Ivan Rakitić

Barcaman

Administrator
Staff member
He wasn't that bad. He should have been more diligent in helping Roberto as we got lucky that one of those crosses didn't result with a goal for Villarreal.
 

kilian

Senior Member
He is totally useless as a RM in 442. When Valverde changed it up and put him back in central midfield, he was much better.
 

henias

New member
No, im encouraging people not to trash players just because majority does. Mediums as in blogs, yt channels, newspapers.
Typical situation after game:
Newspaper review on Rakitic - 7 played his position well and delivered some nice assists
Barcaforum - utter shit

Lmao newspapers :lol:

How about you have your own opinions and analysis for once and stop caring about what the majority or the minority say. Like I said unless they are extreme cases, the allegations on Rakitic are pretty justified.

No one is being unreasonable, it's a fact Rakitic and Suarez have been terrible. Call it trash talking all u want, people are just being honest and giving their opinions and I see no reason why people would trash talk for no reason. If u want me to rate Barcelona's players from top to bottom this season, I will gladly do it especially the starting 11. U act like people here just make fun of him for the sake of doing it, like who the hell is that bored?

Look at Opta's analysis, Rakitic link-up with the right side is always lacklustre, be it Semedo, Roberto, or Vidal. He provided us almost nothing, it's all just safe passes and a few crosses in ratio to a 1000+ minutes in Liga. Mind u, he played almost as much as Messi. His long passing are gone, long shots are shit, tell me, by Barca's standard, is it not safe to say he's shit? We might as well play Alena or Roberto, who can do the same thing.

Even if u look at TalkFCB's lastest video on Youtube, one of the top comments already mentioned Rakitic. The best and worst players on the field will stand out the most. Theres nothing u can do about it.

At the end, we are Barca fans that simply watch Barcelona and give our opinions. What gives u the right to generalise the forum and who are u to call us shit?
 
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BBZ8800

Senior Member
What do you see in Rakitic?

A player whom COACHES actually use and play as a starter mudfielder.

Unlike Roberto, who is a squad level midfielder for COACHES.
For Barcaforum fans though, Roberto is a top level, world class midfielder, whom only "stupid coaches" don't play as a cm.

People will reply: he plays as a Rb because we don't have a Rb.
Imagine if Xavi was a world class Cm and an average Rb.
Would you waste him at a Rb or would you play him as a Cm and play someone else as a Rb?

Coaches wouldn't waste him at a Rb position if he was THAT good as a cm.
Coaches are wasting him as a Rb, because as a Cm, he is as equally as flawed (or even worse), the same as Rakitic, Gomes, Denis, Rafinha.

So, the answer: Rakitic isn't good anymore.
But he is still better than current forum saviors: Denis who is not a cm at all, Roberto who is almost 26 and hasn't played 50 senior matches as a cm till now, Alena with 5 senior matches in his career, Arthur from a tactically funky Brasilian league etc.

If Rakitic is bad, it doesn't mean that his subs are suddenly better.
Denis, Roberto and similar were never Barca's starting cm material. And never will be, not even close.

About Raki, he is not that bad lately.
If his form was 2/10 a few weeks ago, imo lately he is at 4/10.
He is still poor to average, but he did improve, compared to Rakitic from September and October.
 

Raketa10

Senior Member
Someone mentioned bad defending from Rakitic. Look at this, this is clear fault of Sergi Roberto. And this is not the first time this is happening.
In the case of wall passing (2 vs 2 situation) defender needs to follow his player, while Roberto is turning around and after that he is clearly late in his reaction.

1.jpg
2.jpg
3.jpg
 
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A player whom COACHES actually use and play as a starter mudfielder.

Unlike Roberto, who is a squad level midfielder for COACHES.
For Barcaforum fans though, Roberto is a top level, world class midfielder, whom only "stupid coaches" don't play as a cm.

People will reply: he plays as a Rb because we don't have a Rb.
Imagine if Xavi was a world class Cm and an average Rb.
Would you waste him at a Rb or would you play him as a Cm and play someone else as a Rb?

Coaches wouldn't waste him at a Rb position if he was THAT good as a cm.
Coaches are wasting him as a Rb, because as a Cm, he is as equally as flawed (or even worse), the same as Rakitic, Gomes, Denis, Rafinha.

So, the answer: Rakitic isn't good anymore.
But he is still better than current forum saviors: Denis who is not a cm at all, Roberto who is almost 26 and hasn't played 50 senior matches as a cm till now, Alena with 5 senior matches in his career, Arthur from a tactically funky Brasilian league etc.

If Rakitic is bad, it doesn't mean that his subs are suddenly better.
Denis, Roberto and similar were never Barca's starting cm material. And never will be, not even close.

About Raki, he is not that bad lately.
If his form was 2/10 a few weeks ago, imo lately he is at 4/10.
He is still poor to average, but he did improve, compared to Rakitic from September and October.

Rakitic has been better lately I'll give you that, but Roberto hasn't played nearly enough in midfield for Valverde to truly assess whether he's a good fit there or not. Rakitic is being started in every match because he was a starter when Valverde arrived and he's hesitant to experiment despite Rakitic's form this season.

So your logic is that Rakitic is getting the playtime so he must a better player in the middle of the park than Roberto? I don't buy that for one second. Rakitic continually starting all our matches does not prove that he's a better player than Roberto, but rather shows that Valverde is too cowardly to give other players a chance. Even the likes of Andre Gomes have played more in midfield this season than Roberto. You keep saying Roberto hasn't played in midfield all that much so we should trust the coaches judgement that he's not good enough, but when has he ever truly been given a run of 3-4 games playing in his preferred position? I think that's the least we could do for him after playing him at RB for these last couple years; give him a chance. If somehow he manages to be worse than Rakitic he can stick to the RB position.

I know that you're going to reply with we are Barcelona and we can't experiment with other players in the middle of the season and that they have to prove their worth the odd chance they get a chance to play, but consider this: Rakitic hasn't been great this season and it's been pretty damn evident; it's not like we're benching Messi here for Denis, Roberto deserves a chance to prove himself in midfield and even if he flops in the matches he's tried out in he still wouldn't be that much worse than Rakitic. It's a low risk, high reward proposal.

Roberto may not be Barca starting material, but let's be honest, other than Busquets and maybe Iniesta who is? This is not a matter of Roberto being good enough to be a long-term starter here, but rather whether or not he can offer us more than Rakitic currently, which I certainly believe he can.
 

LeeRomeno

Active member
Lmao newspapers :lol:

Yes indeed, the professional journalism is only to be laughed at, as the totally random userbase here knows better. Not to mention the coaches, who are completely useless, i bet you would be second coming of Jesus as Barca coach right?

How about you have your own opinions and analysis for once and stop caring about what the majority or the minority say. Like I said unless they are extreme cases, the allegations on Rakitic are pretty justified.

What I am talking about here is sharing my opinion. And my opinion is that although Rakitic has not been our outstanding player and has had a few very awful games, on average, he has played okey. But that is not a cool opinion right?

No one is being unreasonable, it's a fact Rakitic and Suarez have been terrible. Call it trash talking all u want, people are just being honest and giving their opinions and I see no reason why people would do that for no reason. If u want me to rate Barcelona's players from top to bottom this season, I will gladly do it especially the starting 11. U act like people here just make fun of him for the sake of doing it, like who the hell is that bored?

No, why on earth would i care about your ratings? No they have not been terrible all the time, they have been terrible at times, but neither player is finished or deserves to be trashed at pages and pages before game even starts.

Look at Opta's analysis, Rakitic link-up with the right side is always lacklustre, be it Semedo, Roberto, or Vidal. He provided us almost nothing, it's all just safe passes and a few crosses in ratio to a 1000+ minutes in Liga. Mind u, he played almost as much as Messi. His long passing are gone, long shots are shit, tell me, by Barca's standard, is it not safe to say he's shit? We might as well play Alena or Roberto, who can do the same thing.

He is playing like coach is telling him to play. If u talk about stats then, Rakitic is our 3rd best assister, 3rd most fouled player, best crosser and provides more long balls than other midfielders btw (with exception of INiesta).

At the end, we are Barca fans that simply watch Barcelona and give our opinions. What gives u the right to generalise the forum and who are u to call us shit?
You misunderstood me, my comparison was about how different mediums rate players. If random source says Rakitic 7/10, played well, the exact same game same player will get unbelievably low ratings from this forum.
 

henias

New member
He's slightly sharper in recent matches, but that doesn't take away his ineffectiveness as an midfielder, especially in an attacking 442 and worst so in defensive situations. It may also be partly Valverde's fault packing him into a 4 men midfield which requires many tight space manoeuvres, and intensive workrates on the right side which he ALways failed to produce. With that in mind, it's mind boggling why Valverde insists on playing him, but punished Semedo for not having that effectiveness on the right hand side.

Assuming it's entirely Semedo's fault, the same faults arises with the replacement of Roberto. Inability to exploit the right flank, slow in advancement and a mess when tracking back.

His pace was never his forte, thus playing in a 442 without wingers is disastrous for him.

Could he return to his old self and utilise his capacity as a CM better in a different system? Hard to tell, bcos during Lucho years, part of him has alr declined and as a long passing work-horse, its effectiveness whose determinant is highly dependant on age and physique will definitively decay in each passing year. It's a huge risk to continue investing in him when there are better options at hand right now. The purchase of a similar type midfielder Paulinho doesn't do him any favour in such situations.

While Rakitic may not be as ideal in recent years, I will still most of the blame on the board and manager for not being properly selective in the squad's usage and selection.
 
M

MessiCam

Guest
If Rakitic is bad, it doesn't mean that his subs are suddenly better.
Denis, Roberto and similar were never Barca's starting cm material. And never will be, not even close.
Last night and pretty much every other time he has started Denis was miles better than him. In fact, the only starters who drove the game forward was Alba, Busquets, Denis and Messi. Denis should be played as a wing though. He drew defenders out when he was at the edge of the box and had some nice moments with Alba there.

About Raki, he is not that bad lately.
If his form was 2/10 a few weeks ago, imo lately he is at 4/10.
He is still poor to average, but he did improve, compared to Rakitic from September and October.
Not that bad lately? He has been a disaster in central midfield. A lot of passes but nothing of substance in the final third but that's what you like... Safe passes. He is a waste of space...

I wonder what you think about Messi and his risky passes and being dispossessed so often?
 

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