Miralem Pjanic

Horatio

Horatio

You're welcome
serghei said:
Pjanic is a decent player. Koeman was in the wrong to froze some players out last season. Paid a hefty price for it in the end. So, if he does the same this season, I want him out by January.

We're in no position to play ego-games. Everyone who can contribute can help us achieve our objectives.
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What players did Koeman froze out aside from Pjanic?
 
serghei

serghei

Senior Member
Redbuck said:
Would you prioritise the game time of Pjanic when you can develop a Busi succesor in Nico Gonzalez ? The sad truth is that Pjanic is past it and cannot give today's kind of performance regularly and you just cannot deprive Nico of the chance of learning from a legend like Busi in order to play oldies like Pjanic.
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What I wrote was about last season. The squad needed rotations, but he burnt out Pedri instead. Which no surprise, coupled with other things, ended up with a late season collapse.
 
M

mc_lovin

Senior Member
serghei said:
What I wrote was about last season. The squad needed rotations, but he burnt out Pedri instead. Which no surprise, coupled with other things, ended up with a late season collapse.
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It's hard to force rotations when Pjanic has a shocking season and Puig is, well, Puig. Ilaix got more prominence at the end, because he deserved it (mostly). So there was a will.
 
Bobo32

Bobo32

Senior Member
Horatio said:
What players did Koeman froze out aside from Pjanic?
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Puig, Trincao, Braithwaite, Konrad, Firpo.

Under different time periods. Maybe more players that I forgot.
Fatigue seemed to be a problem and even though I don't rate most of these six players very highly, it would've probably been good to rotate a bit more.

But Koeman clearly went for the players he liked, and let them play under the system that hadn't yet disappointed him too much.
Other managers switch formation and players depending on opposition, if they change. Koeman went for what he believed in and switched both players and formation after he thought it didn't work.
 
serghei

serghei

Senior Member
mc_lovin said:
It's hard to force rotations when Pjanic has a shocking season and Puig is, well, Puig. Ilaix got more prominence at the end, because he deserved it (mostly). So there was a will.
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Bullshit. Puig and Pjanic would have done a good job against most teams, as nobody mentioned playing them vs Madrid, Atletico etc. you had rested Pedri for that. As they did actually, we beat Alaves 5-1 in one of the few games Puig started. Pjanic started most games at Juve last year when they won the Serie A.

Poor excuse. They are good rotation players who smart managers know how to use during the season.
 
M

mc_lovin

Senior Member
serghei said:
Bullshit. Puig and Pjanic would have done a good job against most teams, as nobody mentioned playing them vs Madrid, Atletico etc. you had rested Pedri for that. As they did actually, we beat Alaves 5-1 in one of the few games Puig started. Pjanic started most games at Juve last year when they won the Serie A.

Poor excuse. They are good rotation players who smart managers know how to use during the season.
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Most games were a struggle last season. Pretty much every game at the end was hard fought and close (with an exception here and there, but I am not sure Koeman could have predicted which one will be easy or not). I understand him not trusting a depressive Pjanic, who got run past like it's nothing, and Tom fecking Cruise. Damage has been done before, not in the last few months of the season. Problem was that Koeman needed far too long to find a decent first 11 and system. Hopefully things are clearer now for him.

I thought Nagelsmann said something interesting that usually 13-15 players eat up 90% of the minutes. Meaning we need "just" 2-4 more dependable bench players than the ones we had last season. Plus a good first 11 of course.
 
Bobo32

Bobo32

Senior Member
Of course it's not a matter of rotating in the last month, who asked for that?
It was a tough schedule from december to march, and Pedri for instance played almost every single minute there. If he was the best option, he should've been rotated out for a few more games in that time period, so that he was more fresh when it mattered more in the last couple of months. Griezmann was another one who always played when fit, and who seemed fatigued.
Rotating is done throughout the season in order to always have a lot of fresh AND match fit players available.

mc_lovin said:
Problem was that Koeman needed far too long to find a decent first 11 and system. Hopefully things are clearer now for him.
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Hopefully, but I'm not sure. It's 4-3-3 again in preseason, and I think Koeman will play like that until he plays a disappointing game, then he'll change if he is not under too strict of an ultimatum from Laporta...
Last season, he switched thrice just in the last months, always after defeats.
 
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