Ivan Rakitić

[anguy]

Rakitic's definetly one of the best signings we've made in years IMO, especially when you consider the sum we bought him for. How many still says that we should've bought Kroos instead?

He's a complete midfielder who possesses everything.

No he is not. Today he played well, because he was (finally) playing similar position to his Sevilla days and WAS SHOOTING. It looked like, he tried more shots today than whole last season . If he continues to shoot, play closer to the box and we put him on some free kicks he might be better investment than Kroos. But Kroos would have been better suited for the role Rakitic played last season, when he was mostly just sitting pretty deep. His weakness is in organizing the game and long passing, so I don't consider him to be complete midfielder.

 

[Darko]

Kroos is shit defensively so he wouldn't have suited us at all for that position.

 

[DonAK]

Kroos has gone on to be criminally overrated.

 

[Icarium]

Sometimes he is underrated some times he is overrated. It is a mystery.

 

[DonAK]

He was underrated when people didn't know about him. Now after the WC, people have hyped him up to insane levels. He's not even the best CM at Real Madrid. Modric is.

 

[anguy]

Kroos is shit defensively so he wouldn't have suited us at all for that position.

A. he's not shit defensively, he's just not pure DM, but Rakitic is not playing DM either. He wouldn't be better defender than Kroos, if he played on Busqets position.

B. I was talking more about passing and ball distribution in general.. Kroos is simply much more suited for deep playmaker role. Like I said if LE plays Rakitic closer to the box he may end up better purchase. But playing him deep is waste of his talents, you basically take half of the player away.

 

[Darko]

He is shit defensively. Rakitic owns his in every defensive aspect: work rate, marking, tackling, defensive positioning, stamina etc.
Yes I admit his passing and distribution is better than Rakitic's, but that's not what Barca needs.

 

[Bran the Greenseer]

Also Rakitic has improved immensely in his creative abilities, its actually kind of ridiculous how much he did. Kroos may be better at it but the gap has shortened alot.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Kroos is certainly worse than Rakitic defensively, but he is not shit there, he has improved his defensive abilities since he left Bayern. Kroos is a CM, not a CDM, even though gradually since the second half of the last season he had been pushed to a further deeper position at Real Madrid.

I know nobody can replace Xavi, but if there was a closer alternative it would have been Kroos, better than the likes of Gundogan and Pogba in my opinion.

Not taking away any bit of awesomeness from our Rakitic of course.

 

[Barcilliant]

People still going on about Kross?
Rakitic offers so much more.
Kross is one dimensional, Rakitic is a better fit.
This is Lucho's Barça not Pep's.

 

[El Flaco]

Some people were saying that he was only of Keita's quality. No offense to Keita, but......

Both Rakitic and Keita has/had the role as B2B midfielder. But yeah, it's obvious that the Croatian's far better than the latter.

No he is not. Today he played well, because he was (finally) playing similar position to his Sevilla days and WAS SHOOTING. It looked like, he tried more shots today than whole last season . If he continues to shoot, play closer to the box and we put him on some free kicks he might be better investment than Kroos. But Kroos would have been better suited for the role Rakitic played last season, when he was mostly just sitting pretty deep. His weakness is in organizing the game and long passing, so I don't consider him to be complete midfielder.

I doubt Kroos would be any help for us as an B2B player (which Rakitic was during the previous season). And I wouldn't really say that Rakitic isn't capable of organizing the game & long passes, he did those thing already back in Sevilla. Rakitic doesn't just have the same role in Barca.

 

[EdmondDantes]

Kroos has gone on to be criminally overrated.

I've been saying this since forever. Had a poor season as well. Apparently he's not too happy with Benitez either. I'd have Raki over him any day of the week unless he goes back to Bayern levels.

 

[BBZ8800]

I know nobody can replace Xavi, but if there was a closer alternative it would have been Kroos, better than the likes of Gundogan and Pogba in my opinion.

Xavi is my favorite midfielder of all time, but...

I don't want to be rude, but I am not sure whether I would want a prime Xavi and a prime Iniesta in our team today.
Even Rijkaard hasn't won a CL with small midfielders but with some combination of strength and skills with Edmilson, Motta, Van Bommel as strong players and Xavi, Deco, Iniesta as more skillful players.
(Remember, Lucho's Barca is very similar to Rijkaard's Barca in a lot of ways...)

In Pep's era when Tiki-Taka was on it's prime, we were trashing teams with shortpassing and with short players.
It is hard to tell whether only those players aged or the opponent's have figured out our tricks and those small/technical midfielders stopped working.

I want to say: Xavi was awesome, but I am not too sure whether we need a new Xavi today, and especially whether we need a new Xavi-Iniesta copy in the current era of football.
Again, I don't think that we would be as good as last Season even with 26 years old Xavi+Iniesta.
Xavi can't defend like Rakitic, Xavi can't bring that kind of a balance, Xavi can't run as much as Ivan, imo.
Also, with Xavi and Iniesta, we would again play a stupid and sterile possession game for 90 Minutes.

So, Xavi was a God.
But I don't want another Xavi today, personally.
Prime Xavi was better than a prime Rakitic, but I would pick Rakitic for the current team and for the current era.

Also, applying the same logic, if Kroos looks more like Xavi than Rakitic, so what?
We don't need a new Xavi.
We need one RAKITIC, he is the best player for the current system.

Luft, I don't mean anything bad, I know that you love Raki, this is just my view on whether we need a new Xavi in the current era of football.

 

[anguy]

Xavi is my favorite midfielder of all time, but...

I don't want to be rude, but I am not sure whether I would want a prime Xavi and a prime Iniesta in our team today.
Even Rijkaard hasn't won a CL with small midfielders but with some combination of strength and skills with Edmilson, Motta, Van Bommel as strong players and Xavi, Deco, Iniesta as more skillful players.
(Remember, Lucho's Barca is very similar to Rijkaard's Barca in a lot of ways...)

In Pep's era when Tiki-Taka was on it's prime, we were trashing teams with shortpassing and with short players.
It is hard to tell whether only those players aged or the opponent's have figured out our tricks and those small/technical midfielders stopped working.

I want to say: Xavi was awesome, but I am not too sure whether we need a new Xavi today, and especially whether we need a new Xavi-Iniesta copy in the current era of football.
Again, I don't think that we would be as good as last Season even with 26 years old Xavi+Iniesta.
Xavi can't defend like Rakitic, Xavi can't bring that kind of a balance, Xavi can't run as much as Ivan, imo.
Also, with Xavi and Iniesta, we would again play a stupid and sterile possession game for 90 Minutes.

Xavi was better defender than Rakitic in his prime . It's true that he couldn't run as much as Ivan, he was running much more! Even last season he was top in km ran per 90 minutes. Yes he was smaller and weaker than Rak but was extremely good in harassing opponent's players and was able to do it for whole match. Plus because of Xaviniesta superior passing we hardly lost a ball so defending wasn't that necessary.

Small midfielders are not a problem if you have balanced team. Especially in Pep's first season we had a lot of tall strong players - Henry, Etoo, Abidal, Puyol, Toure - they all were players, who contributed to defense a lot and negated Xaviniesta and Messi height disadvantantage. It was only after we moved to uber small lineup (Mascherano replacing Puyol, Alba Abidal and we got new small forwards) when our problems with physicality and headers started.

So in short I believe we would have been better last season with Xaviniesta in their prime. Remember that mdfield was considered by many people to be our weak spot last season especially against strong teams like Real.

I doubt Kroos would be any help for us as an B2B player (which Rakitic was during the previous season). And I wouldn't really say that Rakitic isn't capable of organizing the game & long passes, he did those thing already back in Sevilla. Rakitic doesn't just have the same role in Barca.

He played further back in Sevilla as on of the 2 pivots in 4-2-3-1 formation and he wasn't doing very well, until he was moved to 10. It was at that position where he became the leader of Sevilla team, not as game organizer, but as AM.

 

[vigneshFCB]

Our midfield these days is extremely weak. It is utter crap. Probably the weakest out of all top teams in Europe. Even Chelsea's midfield is better. In fact, Man Utd's midfield is also comfortably better, never mind Bayern/Madrid midfields. The midfield cannot hold possession at ALL. Due to this utter crap midfield, other teams regularly out possess us and dominate control of the game.......