Luftstalag14
Culé de Celestial Empire
Good.
Pedro Rodriguez
- Thread starter M.L. King
- Start date
Good.
caseballs89
New member
3 guys with absolutely 0 experience at this level. 3 guys who at this point in time you cannot say how good they really are or will be no matter how much hype they get. Remember Bojan?
Don't get me wrong, Pedro has been playing at a level lower than he should be for a while now but to toss him aside so quickly just because we have 3 prospects coming through is suicide and if you want to toss him aside and replace him with another star then we are not Barcelona anymore. Luckily with Lucho in charge I don't think there is any fear of this.
Tell me what the problem is with keeping him? If he is not kept and anyone of the front 3 gets a serious injury then we are left with a replacement with absolutely no experience whatsoever, he will have to play way too many games for a player his age and then we run the risk of killing another Barca wonderkids career.
BerkeleyBernie
Senior Member
For the record, I *don't* say Pedro is brilliant game after game. I just point out that the blanket hatred is unjustified, and try to show this player (as any player) in context of the team on field, the tactics, the opponent, and the situation. For instance, the poster above who claimed Pedro miscontrolled balls in this last game (utterly false). Or the one who thinks he should have somehow reached over-hit long balls the keeper barely had to move to catch. He's a solid player who can be brilliant at times, who is experienced in Barça team play, who hasn't scored a lot for Barça in recent games (sometimes his own finishing, sometimes the nature of the opponent and tactics). Let's not forget *no one* scored until wearing Bilbao down late in the game (not even that super-slacker named Messi), and Pedro made the right choice (one-touch redirect) with the one shot opportunity he had, and put it on target.I actually did a breakdown of how each Barça attack ended in the first half. I'll post, as soon as I clean it up, but I'm pretty sure 95% of the attacks failed to score because of another player's choices, technique, or good defending by Bilbao. Yet, somehow Pedro is singled out for hate.
Kerrybai
New member
He's 27.
Yugi
Active member
that makes it even sadder
Kerrybai
New member
I see physical decline. He also plays pretty well for Spain and is totally useless for us. The only thing going downhill is his finishing and that hardly justifies calling him finished.
darthvader7888
Banned
He's not anywhere near the player he used to be, but he isn't completely useless. He still has useful qualities, like his defensive workrate which we could use (for example) to close out games. I'm fine with him on the bench. Again, it's not like anyone's gonna give us a good amount of money for him anyway, and in his current role he isn't really hurting anyone. He was a pretty big problem when he was starting a couple of seasons ago, but he isn't now that he's no longer a starter. I'd only sell him if we have 2 non-starter forwards who are better than him.
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Ursegor
World Champion
To be fair the only reason why he's apparently playing well for Spain is because Spain are playing scrub teams 90 % of the time in European qualifiers and friendlies that would get relegated from the Segunda.
This is literally irrelevant. For all of Pique's experience he got destroyed in damn near every major game we played in the 2012/13 season. For all of Xavi's experience it was clear he should not have been our de facto first choice midfielder game in, game out. For all of Pedro's experience prior to Neymar arriving it was clear we had literally zero goal scoring threat when Messi wasn't playing. For all of Alves's experience he was a massive liability for both us and the Brazil NT in his apparent refusal to track back. Experience for the sake of experience is overrated, and when you have to fall back on the "Experience" argument to justify a player playing that player really has no reason to still be out there. You don't say Messi, Iniesta, Rakatic, Alba, Neymar, etc. are needed on the team because they're "Experienced", you say they're needed on the team because of the unique things they bring to the team. Pedro has no unique characteristics, and thus, you have to fall back on the experience argument. Experience is overrated. For all of Pedro's experience he was far, far outclassed by a 19 year old who doesn't even have a first team number yet. How good Munir will be really has no relevance now whatsoever, the comparison is between him and Pedro, and it's clear as day which player is more effective.
It seems I remember him more than anyone else, it seems. He refused to go back to the B team because he thought he was hot shit and he had nightmares because life is just so hard. Yawn. Bojan is not a solid argument. We have one Bojan and we have one Messi. They are opposites, but they are also extremes.
What would really be suicide is keeping him as our 4th choice backup over one of said prospects. Imagine having to sub Pedro on when one of SNM goes off with injury... It sounds much, much worse than bringing Munir on. You probably can't even list two things Pedro is better than Munir at, but I bet you'll probably try to use the experience argument again.
Replace him with another star? Who said anything about this? Replace his ass with a better player coming from our B team. It's not like we'd be losing much.
I would rather risk killing another kid's career (lol) than have to rely on Pedro as backup if one of our starters gets injured. I don't care if he stays, but he really lacks the qualities to be a forward for Barcelona. If he wasn't from La Masia he'd have been immediately sold after even a single season of him playing like the way he has been for the past several seasons now.
BerkeleyBernie
Senior Member
I like Munir, but it's silly to make him the Second Coming after a couple of games where, along with his qualities, he *has* shown his lack of experience. Pedro is usually an excellent decision maker on deciding when to take risks and when to lay off the ball; and Pedro's link up play around the box is generally excellent (something we usually see with Barça, but was almost completely lacking in the Bilbao game, where Barça pretty much played long balls and counters). Plenty of examples in the Bilbao game alone where Munir showed that lack of experience (12:41 square pass to no one; 33:35 starts counterattack with Messi and Pedro in support, runs into tackle; how many times did Pedro successfully advance the ball from the back in counterattacks that game? 3?).Of course, that is what Primera experience is all about. Just as Neymar has been learning he can't get away with the same fancypants showboating that he enjoyed in Brazil, Munir will learn how to judge situations better, as well as develop a better understanding of his teammates' positioning.
CatalinR10
Senior Member
Of course, that is what Primera experience is all about. Just as Neymar has been learning he can't get away with the same fancypants showboating that he enjoyed in Brazil, Munir will learn how to judge situations better, as well as develop a better understanding of his teammates' positioning.
caseballs89
New member
Experience counts for nothing? Jesus. Please lets hope Lucho has some sense and doesn't put too much pressure on these young players so quick.
DonAK
President of FC Barcelona
Experience counts for nothing if you're not good enough. Not saying Pedro is not good enough. He is good enough as a back-up and for rotation and I hope he lifts his performance soon.
Meanwhile, Munir and Sandro will also get their chances, play matches and gain experience and when the time has come, they will leapfrog Pedro IMO, if they keep working hard.
caseballs89
New member
Exactly as it should be, in time, not now when these two guys have played less than 180 minutes of La Liga football each. We quite simply have no idea how they will react both mentally and physically to this challenge, to sell our only backup other than them would be fucking stupid.
Munir wasn't even good against Bilbao.
Edit: And experience does count for something here, we know Pedro can play at this level we can't say we know that about Munir/Sandro.
As for things Pedro is better at than Munir. Judging by these two games:
Workrate, Intelligence, Positioning, Actually understanding the system and his role.....Pedro offers more than just goals. His workrate and running off the ball free up players like Messi to do damage.
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DonAndres
Wild Man of Borneo
What a blindly generic statement. Most of Messi's "freedom to do damage" happened when Neymar was on and Pedro was subbed. Even when Pedro was on, Messi's dangerous moments were in the form of creating plays for Munir and channeling through the youngster. Pretty much none of the 'workrate and off the ball running' contributed to activating Messi and getting him more involved. It's no coincidence that Messi was far less involved and active during the period when Pedro was on the left, yet when Neymar came on he was constantly feeding balls into that zone for both him and Iniesta. The exact same zone that Pedro was more or less supposed to be occupying when he was on.
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