messi2140
6racies Xavi
I mean if it wasnt for Valverde , Im not sure Messi would have ever scored that Freekick.
Ernesto Valverde
- Thread starter Messigician
- Start date
I mean if it wasnt for Valverde , Im not sure Messi would have ever scored that Freekick.
CatalinR10
Senior Member
Valverde ( disgusting piece of shit ) gets again a helping hand as Atletico drew away vs Alaves.
btw that Alaves equalizing goal was world class.
btw that Alaves equalizing goal was world class.
Kul_z
Senior Member
Lmao
raedkuwait
Senior Member
fuck i cant stand him at all i feel sick when i c him, why the fuck play rakatic now!?
gregorrin10
Senior Member
Of course he must bring Rakitic on (to get his favourite midfield on, even if he can't do it for 90 minutes anymore) while Alena gets finally called up to the bench at least, but sits there all game. Exactly the reason why Rakitic should've been gone last summer. If Alena doesn't even get minutes from the bench, how the hell do we expect Puig to ever make it? He should've been promoted last summer, and already getting valuable minutes in games like these. Instead Rakitic, Vidal and Busquets will stay here until retirement, while we'll lose both Alena and Puig!
Horatio
You're welcome
To rest De Jong for the games coming up.
FinBarcelonafan
Well-known member
I can't stand the guy, but Barca played well today.
Sailor Mars
Well-known member
I think Alena is very likely getting loaned out in January. Ernestine probably doesn't see him as part of his plans.
FinBarcelonafan
Well-known member
So who is going to stay? Rakitic?(Looks like he is out.. He looks depressed). Alena out.
Vidal out?
I think we should keep, Vidal, Roberto(LaMasia boy), Frenkie, Busi and Arthur. Is it enough depth? What If we get few injuries? We would be screwed. It's risky.
Total-Football
Senior Member
I'm wondering if Rakitic is more worthy of the minutes than puig and alena. Just wondering. Or is a strategic thing to keep the price high. Doubt Valverde has two moves depth in his chess repertoire though so he probably has no answer too.
Sailor Mars
Well-known member
I think one of Vidal or Rakitic will stay. Puig could be an injury call up.
FinBarcelonafan
Well-known member
True. They are trying to showcase him, so some desperate team would sign him. (Inter, Milan, ManU, Everton.. Go for it!!!)
i_bleed_blaugrana
Senior Member
Some interesting discussion in this thread the last few days...
The Good
-Some better discussion on coaching replacements and general problems/deficiencies we are seeing in the squad on the pitch and off the pitch in how its being managed
-I want to shoutout [MENTION=21136]Potroh[/MENTION] for his post on what actually goes into being a manager, especially these days. Its super easy to shout and moan about a manager or overly praise a manager and not really understand why you feel that way and I think too many football fans fall into this trap. It's even worse here in the States because just about every "football" fan over here barely has the slightest idea of the actual tactics and styles they are watching and as usual, think it's just about fancy goals and dribbles. I've had many people over here say they don't like watching possession football because "its boring" lol. So I really appreciated you listing just an introduction of what actually goes into preparing a football team these days and while there were some small things I might not totally have agreed with, a lot of that post highlights the sort of thinking that goes into this and just what it takes. Just based off your post, you would probably really appreciate a lot of Van Gaal's approaches to coaching, as a lot of the procedural thinking that you outline was the same sort of stuff that he'd drill into his teams as well. Some players loved it, others hated it but it certainly has its merits.
-I think everyone is identifying truth in the problems here, its just the degree of which problems are the biggest contributors and how to solve them that we seem to be continually split on
-Stronger and more focused discussion on Ernie's specific tactics and squad management decisions
The Bad
-Messi-bashing. Just...stop. I'll get to this more later on.
-Sometimes this feels like 2014 all over again with some of these posts. It not as simple as just running more and selling/benching the entire squad, the truth is that this squad has been in a very ambivalent state since Pep left, with different coaches bringing different players and ideas and this ambivalence has been magnified under Valverde over the last two years. So the solutions being proposed need to consider this fact first.
My Take
- I'll talk squad morale right now first and foremost. The first thing I want to address and we need to recognize is how much our preseason decisions are costing us now. The fitness levels, the lack of cohesion and unity on the pitch, the lack of dominance and offensive creation/chemistry is all due to the asinine decision to have two preseason tours in the U.S. & Japan. Ridiculous. Especially considering we badly needed to adapt two new and expensive players in the team. I give credit when its due and Valverde and the players have continually harped on how our lack of a proper preseason has affected us. That lands squarely on the board's shoulders, yet another example of their inadequacy. That being said however, I honestly think the players are finally starting to lose faith in Valverde. Messi's reaction after Slavia's goal was deeply telling to me. Luis, Ivan and Jordi backed him because he clearly doesn't hold them accountable but I feel like Leo & Sergi probably feel like they know more than he does and since they start, they can do whatever they feel like on the pitch. Both are deeply problematic. Then we have the new players like Antoine, Frenkie and in a lot of ways still Nelson who are thrown into a situation where they need direction from either the players or the coach on how they should fit and they get neither. On top of all of this, we have our failures in Europe still haunting us yet some players are clearly not working hard enough for the team. Messi feels a certain way about Neymar not being here and by extension, Antoine and he clearly doesn't trust either him or Ousmane (the latter for good reasons). Honestly, the only players I see with the right attitude on and off the pitch are Frenkie, Marc-Andre and Arthur. Just about everyone else, outside of Messi, needs to ask themselves if this is really the best they can give. So this is clearly a big factor in our current form and shouldn't be understated. And a lot of this falls on Valverde; his ideas aren't clear enough and he isn't developing our young players enough outside of giving a select few playing time and he doesn't have the guts to make tough decisions like benching underperforming vets like Luis and Jordi. Psychologically on the pitch, they players seem to believe that they aren't capable of scoring at best more than 2 or 3 goals a game and I guess, why they feel like they have to sit deep and suffer. I've never seen that from this squad; we play with fear and pessimism and are so focused on the potential danger our opponents can cause us rather than focusing on how we can hurt our opponents. So while player entitlement doesn't help, the root of this problem is still Valverde's uninspired managerial style.
- We obviously need a new coach ASAP but for me, this coach needs to be the Van Gaal to Rijkaard or the Rijkaard to Guardiola: they need to set the foundations for Xavi to perfect. We all know he is the best candidate to coach this team but he needs more experience, maybe 1-2 seasons first. I do think he could still get something out of Pique, Busi (if they are still here) and particularly Messi despite playing with him because he was as demanding as Pep was as a player here and I'm sure that will show as a coach as well. So with this in mind and I've said this before, my number one candidate post-Ernie is Garcia Pimienta, number 2 would be Gallardo. Either of those managers, I think, could at the very least motivate the players with a no-bullshit attitude that made Lucho kinda work here but have better ideas on how to successfully implement positional play football than either Lucho or Valverde. The thing with Pimienta is that he produced wonders with our youth team, he played a role in developing talents like Alena, Puig, Morey, Ruiz etc. and our young players would flourish under him. His style will suit our veterans obviously but he will expect them to work for the team or ride the pine, which is key. Him and Gallardo represent a nice in-between of Lucho & Pep, the coaches that produced the best results with this squad. I wouldn't be upset with Koeman but he has some similarities with Valverde that make me question if he'd be all that much better, Setien's style is a great fit but I do not think he could handle the dressing room being an outsider. Both Pimienta and Gallardo are obvious risks but I've outlined what mitigates the risk with Pimienta, with Gallardo, its not quite as clear cut. I'd have my questions on how he'd adapt to the European game but River Plate do a lot of the things that Pep's Barca did as well and I think his personality could handle our dressing room better than someone like Setien. In particular, I think Pimienta and Gallardo, at least from what I have seen from the 5-10 games I've watched of them, could handle Messi tactically, which brings me to my last point.
- Question Messi at your own peril. He proved it today but people need to get over expecting him to run as much as he did earlier in his career, he doesn't have the legs for it, nor should he. His free role, quasi-RW role really isn't that hard to deal with tactically, we just need the right players supporting him. Arthur/FDJ at RCM is a good start but I'm really not sold on Semedo being able to provide threat from wide consistently. Plenty of teams have players with free roles, Ronaldo obviously at Juve but even Salah at Liverpool doesn't have as much defensive responsibility as the others, they play for him. What I do agree with is the notion that we cannot have Messi AND Luis doing this but Messi's consistent production in the final third allows him to do as he pleases, in my book. The only thing I'd like to see differently from him is to see him drop a little less than he does, we have the quality in MF now for him to be able to stay in the final third more but Valverde hasn't coached him on this, nor has he developed a system that doesn't force him to do that to get the ball forward.
Anyways, I know that's a lot but its been a minute since I've posted like this and I had a lot to share. This team will do enough to secure a La Liga where neither of our rivals look up to the task but will surely get exposed the minute we get into a knockout CL tie away from home. This Jekyll and Hyde shit will not go away until Valverde is gone and we have a manager who has enough passion and tactical nous to both inspire these players to move past those demons while also producing a recognizable pattern of play for this club. I really don't see why people continue to defend him, his failures are blatantly apparent with each passing game, even when we play well.
The Good
-Some better discussion on coaching replacements and general problems/deficiencies we are seeing in the squad on the pitch and off the pitch in how its being managed
-I want to shoutout [MENTION=21136]Potroh[/MENTION] for his post on what actually goes into being a manager, especially these days. Its super easy to shout and moan about a manager or overly praise a manager and not really understand why you feel that way and I think too many football fans fall into this trap. It's even worse here in the States because just about every "football" fan over here barely has the slightest idea of the actual tactics and styles they are watching and as usual, think it's just about fancy goals and dribbles. I've had many people over here say they don't like watching possession football because "its boring" lol. So I really appreciated you listing just an introduction of what actually goes into preparing a football team these days and while there were some small things I might not totally have agreed with, a lot of that post highlights the sort of thinking that goes into this and just what it takes. Just based off your post, you would probably really appreciate a lot of Van Gaal's approaches to coaching, as a lot of the procedural thinking that you outline was the same sort of stuff that he'd drill into his teams as well. Some players loved it, others hated it but it certainly has its merits.
-I think everyone is identifying truth in the problems here, its just the degree of which problems are the biggest contributors and how to solve them that we seem to be continually split on
-Stronger and more focused discussion on Ernie's specific tactics and squad management decisions
The Bad
-Messi-bashing. Just...stop. I'll get to this more later on.
-Sometimes this feels like 2014 all over again with some of these posts. It not as simple as just running more and selling/benching the entire squad, the truth is that this squad has been in a very ambivalent state since Pep left, with different coaches bringing different players and ideas and this ambivalence has been magnified under Valverde over the last two years. So the solutions being proposed need to consider this fact first.
My Take
- I'll talk squad morale right now first and foremost. The first thing I want to address and we need to recognize is how much our preseason decisions are costing us now. The fitness levels, the lack of cohesion and unity on the pitch, the lack of dominance and offensive creation/chemistry is all due to the asinine decision to have two preseason tours in the U.S. & Japan. Ridiculous. Especially considering we badly needed to adapt two new and expensive players in the team. I give credit when its due and Valverde and the players have continually harped on how our lack of a proper preseason has affected us. That lands squarely on the board's shoulders, yet another example of their inadequacy. That being said however, I honestly think the players are finally starting to lose faith in Valverde. Messi's reaction after Slavia's goal was deeply telling to me. Luis, Ivan and Jordi backed him because he clearly doesn't hold them accountable but I feel like Leo & Sergi probably feel like they know more than he does and since they start, they can do whatever they feel like on the pitch. Both are deeply problematic. Then we have the new players like Antoine, Frenkie and in a lot of ways still Nelson who are thrown into a situation where they need direction from either the players or the coach on how they should fit and they get neither. On top of all of this, we have our failures in Europe still haunting us yet some players are clearly not working hard enough for the team. Messi feels a certain way about Neymar not being here and by extension, Antoine and he clearly doesn't trust either him or Ousmane (the latter for good reasons). Honestly, the only players I see with the right attitude on and off the pitch are Frenkie, Marc-Andre and Arthur. Just about everyone else, outside of Messi, needs to ask themselves if this is really the best they can give. So this is clearly a big factor in our current form and shouldn't be understated. And a lot of this falls on Valverde; his ideas aren't clear enough and he isn't developing our young players enough outside of giving a select few playing time and he doesn't have the guts to make tough decisions like benching underperforming vets like Luis and Jordi. Psychologically on the pitch, they players seem to believe that they aren't capable of scoring at best more than 2 or 3 goals a game and I guess, why they feel like they have to sit deep and suffer. I've never seen that from this squad; we play with fear and pessimism and are so focused on the potential danger our opponents can cause us rather than focusing on how we can hurt our opponents. So while player entitlement doesn't help, the root of this problem is still Valverde's uninspired managerial style.
- We obviously need a new coach ASAP but for me, this coach needs to be the Van Gaal to Rijkaard or the Rijkaard to Guardiola: they need to set the foundations for Xavi to perfect. We all know he is the best candidate to coach this team but he needs more experience, maybe 1-2 seasons first. I do think he could still get something out of Pique, Busi (if they are still here) and particularly Messi despite playing with him because he was as demanding as Pep was as a player here and I'm sure that will show as a coach as well. So with this in mind and I've said this before, my number one candidate post-Ernie is Garcia Pimienta, number 2 would be Gallardo. Either of those managers, I think, could at the very least motivate the players with a no-bullshit attitude that made Lucho kinda work here but have better ideas on how to successfully implement positional play football than either Lucho or Valverde. The thing with Pimienta is that he produced wonders with our youth team, he played a role in developing talents like Alena, Puig, Morey, Ruiz etc. and our young players would flourish under him. His style will suit our veterans obviously but he will expect them to work for the team or ride the pine, which is key. Him and Gallardo represent a nice in-between of Lucho & Pep, the coaches that produced the best results with this squad. I wouldn't be upset with Koeman but he has some similarities with Valverde that make me question if he'd be all that much better, Setien's style is a great fit but I do not think he could handle the dressing room being an outsider. Both Pimienta and Gallardo are obvious risks but I've outlined what mitigates the risk with Pimienta, with Gallardo, its not quite as clear cut. I'd have my questions on how he'd adapt to the European game but River Plate do a lot of the things that Pep's Barca did as well and I think his personality could handle our dressing room better than someone like Setien. In particular, I think Pimienta and Gallardo, at least from what I have seen from the 5-10 games I've watched of them, could handle Messi tactically, which brings me to my last point.
- Question Messi at your own peril. He proved it today but people need to get over expecting him to run as much as he did earlier in his career, he doesn't have the legs for it, nor should he. His free role, quasi-RW role really isn't that hard to deal with tactically, we just need the right players supporting him. Arthur/FDJ at RCM is a good start but I'm really not sold on Semedo being able to provide threat from wide consistently. Plenty of teams have players with free roles, Ronaldo obviously at Juve but even Salah at Liverpool doesn't have as much defensive responsibility as the others, they play for him. What I do agree with is the notion that we cannot have Messi AND Luis doing this but Messi's consistent production in the final third allows him to do as he pleases, in my book. The only thing I'd like to see differently from him is to see him drop a little less than he does, we have the quality in MF now for him to be able to stay in the final third more but Valverde hasn't coached him on this, nor has he developed a system that doesn't force him to do that to get the ball forward.
Anyways, I know that's a lot but its been a minute since I've posted like this and I had a lot to share. This team will do enough to secure a La Liga where neither of our rivals look up to the task but will surely get exposed the minute we get into a knockout CL tie away from home. This Jekyll and Hyde shit will not go away until Valverde is gone and we have a manager who has enough passion and tactical nous to both inspire these players to move past those demons while also producing a recognizable pattern of play for this club. I really don't see why people continue to defend him, his failures are blatantly apparent with each passing game, even when we play well.
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