Ernesto Valverde

[Messigician]

Man, it was a huge mistake not to get Klopp when he was available.

Yeah when he had Dortmund fighting relegation while we had prime MSN. Hindsight is key...

 

[MTL_Barca]

Teflon Ernie will just win the next home game and be safe again.

 

[BBZ8800]

Lol BBZ keeps calling Dembele low IQ for getting the same injuries over and over, and repeating the same mistakes in game.

Meanwhile, BBZ posits new 'theories' every game to suit his agenda but reverts to the SAME 'player are old and squad is crap' bile to defend his beloved EV.

Say it with me...

LOW IQ BBZ

I'll quote your post, but this is a reply to other guys as well.
Imo, a problem of majority of you guys are a few things:
1. majority of fans started to follow Barca during Pep.
So, you started to follow Barca in our best era, and everything after that will naturally be a huge disappointment.
In terms of a beautiful play, in terms of a coach, in terms of individual players, in terms of movement, in terms of results, in terms of a climate around a club.
2. further, the 2nd big problem, you guys are always scapegoating one thing and ignoring 10s of other problems which will still remain even if you change one thing.

For example, a match between Liverpool and Barca, where for example Rakitic was a scapegoat for our horrible midfield play, build up, lack of movement, lack of a build up play, lol.
Let's check what a good team has (for example: Rijkaard's Barca from 2004-2006, Pep's Barca, a current City and Liverpool):
1. no1: when a pivot or a midfielder gets the ball, those teams are able to avoid press and move the ball into an opponent's half.
Fine, Rakitic sucks in that.
And if you can't do that, of course that you won't be able to move to other aspects of the game.
2. further: once when you get the ball into the opponent's half, now you need good midfielders and tactics with: pace, technique, movement, IQ, and where midfielders and fullbacks: CAN keep the ball and KNOW what to do with it in terms: they have an idea how to get the ball into the attacking third.
3. finally: you need midfielders/fullbacks/attackers who will play key passes, or dribble and create chances for attackers.
4. further: not only that you need midfielders who will KNOW what to do with the ball and how to make a final pass, but you also need attackers (and maybe fullbacks and 1 CAM) to make good runs and off the ball movement to get into a good positions to receive the ball
5. further, it is better if a team has several different types of actions/weapons. If you can play both possession, counters, crosses, long balls, headers after corners and long range shots from outside of a box.
6. when your attackers DO receive a pass, you need lethal finishers who will actually be able to score some goals.
7. let's move to some other areas, let's say defending:
When Liverpool has the ball, we need 3 attackers who will make a press.
8. if we don't get the ball back, then we need midfielders who will have some pace and defending skills to try to get the ball back.
9. if that doesn't work, we need defenders who can defend. Good defending skills and especially PACE helps here.
10. further, since Champions league teams are not dumb, they know that our weakest spot in defense is: aerial play, and the same as Roma and Liverpool has showed, majority of big teams will try to kill us with counters, long balls into space (requires pace and heading from Barca's defending), regular crosses into a box (requires heading from our defenders) and headers after corners (it requires height and headers from our whole team).
11. let's move to other aspects of a game:
For example AGE. We are the oldest top team in the world.
With older players, it is harder to execute these things from above: you won't have pace, you will have a weaker stamina, it will be harder to press the opponent, it will be harder to run off the ball and get into a good chances to shoot and score, and in defense it will be hard to defend against counters and long balls into space.
12. motivation: we have never had a team which has won as much as a current team. That means that our motivation is probably the lowest from all other winning teams in a history of football. Quite likely we have the most complacent team ever. Now, try to run, press, move, defend and find the motivation in tough moments when you have the oldest and the most complacent team in a history of football.
13. another problem: no leaders in a team. And probably only 1-2 fighters (Vidal, and Pique to some extent).
14. Then a problem of rotations and saving the energy for a CL.
For example, today we can't field a proper midfield. Only Frenkie and Arthur can do majority of required things. Who is the 3rd guy? NO ONE.
Now, not only that we don't have a 3rd proper guy. But even if you find one, let's say Busi, then you have to play Busi-Frenkie-Arthur a lot, since:
1) all other options suck and we will struggle to win even with our best midfield trio
2) you need chemistry between those 3 players
3) but now, if you play a CL match on Wednesday, then you need to rest some of these midfielders because they will be dead tired in a CL.
And now, even when everyone are fit, we can't field 3 proper midfielders.
Now, if you need to rest and rotate, WHO will play? And HOW to WIN matches against Celta and Osasuna away, if you need to field 1-2 squad level midfielders?
The same applies for attack.
Messi needs to be rested.
And then imagine matches before CL quarters, where you need to rest: Frenkie, Arthur, Messi, Suarez, Pique, Alba.
Who will play, lol? Rakitic, Vidal, Puig, Firpo, Fati and Perez, lol? An awesome lineup.
15. on top of resting, you need to have a man management and rotate players to make them happy and to raise their motivation. And of course, to improve them.
Now, rotating is easy if you have 10 points advantage.
What to do today when we suck and we can't afford to lose points?
We need to play with the best 11 (and even our best 11 sucks).
How to rotate players when we can't rotate?
And how to give chances NOW to guys like Firpo and Puig, when we are on a verge of a defeat in every game?

These are only some problems of our team.
And now, let's go back to Liverpool's game.
When people said: Rakitic was a main reason for everything, lol.

Now, go point by point and remove Rakitic from the maths:
1. if he doesn't play, you will fix the 1st problem: you will have more press resistance, fine
2. what now? Once when you have the ball, you still won't be able to do anything with it.
Against Dortmund, Frenkie and Arthur had possession, but still couldn't create a single chance. Removing Raki won't solve that. We will still suck against stronger teams.
3. midfielders and fullbacks playing key passes? Again: braindead Semedo and midfielders who are more pivots than CAMs. Good luck in creating chances.
4. attackers running off the ball? Good luck with that. Messi will be 33 soon and he was always lazy in movement. It worked until a certain point, but...
Suarez, the same.
Griezmann, lol.
5. do we have several attacking weapons? Lol.
We can't play counters since our buildup is granny slow and our attackers are=again granny slow.
We can't play crosses because we have a team of midgets.
We can't play corners because we have a team of midgets.
We don't try longshots=because that is some weird idea from Pep's days to keep the ball and shoot only from a perfect positions/situations.
6. who will score goals? Suarez didn't score for 4 years on an away CL match. Griezmann, lol. And our midfielders are more pivots than scorers. And then, as always, you have a mighty Semedo as a RB.
7. defending. Will Messi and Suarez press Liverpool's players? Lol.
8. Ok, our midfield will press, that part is fixed.
9. Our defense. Do we have any pace? No
10. Defending against crosses without Rakitic? Well, in this area we will turn to even worse.
Defending against corners without Rakitic? If you sub Arthur for Raki, our corners against Liverpool will be an even bigger horror show. So, we are also weaker in this area after a change.
11. age: still the oldest team in a universe.
12. motivation: we will still have the most complacent team ever.
13. leaders? Lol.
14. rotations? You can't rotate since we don't even have 3 proper midfielders.

So, you see, this is THE REAL BARCA.
A team with 100s of problems. The board, bad sporting directors, horrible transfers, long contracts to old complacent players, a bad coach, bad players, complacent players, old players, slow players, tons of weird fits.

But people need a solution and the simplest thing is to pick a scapegoat (Rakitic after Liverpool) and claim that everything will be fixed without him. Lol.
Out of 15 problems, you will fix 2 problems at max. Not to mention that you will create 2 new problems in defense, crosses and after corners. (We conceded from corners in the last 3 CL defeats: Juve 3:0 the 3rd goal, Roma 3:0 the 3rd goal, Liverpool 4:0 the 4th goal).

Imo, the same will be with EV.
Remove him, you will fix 2-3 problems and we will still have 12 problems.

Further, someone said that we play bad for 2 years in a row.
Lol.
Isn't it more like: 4 years in a row?
Or 6 years in a row since Tata, with the exception in 2015?
We sucked in 2016 under Lucho.
We sucked even more in 2016/17 under Lucho.
We sucked in 2018 and 2019 under EV.
We suck even more this season.
That is not only on EV. That is 4 years in a row of horrible displays and a downward spiral of form, movement, pace, motivation, everything.

Further, someone mentioned Pep and Klopp and their transfers. Lol again.
They are free to buy whom they want.
Do you think that Barto or coaches picked: Arda, Dembele, Coutinho, Malcom, Griezmann. And even Neymar vol2?
Barto is buying superstars, panic buys and electoral signings to silence the fans.
Pep and Klopp are buying whom they need.
Also, a project Pep or Klopp is a 3-4-5 years long project.
At Barca, you never know. You can get sacked in 3 Months. There is no LONGTERM here. It is all about: NOW, NOW, NOW. Either you deliver or you are dead.

For the end, I will tell one story from Rijkaard-Laporta era.
In the first 3 summers, Laporta was quiet and smart.
He allowed a coach Rijkaard and a sporting director Txiki to build a team.
But when we won a CL in 2006, Laporta suddenly decided that he wants to get more involved in transfers.
And that summer, since Larsson has left a team, we needed a new attacker.
Txiki was the smartest, and he didn't want to reinvent a wheel. He wanted a similar player to Larsson, a true no9: Diego Forlan.
Rijkaard wanted something new and he wanted a weird hybrid of a Cf-Cam Gudjohnsen.
Yet, Laporta wanted neither of those. He wanted Thierry Henry. Why? =because he was Laporta's favorite player of all time.
Laporta didn't care about a thing that Henry is a winger and not a CF, and that we actually needed a true no9.
But, the decision was: let's listen to a coach and give him a desired player: Gudjohnsen.
Gudi came, Larsson left and we turned to shit. More or less.
In the next summer, instead of going for the best option: a no9, Forlan, Laporta said that we need to buy "his" player and we bought Henry.
We sucked again. More or less.
Btw, regarding Henry, his words after leaving Arsenal who started to play better without him in a team: Henry said that his presence in the team might have been more of a hindrance than a help. He stated, "Because of my seniority, the fact that I was captain and my habit of screaming for the ball, they would sometimes give it to me even when I was not in the best position. So in that sense it was good for the team that I moved on.
In our team, we surely have even 10 times bigger "problem" with Messi where players are passing the ball to him in good and bad positions, and EVERY SINGLE CL opponent knows that.
Add this fact into maths: midfielders can't create, attackers don't move off the ball and are slow, every ball needs to be passed to Messi no matter what, and lately, you have RB Semedo (a man less in attack).

I have been reading all posts here and haven't found a single solution WHAT would you guys do if you were a coach today.
The only changes you offer are: Arthur-Frenkie (and nobody knows who is the 3rd guy. At first it was Roberto who can do everything better than Rakitic lol, then Busi, then Raki, then Vidal. But each of them sucks).
Majority of you would play with 10 men (that means Semedo as a RB).
The only idea which you guys offer is: play Griezmann as a NO9

In short:
1. EV sucks
2. but with or without him, we have almost 15 problems mentioned above and majority of them CAN'T be fixed with this set of players
3. majority of you guys whine how EV is stupid, how our players are good, yet nobody can offer a decent midfield (who is the 3rd midfielder? Who is a RB? What on Earth to do with our horribly balanced attack?)

 

[mc_lovin]

I'll quote your post, but this is a reply to other guys as well.
Imo, a problem of majority of you guys are a few things:
1. majority of fans started to follow Barca during Pep.
So, you started to follow Barca in our best era, and everything after that will naturally be a huge disappointment.
In terms of a beautiful play, in terms of a coach, in terms of individual players, in terms of movement, in terms of results, in terms of a climate around a club.
2. further, the 2nd big problem, you guys are always scapegoating one thing and ignoring 10s of other problems which will still remain even if you change one thing.

For example, a match between Liverpool and Barca, where for example Rakitic was a scapegoat for our horrible midfield play, build up, lack of movement, lack of a build up play, lol.

...

Cant be bothered to read any further. Do us all a favour and rewatch Anfield/Roma and focus on Rakitic. You wont find a worse midfield performance from any player, really. Of course there are more factors for our recent failures, but Rakitc is a good start (then Valverde, Galactico policy etc).


Edit: Saw something in there about Griezmann as 9 and trashing that idea: it certainly is not optimal, but our board kind of navigated us into that corner - theres no other hope for him right now. Not that I agree with this, but rather try it than discard it immediately - we would still have Suarez as an impact sub.


Edit2: One more thing: can you stop assuming every single member here thinks in extremes?

 

[JohnN]

You start by addressing the problems one by one, in order of importance in my opinion. As I mentioned before, it's not even about tactics or sporting reasons anymore.
EV needs to leave, because the team has lost all drive, unity, cohesion and confidence. A change is needed when that point is reached.

As far as sporting reasons go and since we didn't do a full overhaul of the team this season, that means we are in a transitioning phase.

So, for 2019-2020, we should phase out senior players and start introducing younger ones. Expectations should not be extremely high (but pretty high as we are Barca), at least at the start of this period, but performance improvement should be expected as time goes by and the new core of players gets consistent minutes playing together.

Players to be phased out this year could be: Suarez, Busquets, Rakitic, Vidal, Sergi, Umtiti.
Players that could be part of our core for at least a couple of years could be: Messi, Griezmann, FDJ, Arthur, Pique, Alba, Semedo, Dembele, Mats, Alena, Lenglet.
Players that could be given some opportunities: Puig, Fati, Todibo, Firpo, Wague.

If all that brings us worst results than 2018-2019 we could take two paths:
Either perform more fine tuning changes to the squad, depending on the identified deficiencies
Or go for a complete Overhaul Pep style.

 

[MagIX]

Man, it was a huge mistake not to get Klopp when he was available.

See:

Quote Originally Posted by Kewell View Post
Klopp wouldn't go to Barcelona. He chooses his clubs very specifically. He chooses clubs where he feels he can use his own "unique" talents to improve his club. He is exceptional at motivating hard working average players to a level that would be considered beyond them. For example, Origi, Wijnaldum, Milner, Henderson etc. Barcelona's philosophy is different. They buy players that are already at a very high level. He also goes to clubs where he knows he is given the time to develop players. Klopp's first 2 years were very average and actually didn't show much change from the previous manager. The results were almost identical. It's only in the end of 2017 where things started to pick up. He won't be given that time at Barcelona. Basically he attempts to resurrect "sleeping giants". All of this is in his book.

There's a reason he rejected Man Utd, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

I totally agree.
I wrote months ago about Klopp as barca coach: Klopp would have done a totally different transfer market and I think he would have made drastic decisions that would not have been accepted by the board.

.

 

[serghei]

BBZ, now you changed your mind again regarding Valverde? Last week you were saying he is not bad. Now you say he sucks. And if the manager sucks then this means he is responsible for a huge chunk of our problems because he is the guy who takes all executive decisions inside the team.

How can you not see that an incompetent manager is the no1 issue for an elite club like Barcelona is a mistery for this forum.

 

[devo901]

.....

I have read your long comment completely - do I get a cookie?

I agree completely, that the structural problems we have, can not be fixed with (an overreaction fused by frustration) like fire EV, dump raki/suarez or bring a 14year old semedo replacement. This is patch up wont do it!


btw. are you also a programmer that gets paid by clicks that are measured at the keyboard?

 

[ZenI]

It's incredible how much BBZ8800 writes, so much text

 

[Aryagorn]

Only a single player that played for Barcelona last season has been included in the best XI

Considering that it's Messi, the greatest player ever to have played football, and the team has some world class players - Goes on to show how poor the manager is!

 

[behindbrowneyes]

Only a single player that played for Barcelona last season has been included in the best XI

Considering that it's Messi, the greatest player ever to have played football - Goes on to show how poor the manager is!

Well, best XI is a shitshow anyway. I mean, Marcelo? He wasn't even indisputed starter for Madrid last season, let alone his performances. Alba had something like 17 assists. Robertson had a standout season too. Ridiculous.

I get your point though.

 

[Latschenkiefer]

It's incredible how much BBZ8800 writes, so much text

Maybe he is a deep learning google project which is trained here to write fake forum posts to influence opinions of people. It would explain his fetish for statistics and to write one of his eternally long posts he would only need seconds.

 

[mc_lovin]

Alba had a great season and threw it away at Anfield. Hard to look past that, otherwise he would have been cemented in the best 11 (I suppose, you never know with FIFA).

 

[Vilarrubi]

Marcelo’s inclusion is the funniest by far, didn’t play nearly half of the season due to Reguilon and wasn’t even in Copa America squad lol

 

[George_Costanza]

I wonder what would be Valverde's reaction if he sees BBZ die-hard illogical essays defending him. BBZ should get paid well by Valverde because I think he is the only fan on this planet that dedicates that much efforts defending him. No one comes close, never seen it in any other football forum. BBZ could have published a few books by now about Valverdism.

A piece of advice to [MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION], bro, you really could make a killing out of this nonsense. Write a book and send it to Valverde, I'm sure a guy like him who earns easy money (23m) will pay you well. Do it quick before he gets fired.