Ernesto Valverde - V1

xXKonan

xXKonan

Senior Member
I think Valverde wants a team that can not only dominate possession but also is comfortable at ceding possession to the other team as in sitting back in defending.

But the players we have that did play in systems that rely on sitting back are Suarez, Rakitic, Vidal and even to an extent Dembele who would thrive in a counterattack setup. Problem is all those guys but Dembele no longer has the legs to play in a system like that.

Guys like Busi are designed to play in teams dominate the ball and always be on the front foot and defend with the ball as well. It's true that you can drill guys like Arthur, Dembele, De Jong, Alena etc into doing such that as they are younger etc.

Think the last time we had a team that felt comfortable at sitting back to an extent was the 14/15 team especially during the second half of the season. But usually, we sub in Xavi to take the reigns and slowing the game down and not make a lot of mistakes and the team was younger and much better drilled to handle defending at the time.
 
i_bleed_blaugrana

i_bleed_blaugrana

Senior Member
All of this is why, for me, he’s a poor man’s Van Gaal or del Bosque. Similar approach tactically to both, but probably not as effective. It’s the defensive side of possession football while we are largely used to Cruyff/Pep’s views, which is certainly more offensive.

But as has been said, our players are too oriented to an offensive style. All of La Masia, Arthur, Coutinho in particular, are oriented to an offensive setup while Valverde, to run with this comparison, seems to think he can get them to grind out 1-0, 2-0 wins by holding the ball. At times, I get the impression he thinks he can do what del Bosque did with Spain + Messi here, but he is missing players like Alonso & Villa who make that work a lot smoother. The problem is we turn the ball over way too much in midfield and generally aren’t clinical enough (outside of the Bernaleo) to rely on that.

The best managers utilize the best systems that get the best out of their players and my frustration is he is being stubborn with a system that isn’t really suited to our best players. EV’s tactics suit a handful of players on our squad and force our best players into imbalanced shapes to make it work. It might get across the line this season but is not sustainable.

It’s all on the players this season, in particular Luis & Dembele for me. EV’s tactics aren’t good enough to win anything on their own but between our individual brilliance and how comparatively weak our competition is this year, it might be good enough.

He’s not a bad manager clearly and he probably gets more flack on here than he deserves (see name). That said, if we win anything this season, it’ll be all Messi plus whoever else steps up winning it despite EV’s stubborness, not because of it.
 
Last edited:
George_Costanza

George_Costanza

Active member
EdmondDantes said:
I hope he's learnt his lesson. .
Click to expand...

giphy.gif


This is what I said back in October last year

George_Costanza said:
4-3-3 will only work with players such as Arthur, Alena, and Coutinho next to Busquets. You need a destroyer, creator and passer combo NOT destroyer, destroyer, creator or destroyer, destroyer, passer.

EV doesn't know how to implement 4-3-3
Click to expand...
 
G

Gnidrologist

Senior Member
And he loves to use destroyer, destroyer & destroyer combo, where none of the destroyers are good at destroying, but it guarantees that there's no creating or passing.
 
BarçaBarça

BarçaBarça

New member
Gnidrologist said:
And he loves to use destroyer, destroyer & destroyer combo, where none of the destroyers are good at destroying, but it guarantees that there's no creating or passing.
Click to expand...

Not excatly true, even though Arthur + Alena could both get more minutes. Vidal isn't a sure starter for example, I would say Arthur is preferred by Valverde over Vidal, wouldn't you?
It is a sad thing that Alena performs well and average-joe Roberto still gets picked over him, but you can't just bench Rakitic in important games, imo (Coutinho-Arthur too imbalanced, Arthur-Alena too inexperienced). I guess Coutinho-Arthur could work with enough practice, but I don't feel like we are there yet.

Raktic-Vidal is a no-go, of course, especially if Busi also plays DM. Raktic-Alena-Arthur could be fun to see again when we meet a bottom-table side.
 
G

Gnidrologist

Senior Member
Yes, Arthur is just too good for that to fly over V's head, but very fact that he even considers Raki, Busi & Vidal as a valid mid trio is appalling.
 
Z

Zidane82

Well-known member
Just to complicate things for next season .., Rakitic says he’s staying and will fight FDJ for his place in the midfield ...

Great , just great !!
 
K

kilian

Senior Member
We had numerous problems in that game. Our midfield consisted of two static pivot-like midfielders and Sergi Roberto who was completely lost. On top of that came uninterested Messi who was even more crowding our midfield with static play. We practically had only two attacking players in Dembele and Suarez and they got the job done luckily - Messi was a non-factor for the bigger part of the game, walking around the center of the pitch and completely lost Sergi Roberto who was supposed to play some hybrid right midfielder.

Our transition is too slow and we simply can`t play any other type of football without speeding up the movement of the ball in attacking phase. Is it midfielders fault, attackers fault, Valverde` fault or everyone`s...I`m not sure, but we all see that it hurts the performance of practically the whole team. No one is playing his best football for us at the moment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Home of Barca Fans

Top