Ernesto Valverde - V1

[Horatio]

mom's spaghetti

 

[MessiCam]

He presses a lot but he doesn't track back enough.

Barça fans have become obsessed with tracking back and defensive shape. The likes of Coutinho, Dembele, Suarez and Messi shouldn’t be tracking back much. They should be pressing high up. Winning the ball back high up is an attacking opportunity.

It’s always been a Barça principle that the forwards are the first line of defence.

 

[JamDav1982]

Barça fans have become obsessed with tracking back and defensive shape. The likes of Coutinho, Dembele, Suarez and Messi shouldn’t be tracking back much. They should be pressing high up. Winning the ball back high up is an attack’s by opportunity.

It’s always been a Barça principle that the forwards are the first line of defence.

Messi and Suarez dont act like the first line of defence or press high up to any great degree.

When see the way some of the top teams press from front with pace it is night and day.

 

[MessiCam]

Messi and Suarez dont act like the first line of defence or press high up to any great degree.

When see the way some of the top teams press from front with pace it is night and day.

Well sir. That is Valverde’s Barça. I’ve seen them press hard on only 2 occasions. The first half against Sevilla and the first leg of the Copa against Valencia.

The thing is Coutinho will press hard. He played under Klopp who is firm believer in a gegenpressing.

 

[JamDav1982]

Well sir. That is Valverde’s Barça. I’ve seen them press hard on only 2 occasions. The first half against Sevilla and the first leg of the Copa against Valencia.

The thing is Coutinho will press hard. He played under Klopp who is firm believer in a gegenpressing.

It is Valverde adapting to the players he has. He is not telling Messi to barely press.

Barca cant press from front the way likes of Liverpool have when dont have players to do it.

Coutinho will press but it breaks down unless all players are doing it and for all the things Messi brings on the ball he causes issues defensively and Valverde is trying to find ways round it.

 

[Stoichkov1]

It is Valverde adapting to the players he has. He is not telling Messi to barely press.

Barca cant press from front the way likes of Liverpool have when dont have players to do it.

Coutinho will press but it breaks down unless all players are doing it and for all the things Messi brings on the ball he causes issues defensively and Valverde is trying to find ways round it.

Messi didn't press even under Pep apart from the first season, he doesn't have enough stamina.

 

[JamDav1982]

Messi didn't press even under Pep apart from the first season, he doesn't have enough stamina.

Pep got round it a bit with the best midfield of all time on the ball and less need for defensive work from him although he has pressed more since then.

Pressed a lot more in the second half of last treble season.

 

[serghei]

Messi used to do pressing under Pep. Not as much as Pedro or even Villa, but a lot more than post Guardiola.

 

[Lelouch vi Britannia]

Can we please not collapse in the second half of the season for once?

 

[MessiCam]

It is Valverde adapting to the players he has. He is not telling Messi to barely press.

Barca cant press from front the way likes of Liverpool have when dont have players to do it.

Coutinho will press but it breaks down unless all players are doing it and for all the things Messi brings on the ball he causes issues defensively and Valverde is trying to find ways round it.

I can't accept the lack of pressing is to do with Valverde adapting to the players he has... Because, I've seen the very same players do it under his tenure.

Valverde prefers defensive shape and then attacking by means of transitions. Nothing wrong with it but I'm just not a fan of it. It's decidedly Blibao-like...

But you're right, Messi has never been a pressing monster but that's because he was and still is the outlet. Also. the 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 doesn't really allow for these overloads high up.

It is what it is though.

 

[DonAndres]

You're wrong.

1) The fact that we've already won the league is not true. Teams like Manchester City or Bayern Munich have already won the league since they have a 16 and 19 points advantage over the second. We have only 7 over Atletico.

Atletico got 55 points in 24 matches, which means they'll finish with 87 points if they keep this pace. Since 2013/14 Atletico finished with 90, 78, 88 and 78 points. So it's not unrealistic to expect that they can get 87/90 points in the end if they have already done so, especially considering that their bad seasons were 2014/15 and 2016/17 when they conceded 29 and 27 goals. This year they conceded 9 in 24, their defence is even better than in 2014 or 2016 when they finished first and third 2 points behind us. If we don't try too hard in the league they'll catch us.

2) RM was forced to prioritize the CL because they lost the league in December, not because they chose to. CL is the most prestigious club competition in the world but every club shoud have as the main target every season the league, not the CL. The CL is decided on small details and luck, even if a team gives the 100% in this competition there's no guarantee they'll win it. Real Madrid in 2013 already lost the league in December, they tried their best to win the CL and they couldn't. It was a
disastrous season for them. If Juanfran didn't miss the penalty in 2016 it would have been another trophyless season for RM.

The no1 objective of the team is by definition the one that is 'the most' achievable by doing your best overall, with other factors that depend on luck being at their minimum impact. That is the domestic league. The competition that has the most equality of chances and conditions is the one that is the most likely to provide the best winner. You get to play the same teams as everyone else in the league. So, you won't have a case where one team plays the hardest opponents, and one team just cruises to a final playing Europa League level teams. You can't make the CL the most important objective of the team, because there are too many factors that decide the winner and are not in your control.

Madrid never win the CL in 2016 without that joke of a draw. Absolutely never. They lose to Barca, Bayern in 2 ties. But one thing is to play Barca and Bayern back to back, and another thing is to play Wolfsburg (were 10th place in Bundesliga at the time or so! 10th!!!) and Man City (the shit version, the one that barely made top 4 in England).

So, the hierarcy of the priorities (not to be confused with prestige) each season is League > CL >>>> CDR, simply because you have the certainty that if you play well enough during the season you will win the League. It's the kind of assurance that CL just doesn't give you. The sample is too small, the draws are too important, and the referee has too much influence over a tie.

That being said, I agree that Valverde took some risks overplaying some key players who are older, and not playing talented players in their place, with minimum risks in the league. Not because the League is won, which it clearly isn't (check [MENTION=22493]Stoichkov1[/MENTION] stats, showing AM is so far playing potentially a title winning campaign if we slow down and start wasting points). But because there are some good players in this squad that are stupidly underutilized.

You both need to look at the context. Strength of schedule is a thing. I said before that their next 5 away trips are Sevilla, Barca, Villarreal, RM, and Sociedad. In the first round they played all those teams at home and only won 2 (Sevilla and Sociedad), drawing the other 3 (along with a lot of other draws). After that they had a relatively easier schedule with favorable home games and have had good form in La Liga.

However, now they are playing those 5 teams away. This Atletico side got KO'd from the CDR by Sevilla with an aggregate score of 5-2 just a few weeks ago. And they were playing with a full squad, not half assing it like RM did vs Leganes. Atleti are facing an uphill battle and are likely to drop points in a couple of those away games at LEAST.

On the other hand, every single difficult team we play for the rest of La Liga is a home fixture. And we also just got Coutinho and Dembele back from injury, and should be using them to help keep everyone else fit. The tide is in our favor. The point differential is realistically going to increase, not decrease. This season's current form is a better indicator of league performance than whatever Atleti did back in 2013/14, when more than half their starters were different. And the context says that Atleti are going to have a harder time in the league now than they have for a few months.

A top team especially the likes of RM and Barca should be able to coast to some degree in the league. It's actually BETTER to do so because it conserves energy and keeps your form as consistent as possible instead of gassing out later on in the league as we have somewhat done the past few weeks. This is true for any sport in the regular season vs the KO playoff rounds, teams up their intensity and focus. American football, baseball, hockey, and basketball players all try visibly harder in the postseason. Tennis players play harder in Grand Slams than minor ones, etc. And football teams should be able to bring an extra gear to the CL, that is just the competitive nature of the competition.

Teams try harder, it is more cutthroat. If you compare statistics for distance traveled in a match the top 10 highest in the EPL only barely go up to 12km/game and very few of those are midfielders for CL teams, mostly smaller club players that have to work harder in the league. However the top 10 in the CL respectively cover a larger amount of distance, a majority of whom are from big CL contenders, and the range goes up to almost 13.5km/game. The data shows that players from big clubs tend to try a lot harder in the CL and play at a more intense level. Matic for example was #2 in the EPL and #1 in the CL for that season in distance covered, and he ran almost 1.5km/game more in the CL which is pretty difficult at that point of exertion. These stats are both from 14/15 by the way.

And if your squad is tired or out of rhythm for these more intense games, you are just asking to be outplayed or outdefended, simple as that. You must be able to play at your hardest in these CL knockouts.

 

[Zincubus]

Can we please not collapse in the second half of the season for once?

Rather poor timing for this post given our current form and we play an in form Chelsea with Hazard going directly up against Rakitic and Sergi Roberto ... what could go wrong

 

[Ghostmaster]

Rather poor timing for this post given our current form and we play an in form Chelsea with Hazard going directly up against Rakitic and Sergi Roberto ... what could go wrong

Chelsea has played West Ham who are at the bottom of the table in PL and Hull City who are at the bottom of the table in Championship. Had we played Malaga and Murcia before Chelsea game maybe we would have been in better form.

 

[jairzinho]

I don’t get this thing about Chelsea being in better form.

They’ve been awful since the start of the year and got a break against Hull and West Ham, a championship team and a bottom place epl team.

Prior to that they were exposed by two mid table teams.

Their form isn’t great but nonetheless they do have genuine attacking players that can hurt us.

 

[Aryagorn]

I don’t get this thing about Chelsea being in better form.

They’ve been awful since the start of the year and got a break against Hull and West Ham, a championship team and a bottom place epl team.

Prior to that they were exposed by two mid table teams.

Their form isn’t great but nonetheless they do have genuine attacking players that can hurt us.

.