Ernesto Valverde - V1

[putogusiluz8]

He needs to be sacked this afternoon

"We will get exposed by big teams" said guys.
Yet, Juve 3:0, Juve 0:0, Real 3:0.

This team don't play too nice, but lol, this team is defensively the strongest Barca since... I don't know when.

Even Xavi-Iniesta-Busi Barca managed to concede 3-4 goals tons of times against RM and strong teams.

A fun fact:
In the last 25 matches, Barca had 18 clean sheets (lol) and conceded goals only 7 times.
Out of 25 matches, Barca conceded
1. 0 goals at 18 matches
2. 1 goal at 6 matches
3. 2 goals at 1 match (Celta)

Sack FraudVerde
We will get exposed sooner or later

Damn. We knew beforehand one of his forte's was he improved every team he's had defensively but that's a crazy statistic. Almost makes me want to check if it's true

Furthermore how exactly does a manager teach his team, and immediately in such a short period of time, to be so defensively sound and reliable? thats what astonishes me it's not even his second season its not even the second half of the season. As soon as he took the reins we've been a brick wall.

 

[Raketa10]

Question is what formation we play with Dembele. 4-4-2 looks solid and Suarez is coming back. Shifting to 4-3-3 and pushing Suarez wide again could cause problems.

I believe that he will stick to 4-4-2 with Dembele playing as a RM.

 

[xXKonan]

The biggest thing Valverde introduced what was lost was pure control. sure we have a lot of Midfielders who aren't Xavi, Iniesta or Busi levels of Technicality but the idea is the hold onto the ball and control the game as a team effort and try to minimize the mistakes. that itself played a huge role in how defensively strong this team is now.

Under Lucho, during the first season we can just sub on Xavi and he would help wind the games down but since he left we relied a lot of Iniesta and Busi to help control games but those two can't do it alone and once either were subbed off we lost control and we lost composure and it was way to easy to run through us and get to the defense.

Heck even last season with those two were on we struggled at times with control. This team is more of a team now and not just a starting 11 full of dudes. Valverde brought back the idea of Control and helped filled up the holes and gaps we had last season which made the team much stronger in return.

Just imagine if he had a player in the Xavi mold.

 

[Horatio]

I bet after the Bilbao, Sevilla, Valencia, Celta game people will still argue we are to be tested.

Posted this back in October. Hehe.

 

[Messi983]

Question is what formation we play with Dembele. 4-4-2 looks solid and Suarez is coming back. Shifting to 4-3-3 and pushing Suarez wide again could cause problems.

I think Suarez's problems at the start of the season were more on him not being 100% fit than playing wide. Now that it seems he overcame those physical problems I don't think he'd struggle as much if he'd have to shift more to the left in some games. He'll never play as left winger though as Alba will continue to operate in his wingback role with a lot of offensive freedom.

I expect something like this...

[formation=barca,6]
MATS
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Roberto/Semedo-0-Pique-0-Umtiti-0-0
0-0-0-Busquets-0-0-Alba
0-Rakitic-0-0-0-Iniesta-0
0-0-0-Messi-0-0-0
0-Dembele-0-0-0-Suarez-0
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
[/formation]

and then shifting to 4-4-1-1 when defending

[formation=barca,6]
MATS
Roberto/Semedo-0-Pique-0-Umtiti-0-Alba
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Dembele-0-Rakitic-0-Busquets-0-Iniesta-0
0-0-Suarez-0-0-0-0
0-0-Messi-0-0-0-0
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
[/formation]

With Suarez feeling better physically I think he'll track back more than Messi who will stay forward in most games.

Of course Coutinho (with fresher legs) coming in for Iniesta would be even better, both in offense and defense but don't think we'll get him in January.

 

[Messi983]

Posted this back in October. Hehe.

Lol. And they are still arguing that after El Clasico.

We'll probably win treble and people will still say we haven't play a serious team all season long. And at the same time they are affraid of PSG who are yet to win against a good opponent (I don't consider that broken up Bayern side trying to get rid of Ancelotti as a serious team).

 

[Horatio]

Lol. And they are still arguing that after El Clasico.

We'll probably win treble and people will still say we haven't play a serious team all season long. And at the same time they are affraid of PSG who are yet to win against a good opponent (I don't consider that broken up Bayern side trying to get rid of Ancelotti as a serious team).

I posted something very similair in another thread just now. At this point I don't know what the test is anymore. What was the test to begin with? That we are still a team capable of winning prizes? We passed that test long before as we have been on the right track of winning La Liga for a while. I think peoples' expectations are rising as we are actually doing better than expected, which seems incredibly unfair. We should always mind the current squad we have and Valverde having his debut season.

If there was any test for me then it was to see Barcelona's declining trend and 'crisis' was shown to be overturned. Which has been for now. Even if we lost the Clasico.
The way things look it seems it only takes 1 or 2 transfers from being a serious CL contender team again. Which is fine, as we were talking of a crisis just a season ago.

 

[Barcaman]

I think Suarez's problems at the start of the season were more on him not being 100% fit than playing wide. Now that it seems he overcame those physical problems I don't think he'd struggle as much if he'd have to shift more to the left in some games. He'll never play as left winger though as Alba will continue to operate in his wingback role with a lot of offensive freedom.

I expect something like this...

[formation=barca,6]
MATS
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Roberto/Semedo-0-Pique-0-Umtiti-0-0
0-0-0-Busquets-0-0-Alba
0-Rakitic-0-0-0-Iniesta-0
0-0-0-Messi-0-0-0
0-Dembele-0-0-0-Suarez-0
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
[/formation]

and then shifting to 4-4-1-1 when defending

[formation=barca,6]
MATS
Roberto/Semedo-0-Pique-0-Umtiti-0-Alba
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Dembele-0-Rakitic-0-Busquets-0-Iniesta-0
0-0-Suarez-0-0-0-0
0-0-Messi-0-0-0-0
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
[/formation]

With Suarez feeling better physically I think he'll track back more than Messi who will stay forward in most games.

Of course Coutinho (with fresher legs) coming in for Iniesta would be even better, both in offense and defense but don't think we'll get him in January.

Think playing Dembele that far up takes away from his strengths which are his speed (ability to carry the ball forward), 1 on 1 and his creativity. But yes, it does look like most realistic formation and those are very fluid anyways.

 

[MessiCam]

I wasn’t impressed with our first half and our inability to deal with the press of an opponent again... But in the second half I had to eat a plate of crow.

 

[unknowngenius10]

Finally a coach willing to play smart games. Guardiola or Luis Enrique would have tried to attack Madrid non stop from the beginning. And for what? to allow the team who needs to points to get us in the counter. Finally a coach with cojones!
I'd rather see this barca than the boring last years of Guardiola or Luis Enrique. I think Guardiola could learn a thing or two from Valverde

 

[MagIX]

To be honest, at the moment we do not need Dembele.
We are very well balanced with Paulinho added to our midfield.
Dembele will allow us more tactical variations: it will be interesting, how the coach will adapt the team for Dembele.

 

[Ousmane Dembélé]

Let's not get carried away, we played well maybe for 20 minutes last night, a combination of Ter Stegen and bad finishing from Madrid kept them off the score sheet.

I commend Valverde for delivering unbelievable results with a mediocre squad for our standards, but he didn't do anything revolutionary last night.

 

[Neymessi]

Going to play spoilsport here. I was feeling RM could give us problems before the match but but that was mostly pre match anxiety.

RM are quite shit right now. They aren't even 2nd, or 3rd. And its not like we schooled them thoroughly. Even benetiz' RM never was 4th. We were schooled in the first half and were lucky to not concede all that half. Most fans would have taken a 0-0 draw after half time. And while we did score 3 in the second half it didn't look like we played THAT great in attack. It was only after the first goal which was the biggest contribution of kovacic imo, who went full retard, than any of our 4 players in our buildup.

The exxagerrations here for his praise are, well, exxagerrated. He has done a good job so far getting results from this squad and everything and even I have changed my opinion on him in the past month but this RM isn't great. People saying we don't need dembele now and what not need to calm down.

 

[Trickykid]

When the fuck will this fallacy that we were schooled in the first half be laid to rest? RM played their hearts and lungs out and we mostly sat back soaking up the pressure, limiting them to fairly few real goal scoring chances.

If playing more defensively and perhaps un-barcalike is getting schooled, then sure.

Fact of the matter is, no matter if it fits the Barcaforum narrative in regards to our horrible squad and fraud of a coach, we beat Los Merengues at the Bernabeu three fucking nil and will begin our holidays with a 14 (11) points lead to our eternal rivals.

 

[Ghostmaster]

Going to play spoilsport here. I was feeling RM could give us problems before the match but but that was mostly pre match anxiety.

RM are quite shit right now. They aren't even 2nd, or 3rd. And its not like we schooled them thoroughly. Even benetiz' RM never was 4th. We were schooled in the first half and were lucky to not concede all that half. Most fans would have taken a 0-0 draw after half time. And while we did score 3 in the second half it didn't look like we played THAT great in attack. It was only after the first goal which was the biggest contribution of kovacic imo, who went full retard, than any of our 4 players in our buildup.

The exxagerrations here for his praise are, well, exxagerrated. He has done a good job so far getting results from this squad and everything and even I have changed my opinion on him in the past month but this RM isn't great. People saying we don't need dembele now and what not need to calm down.

You simply can't dominate them for 90 minutes at their ground when they are fighting for their own life's. Also RM won 5-0 against Sevilla and people were talking how they gaining momentum and how our lead will dissapear soon.

Kovacic didn't went full retard, he was man marking Messi, the thing that worked so well in Supercopa now backfired for them.