I don't know have you watched Barca post Pep, but just a reminder, except in EV's days, on Camp Nou matches against bottomtable La liga teams, a lot of our midfielders looked awesome.
In those games, we are dominating and any semidecent player looked like the next true star.
Some examples:
1. Rafinha often looked awesome in those matches
2. Denis Suarez looked great early on. Other people will remember a user MessiCAM who used to write songs about how well we play with a magician Denis
3. Arthur. Do I need to even explain it?
4. Sergi Roberto at home games as a pivot or midfielder often looked awesome
5. Alena had some very good games in his early days
6. Even Samper had a few good cameos
So, playing well in CDR matches or home La liga matches is nothing new.
So, Bobo, as you say write a lot about Xavi-Lampard debate, 90% of our fans were also wrong about these midfielders from above, due to these Mickey Mouse matches.
Hey buddy, hope you are well!
It is fine and dandy to make the claim that a good performance against a weaker team in La Liga/CdR does not mean a player is a guaranteed success, granted. Mickey Mouse matches is a bit harsh but that is not my main concern here.
What does not compute, at least for me, is implicitly implying that a player will have the same sort of career trajectory as other players who have not necessarily succeeded here due to these players also looking like the “next true star” playing in “Mickey Mouse matches”.
First off, your examples really are not great ones to apply to Riqui’s current situation here:
1. Rafinha looked great in general under Lucho, not just in these matches, due to their time together in Celta and sadly that Naingoonan challenge really fucked his career path. He “failed” a lot more due to injuries and playing behind Iniesta than being an average player.
2. Denis and Riqui had very different development and Denis really was not the same sort of prospect as Riqui was due to us purchasing him from City, then putting him in the B squad. Completely different development in short than Riqui has had. Also Denis really only looked decent in FW positions.
3. Again, even more of the same issue with Denis here. I started hyping Arthur after the Tottenham match too, not after “Mickey Mouse” matches. Also EV’s style really being a clash with Arthur’s and the fact that Arthur got little to no actual coaching and development under EV. Hard to see why this evidence of overhype rather than our institutional failings, both now and then.
4. Roberto and Alena are probable the best examples you picked from this list, but again, how much can you clearly put on the players themselves being the issue and not us? All things considered, I see Roberto as being a success here, irrespective of where he plays. He was always fucked coming up behind Xaviniesta but he still found his place here. Alena is a lot like Arthur, yeah he might not be KdB but he could have been a lot better than what he showed with an opportunity and manager he can shine under.
5. Samper did not get the same looks as Riqui has now and critically, Riqui has looked a lot better than what Samper showed in the handful of minutes he got. Just a bad comparison.
I am not here to defend whatever Bobo was trying to do by bringing Xavi and such into this conversation but we need to all be really clear in how we analyze this kid, when he does good and poorly and I do not think it is fair to lump this kid in with these examples.
In general, this forum would be better if so many of us stopped projecting so far both positively and negatively when we talk players. Just go off of what the last 2 weeks have shown you, I have learned many times that what is true in football one month is false the next month.
This exercise of trying to predict this kids career after half a season with a rather small sample size of minutes is a pretty fruitless exercise if you ask me.
