Vilarrubi
New member
My genuine thoughts on Rakitic:
He looked good during the early MSN era, because there were Iniesta, Busquets and even Xavi in fine form; they were able to draw alot of defenders in one area through their stellar dribbles and passes, Rakitic was then able to exploit the space left behind by his compatriots and drive long passes or switch plays to Neymar or Dani Alves, who are often making runs on the left and right respectively due to their burst of pace. He also provided extra defensive aid whenever Barcelona gets caught in a tight situation and an extra men upfield whenever they are on a counter attack. His workrate was amazing back then.
Despite all that, Rakitic has always been slow, really slow, and was never really too good at tight space dribbling, largely has to rely on his teammates to do that at times. Fast forward to 2017, his flaws becomes more apparent and magnified due to the lack of controlling midfielders, fast wingers and fullbacks on both sides (Alba and Roberto, No Neymar, no Dembele). Rakitic now often gets caught more in tight spaces and run out of ideas of who to pass to, more often than not, resulting in him taking the safer route and passes most of the time.
There is still no doubt Rakitic has lost some of passing or longshot techniques and most prominently, his workrate and pace on the field. Especially with so many old players who lost their pace, namely Suarez, Messi, Iniesta and maybe even Alba who now work alone without Neymar, Rakitic can ultimately get exposed pretty badly. Worse of all, with Paulinho now co-existing with Rakitic in a 442 setup, who are both somewhat "workhorses", it simply is a recipe for disaster. With both of them lacking options to pass to, it will only double the problem that already exists: lack of width. You simply cant have too many workhorses on the field, their similar flaws will definitely cause more incongruity and their inability to compensate each other.
For the sake of the greater good, Barcelona has to give up either one of them, and Gomes. Rakitic is not a bad player; he's just not relevant anymore due to his age and decline.
Yeah very nice post!
Solution = Buy Coutinho for midfield