Ernesto Valverde - V1

[Cule4life]

The best manager for improving players and developing younger ones is Klopp .., virtually every player in the first team squad has improved dramatically

Fucking hell how much is Klopp paying you to peddle him? If you have nothing to contribute stop posting.

 

[serghei]

Both fanbases currently think their team has bigger squad/management flaws than their opponent. That's why these guys think Barca is useless. You don't end up being a double champion by being shit when at least 2 other teams have rose to prominence last year. Equally, fans of both teams are inclined to see flaws of both teams as not being big deals.

Point being - don't go on a rival forum and take majority's view as correct. It usually isn't.



^ pretty much this.

Barca has on average won about one away game in the knockouts out of 3 (if you include finals it would skew to 2) for nearly a decade. That's less than 50% winning record against top European sides. Nothing new and won't disappear with a touch of a magic wand. And advancing on draws vs Chelsea is the sort of thing great managers would have happen to them.

I see. So basically Valverde has kept the flaws of the old Barca (minus the great versions like the ones from 10-11, 14-15) and added sone new ones. I thought the discussion is about how Valverde has sacrificed the entertainment aspect of the team for extra edge on getting results. Isn't that the point?

But here you are talking about how he changed nothing from the older versions of Barca in away games, except losing to weaker teams and playing worse football.

So if the flaws in Europe are the same as in 2016-17 (except we lost 3-0 to Italy's 3rd best, not Serie A champions like Juve) and the team is playing worse football, then what exactly did Valverde bring outside his domestic steadiness?

 

[Mitchell1978]

Will leave a giant hole with Messi and Suarez not tracking back. That's just asking for trouble.

What would be the difference with the current formation then? Defensively it would be a 4-4-2 as it is now.

 

[serghei]

You do know our tactics changed since early 2017/2018.

I remember people being very content with those results considering our situation.

Maybe those people thought Valverde would carry this style to a CL win and were willing to accept deviation from our style, after 2 failed campaigns in CL previously. Little did they know we was going to park the bus on Olimpico only to get sucker-punched by freaking Roma.

 

[El Gato]

I see. So basically Valverde has kept the flaws of the old Barca (minus the great versions like the ones from 10-11, 14-15) and added sone new ones. I thought the discussion is about how Valverde has sacrificed the entertainment aspect of the team for extra edge on getting results. Isn't that the point?

But here you are talking about how he changed nothing from the older versions of Barca in away games, except losing to weaker teams and playing worse football.

So if the flaws in Europe are the same as in 2016-17 (except we lost 3-0 to Italy's 3rd best, not Serie A champions like Juve) and the team is playing worse football, then what exactly did Valverde bring outside his domestic steadiness?

Basically that. Improved at home soil relative to the year prior conceding less while doing so. Basics.
Given that the CL away struggles are a constant no matter who comes in (shy of either a revolutionary coach or an all-time-great attacking trio) the CL campaign was average at best. It's a realistic set of results you'd expect with a guy that employs reserved, responsible style and who hasn't played in the CL before. Pellegrini and Schuster didn't have the best of first-time European campaigns with big teams either. It's on EV to break out of that.

 

[Cule4life]

What would be the difference with the current formation then? Defensively it would be a 4-4-2 as it is now.

4-2-3-1 without hardworking attackers tracking back would mean chaos and no MF control. Messi loses the ball and the opposition would have a field day running at our two man midfield. Valverde's 4-4-2 was defensive with 4 MFs to maintain MF control. Nothing like the 4-2-3-1 you're suggesting

 

[serghei]

Basically that. Improved at home soil relative to the year prior conceding less while doing so. Basics.
Given that the CL away struggles are a constant no matter who comes in (shy of either a revolutionary coach or an all-time-great attacking trio) the CL campaign was average at best. It's a realistic set of results you'd expect with a guy that employs reserved, responsible style and who hasn't played in the CL before. Pellegrini and Schuster didn't have the best of first-time European campaigns with big teams either. It's on EV to break out of that.

That's not good enough. La Liga and challenge for CL are the objectives.

 

[soul24rage]

4-2-3-1 without hardworking attackers tracking back would mean chaos and no MF control. Messi loses the ball and the opposition would have a field day running at our two man midfield. Valverde's 4-4-2 was defensive with 4 MFs to maintain MF control. Nothing like the 4-2-3-1 you're suggesting

If our starting 11 is a 433 with Cou, Busi and Rakitic in midifeld and Dembele, Suarez and Messi as our front three, that would mean that opponents are going to attack our right side since Messi doesn't defend and Rakitic will have to cover that space to help our RB so it's going to be a 4 MFs anyways with Cou and Busi in the middle and Dembele helping the LB. The only way that I could think of to counter this is if Suarez drop deep to help Cou and Busi in midfield and use Messi as an attacking outlet whenever the team wins back possession.

 

[Joan]

As long as every debate's going to start and and end with the match in Rome... we're not going places.

 

[El Gato]

That's not good enough. La Liga and challenge for CL are the objectives.

Perhaps fair. But that's a retrospect judgement. These things are always objectives, but aren't always reasonable. Not sure what people expect of a manager who is at the level of the two managers I mentioned before and how his CL will go is a complete unknown. In most cases with such coaches they don't go amazingly. But getting a 2nd season is paramount to their progress. Pellegrini didn't get it in Madrid and took him 3 years to get to CL semis with City. Schuster just faded back into obscurity too. EV to me doesn't look like a lost cause and shouldn't be treated as such.

 

[Barcilliant]

Why did we sign new players when all he does is play the same old 11 or some weird starting 11???

This guy fucking sucks.

 

[Barcilliant]

Maybe those people thought Valverde would carry this style to a CL win and were willing to accept deviation from our style, after 2 failed campaigns in CL previously. Little did they know we was going to park the bus on Olimpico only to get sucker-punched by freaking Roma.

😂 So true!

 

[xXKonan]

When it comes to developing talents I'm going to be realistic here since it's different in Bilbao and Barcelona.

However, we are at this stage that we really can't afford to ignore the younger players we have in the squad with an XI that has quite a number of players who are getting older. Adding Coutinho and Dembele was pretty simple as Iniesta was getting older and he decided to head off to Japan and Dembele was suppose to be the guy to replace Neymar after he left. though the transisition wasn't smooth by any means

But then you then you have to look at guys like Pique, Suarez, Busi, Rakitic, Messi and even Alba who turns 30 next season and a guy who relies a lot on pace. Busi is slowing down but he's still a pivotal player for us in the Midfield as without him we can't control shit. Messi is Messi and Rakitic is also Rakitic at least right now.

Pique and Suarez are two guys that we seriously need to start looking at phasing out here very soon. Pique was never the fastest nor the greatest in 1v1 duels but he made up for it in other areas such as his ball playing ability and when focused he's still was a WC defender. But these days he's so preoccupied by a number of things off field and his concentration levels have dropped and he's being made a fool of to easily on the field. The days of him returning to that 14/15-15-16 level are not coming back since he's getting older.

Suarez, his problems speak for themselves. He looks nothing like he did back when he was at Liverpool and the treble and double winning seasons here. It's expected since he turns 32 years old in about four months but his overall ability declined so much.

Sure every once in a while he shows us some of that old school Suarez, but those times are to infrequent for him to still be playing like 95% of the matches.

 

[Laplacian]

I just want better off the ball movement man. Chelsea makes you realize just how important coaches are. Yeah yeah no trophies but look at them, 5 games they're already far more fluid than us.

 

[henias]

Except that his approach to big matches wasn't 'all over the place' last season. Barca struggling away in the CL is nothing new. He didn't improve there, that's true. Atletico (1-1, 1-0), Real (3-0, 2-2), Juventus (3-0) etc. Losing to Roma doesn't change it. He resorted to a more defensive approach in big matches (which worked well with Paulinho). This season it's going to be different.

The Juventus 3-0 game was the only good game which kinda gave a good idea the foundation we should start building on, especially with the departure of Alves and Messi RW problems. Dembele got injured then he switched tactics, did well again but ever since Dembele got back from injury he lost it entirely there. Lost any kind of attacking clue, losing to Roma was just a result of his lack of ideas and vision that he's been showing week in week out prior to the big matches. People only looking at results dont want to address problems, that is why Roma is there to expose all of them. "Roma is just one match we lost" is a common misconception, because it exactly highlights what kind of problems we have. Scraping some very sketchy wins in La Liga doesnt change the fact that there's serious problems with our tactics.

This season is not going to be much of a difference because I see the same problems during Lucho's late season. And Ev's approach has always been subbing out Semedo when we're struggling, while people like Pique is leaving all kinds of gaps in the defence. Roberto didnt do much to help either.

It honestly boggles my mind how people think this season would be a breakthrough CL season with Valverde. Realistically speaking, we still have many loopholes not addressed yet. Depth wise, we only look good on paper but Valverde is doing the bare minimum to maximise our potential, because he is still stuck with that defensive stagnant mindset, especially with no intentions of utilising counter attacking. No real system to teamplay as well.

There simply isnt gonna be a much of difference this season.