I didn't know scoring goals=strength on the ball. Messi must be the strongest in history despite being so short. Neymar too, what unimaginable strength.
Busquets being weak on the ball is some nonsense you'd expect to hear from EPL fanboys who think his only skill is diving. Busquets holds the ball better than anyone in our team and just because he doesn't do it by pushing and shoving the way Paulinho does doesn't mean he doesn't know how.
Paulinho doesn't bring muscle to the midfield at all. He does fuck all for our midfield and is a total non-factor in build up and in defense. All he's good for is poaching goals, and yeah, he can hold defenders off really well to do it. The problem is, as a midfielder he's not scoring enough for us to be able to rely on that. 8 goals for a midfielder as fantastic. 8 goals for a player who's single quality is scoring goals is not.
Madrid since the start of December have only won a single game in La Liga and from the looks of things they limped their way to the CWC trophy, which is easier to get than a hooker in Taiwan. They're one point away from losing their CL spot to Villareal and at the rate they're going that's probably going to happen. CL winners or not Ronaldo, Benzema, Marcelo and Ramos are all putting in 1/10 performances every week and when they were doing it against us Paulinho had nothing to do with it. For the first time in La Liga's history they've made it to the halfway mark of the season without a single player breaking 4 goals. Madrid is a big game on paper but in actual practice they gave us one of our easiest wins of the season. That drops Paulinho down to a single "big game" to boast about and I can point to several players we've had flop here who've had a top quality game against a top side, while taking a wary glance over my shoulder at Marc Bartra.
Good job trying to use a teenager as a strawman but I can guarantee you that in 2-3 years Alena will be far better than Paulinho ever was and ever will be. Because that "Profile" you seem to be mocking is able to pass, dribble, contribute in build up play , retain ball possession and defend. Considering Paulinho is such a good goal scorer he should probably consider moving up to forward, since we'll soon have Coutinho starting and Alena will inevitably be coming up from the B team this summer at the latest. Too bad he can't dribble, beat his man, or make anything more complicated than a 5 yard pass. And all that at 29 years old, which means he'll probably be getting even worse at these things soon as decline starts to affect him. Maybe if Paulinho was a consistent goal threat and someone we consistently rely on to score goals for us he'd have a case but, oh, wait, that's exactly what Coutinho is supposed to be, isn't it? And HE can also pass and dribble. Uh-oh...
