move in space create xGs as well. (One of the things you mention is not correct though. xG does not measure the position only where the shot is takes, but also may other factors like how many defenders of the opposition are in front of the ball etc. So possibilities of last-ditch tackles and blocks are calculated there)

So, yeah there are many factors that lead a team to have xGs and concede XGs as well.. One of these factors is the individual quality of the players. If you have a Messi in your team, it is reasonable to expect much better XG percentage than without him, just because of his individual quality. Look at PSG right now, who is skyrocketing xG percentages, mainly because of the individual quality of its players.
And the other factor is all about tactics of course. How to build a team that creates xGs through build-up and concedes little. Look at City as a current good example of this.

xGs cannot tell you if your buildup is good or if the individual quality of your players is good, but can tell you two things:
i) How lucky or unlucky you are in a game, based on divergence of final score from xG scoreline
ii) How effective or wasteful the finishers you have in your team are/ and correspondingly how effective or ineffective your GK is. Same for the opposition team

So, xG never shows that a team played 'well' in terms of beauty, fluidity, penetration, control etc. All these factors have to be confirmed by the eye (until more sophisticated statistics come up). But they can tell you at least if you played well in terms of i) and ii)
Other than that, i agree with MessiCam's statistical observations just below your post. TerStegen is maybe called up more times than what a team that is in full control of a game does etc. If i were EV, i would definitely bench Suarez is such a bad form and move Messi to false 9, but maybe i don't know much and what dangers might this entail..

PS: As for tonight's game, it think the first one since Getafe game that the opposition had better xG than us (even with small margin): 0.49-0.32
which reflects at least the fact that we were toothless upfront.
What i found interesting is the av position diagrams:
[tw]https://twitter.com/11tegen11/status/933453379782758400[/tw]

Clearly iniesta's position is odd and asymmetrical, while Paulinio and Rakitic playing as internal mds, positions once played by Xavi, iniesta, positions which in principle both can play, but in reality are not even top30 players in Europe right now to do that. And relating to that: How many years have you had to see such a bad Barca roster? I think the first half without Messi, Juventus fielded a better XI in terms of individual quality than Barca

 

[MessiCam]

Also, again and again and again:
THIS SET OF PLAYERS CAN'T play BOTH:
1. beautiful
2. and efficient

Also, 433 WITHOUT prime Messi-Xavi-Iniesta is usually:
1. good enough for La liga
2. suck against European teams (Atletico, Atletico, Psg, Juventus)

I wish people would stop repeating this ad nauseam... There is no reason why good balanced football cannot be played with a 4-3-3 and the current players.

But here you go... Just to demonstrate to you that a 4-3-3 without prime Iniesta, Xavi and Messi won't be overrun. Below is pass map of the first leg vs Juventus this season in what was without a shadow of a doubt our most impressive display. Pay attention to the movement arrows for Suarez, Messi, Rakitic and the full backs as well as the size of the circle for Rakitic which denotes touches.



And below I'll show you why we were overrun by teams last year. Pay attention to where Messi, our right wing, is playing and who is covering for him... Rakitic was basically a pseudo wing and a man marker of the opposition left back while Pique played way too high up to support Busquets. The full backs are also neutered. For this very reason we will never see Messi play on the right wing again. It causes too much of a headache.



But beyond that. Why is Suarez still in the starting line up? We're almost 20 games into the season and there's been no improvement and what's more worrying is that it's been this way for the best part of the calendar year. A 4-2-3-1 was played in last nights match and nobody is happier than me that Valverde went for an expansive system but he stymied his own attempt by playing Suarez as sole striker and Paulinho as attacking midfielder. Leave it to this coach to go for an expansive system the very same game he benches his most influential player in the final third. More importantly though is that his little experiment, in my opinion, has ruled out a 4-2-3-1 when Dembele returns because it just leads to pointless possession because the dynamics of the system is conducive to a direct style and not that of a passing and positional based team.

 

[DonAndres]

I agree with the first paragraph but you are exaggerating in your second paragraph. Barca is no way as poor as some of you are making it out to be. On the contrary, Barca has gone beyond my expectations this season so far. Base on what we did in the transfer market I was expecting way worse, but Valverde and the team did good so far. I don't know what you guys expect to see from an obviously declined and older squad which hasn't been properly strenghtened for sometime now. Base on what we have Valverde is doing a good job. It might not be as pretty as great as Pep's Barca, but if you really expecting to see that kind of football from this squad then you are deluding yourself.

That's why I said in the previous post that EV is severely handicapped by his squad and that he'd likely look like a very different coach if better equipped. I don't expect much from this squad and while, yes, we have been winning up until now that isn't very indicative alone of 2nd half of the season performance. We've had 4 out of the past 5 years go by where the team makes a strong start and wins consistently through December only to collapse in March or April.

What would be good to see is Suarez performing up to expectations and producing consistently. Or Rakitic/Gomes improving. Better backup midfielders in general? I'd be very confident if the team could create numerous and quality chances outside of Messi alone. Those are all promising indicators of possible CL success, and none of them have been consistently true for this team so far going into December.

What makes things worse for our CL hopes is that this season is one of the most competitive at the top. RM are 2 time winners and have all the same quality of last year. QSG are hugely upgraded and demolished their group. Bayern under Heynckes will surely be fighting for the title and have been undefeated since his appointment, though if Thiago is injured for too long it may really hurt them. City is wrecking the Premier League and under Pep's brand of football is arguably the best suited to take down RM. That's 4 seriously heavyweight contenders, RM still probably being the favorites of that crop. Outside of that, Manchester United and Chelsea could both present big problems for us too. Atleti have fallen and won't qualify while Juve aren't where they once were. Spurs could challenge us but probably not over two legs (idk they did a pretty good number on RM). This is a very tough pool of competition and we'll have to be better and/or much luckier than all of them to win it all.

Honestly at this point if we can't win it then the only thing that matters is RM not getting a three-peat. That will be the end of the world.

 

[kilian]

I think our current football is pretty boring, but I`m starting to think that it isn`t because of Valverde. He did a pretty good job so far of making us more compact and solid at the back, but we lack penetration in attack because of 3 reasons - midfield verticality, lack of forward creativity and lack of movement/bad positioning.

We succeed in bringing the ball forward, but when we do that we have a number of problems. Iniesta can`t have penetrating runs all game because he is old and Rakitic is affraid and too slow/tehnically incapable of doing that. Suarez has really weird positiong, decision making and generally is useless. Deulofeu has weird decision making and a number of his runs are useless. That leaves Messi, who although is a genius with the ball, seriously lacks off the ball movement sometimes, he just waits for the ball to come to his feet. When he is in the zone, running and finding space, we are good. But pretty often he just strolls around the pitch, making it hard for teammates to give him a usable ball.

If this things improve, especially when Dembele starts playing and we still have that defensive compactness, we could be really good.

 

[Raketa10]

We played tactically good game yesterday. We all might dislike this Barca but so far we have great stability in defense. Our main problem is attack (It’s Messi and no one). I hope this will change after Dembele returns and after we sign someone in January.

I personally don’t like this type of football but we all must admit that Valverde improved our defense significantly, attack is different story though...

 

[kilian]

Well, as Henry said about Guardiola - the job of a coach is to bring the team to the last third and from there it`s freedom. It`s not Valverde`s fault that Deulofeu makes stupid runs or Suarez does whatever the hell he is doing.

 

[MessiCam]

I think our current football is pretty boring, but I`m starting to think that it isn`t because of Valverde. He did a pretty good job so far of making us more compact and solid at the back, but we lack penetration in attack because of 3 reasons - midfield verticality, lack of forward creativity and lack of movement/bad positioning.

We succeed in bringing the ball forward, but when we do that we have a number of problems. Iniesta can`t have penetrating runs all game because he is old and Rakitic is affraid and too slow/tehnically incapable of doing that. Suarez has really weird positiong, decision making and generally is useless. Deulofeu has weird decision making and a number of his runs are useless. That leaves Messi, who although is a genius with the ball, seriously lacks off the ball movement sometimes, he just waits for the ball to come to his feet. When he is in the zone, running and finding space, we are good. But pretty often he just strolls around the pitch, making it hard for teammates to give him a usable ball.

If this things improve, especially when Dembele starts playing and we still have that defensive compactness, we could be really good.

Pep figured this bit out long ago and moved him to a False 9. It's not as damning when your CF is strolling about just waiting to catch you off guard.

 

[kilian]

Pep figured this bit out long ago and moved him to a False 9. It's not as damning when your CF is strolling about just waiting to catch you off guard.

Yeah, but the problem isn`t his strolling when we are defending, many forwards do that. But he sometimes does the same when we are in attacking phase and then we have a problem because opposing team has an easy job to mark him out of the game. In current situation that means we become toothless.

 

[MessiCam]

Yeah, but the problem isn`t his strolling when we are defending, many forwards do that. But he sometimes does the same when we are in attacking phase and then we have a problem because opposing team has an easy job to mark him out of the game. In current situation that means we become toothless.

I'm aware of that and that's why I said catch you off guard. The False 9 is a technical role and few have the ability to play it well let alone play it at all...

Messi's unworldly technical and tactical ability (his understanding of space and when to and not to accelerate as well as his ability to dribble out of confined spaces is very much part of his package) allows him to play that way. Him being closely marked for large periods due to his loitering is by design because if/when he beats you the opposition are man or two, sometimes even three short in defence then. It doesn't always work yes but it's mentally jarring for the opposition.

I honestly don't see his loitering as an issue.

 

[Behrox]

Sack Valverde, hire [MENTION=22503]MessiCam[/MENTION] as a manager.

And play Denis, Deulofeu, Semedo, Alena and everyone.

MessiCam convinced me. Valverde is doing abolutely EVERYTHING wrong, in every single aspect



You mean:
Playing beautiful, winning zero domestic trophies, doing absolutely nothing in Europe?

Did you mean become an expensive version of Paco Jemez' Rayo? I'm down for that, where do I sign?

 

[Kohe321]

Did you mean become an expensive version of Paco Jemez' Rayo? I'm down for that, where do I sign?

Hey, at least we'll have the best dressed coach standing on the sidelines looking all dapper while we lose 0-8 to Real.

 

[Behrox]

Hey, at least we'll have the best dressed coach standing on the sidelines looking all dapper while we lose 0-8 to Real.

you mean 3-8, after all its gung ho attack

 

[Blaugrana Bull]

Dude got balls to leave Messi on the bench in Turin.