Ronald Koeman

[eaman]

His negative tactics and team selection caused the big loss. Would've been closer with a more positive midfield

 

[Devils]

Nah, RK should be given another season. No manager can come in and fix this mess immediately. Rather have RK work on developing Pedri and the other youngsters more than someone to come in and start from scratch. By the way I don?t think we can even afford another manager

RK can develop Pedri all he wants. The rest of us will have to bear watching Barca get dominated by top and upper mid-table teams for another year.

 

[malvolio]

As I posted the other day. Pique is a known failure in these types of games. Mingueza is not. That is reason enough to start Mingueza over him considering their defending abilities are roughly the same at Pique's age/physical condition.

re-watch the juve game at home. mingueza was positioning himself like lenglet on a fine day. don't know where this logic comes from.

of course any coach would have went for pique as starter, with the current situation.

 

[khaled_a_d]

How much more is Umtiti worse than both? Can you rate them out of 100 so I can see what you believe the size of the gap in quality is?

It is 50 shades of shit. Thinking they are making difference is wishful thinking IMHO.
I would say Pique and Lenglet is 10% better than Umtiti, which is a statement on how bad Umtiti is more than anything else.
Mingueza might be closer to their level, but that is it.
He also failed us against Roma, failed us against Seville and Granada

The trio of Pique-Lenglet-Busquets has failed multiple times together in the very scenario of yesterday's match. I don't know if things would have been better, I'm simply saying choosing a formula you know to be a poor one is a dumb decision.

Umtiti failed us equally as those guys, even during his prime against Roma and PSG he was bad.
Mingueza was 3rd option CB last season man, in a 3rd division Barca B.
I like his fighting spirit, but he is just not talented enough.


For me it is the same old argument, if we lose(or badly lose) it is because coach didn't play the other player. For whatever reason people always think that those who didn't play are much better.. Maybe, just maybe they are even worse?
The team was fucked during last off-season, we already had terrible rotation in CB last season and we decided to go with same players minus Todibo

 

[Rory]

re-watch the juve game at home. mingueza was positioning himself like lenglet on a fine day. don't know where this logic comes from.

of course any coach would have went for pique as starter, with the current situation.

Mingueza played from the 82nd minute in that game. How are you even considering that a logical reply?

 

[Rory]

It is 50 shades of shit. Thinking they are making difference is wishful thinking IMHO.
I would say Pique and Lenglet is 10% better than Umtiti, which is a statement on how bad Umtiti is more than anything else.
Mingueza might be closer to their level, but that is it.
He also failed us against Roma, failed us against Seville and Granada



Umtiti failed us equally as those guys, even during his prime against Roma and PSG he was bad.
Mingueza was 3rd option CB last season man, in a 3rd division Barca B.
I like his fighting spirit, but he is just not talented enough.


For me it is the same old argument, if we lose(or badly lose) it is because coach didn't play the other player. For whatever reason people always think that those who didn't play are much better.. Maybe, just maybe they are even worse?
The team was fucked during last off-season, we already had terrible rotation in CB last season and we decided to go with same players minus Todibo

Ok so just back from injury Pique who was in poor form prior to his injury is 10% better than current Umtiti. don't buy that. You're also not understanding my point of saying it's when the three of them play together. I'm not necessarily saying Umtiti is objectively better than them, same for Mingueza. It's the combination of the three that makes it such a poor choice.

 

[Rory]

It's like starting Messi, Coutinho and Griezmann at the same time instead of having Braithwaite on the pitch. He's levels worse than them all but the balance was better when just 2 of those 3 were playing.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Ok so just back from injury Pique who was in poor form prior to his injury is 10% better than current Umtiti. don't buy that. You're also not understanding my point of saying it's when the three of them play together. I'm not necessarily saying Umtiti is objectively better than them, same for Mingueza. It's the combination of the three that makes it such a poor choice.

Again, the problem is/was the alternatives.
Umtiti right now is utter garbage, he is like a CB worse version of Arda, he isn't even a serious footballers.
Mingueza is terrible player too.
Those 2 won't have change the outcome of this combination, they are equally bad at best

It's like starting Messi, Coutinho and Griezmann at the same time instead of having Braithwaite on the pitch. He's levels worse than them all but the balance was better when just 2 of those 3 were playing.

It is more like thinking that Braithwate will be better than Messi if he played.

 

[BarcaOG]

hes shit the bed in every important match and all the criticism is deserved but frankly folks i doubt a new manager can come in and save this sinking ship

 

[JamDav1982]

Ok so just back from injury Pique who was in poor form prior to his injury is 10% better than current Umtiti. don't buy that. You're also not understanding my point of saying it's when the three of them play together. I'm not necessarily saying Umtiti is objectively better than them, same for Mingueza. It's the combination of the three that makes it such a poor choice.

Pique is finished and Mingueza is well below what is needed. Doubt it makes much difference either way.

 

[malvolio]

Pique is finished and Mingueza is well below what is needed. Doubt it makes much difference either way.

add umtiti in the mix and you have a never ending line of "what ifs" on this forum. there was no other option that would have surely worked.

 

[JamDav1982]

add umtiti in the mix and you have a never ending line of "what ifs" on this forum. there was no other option that would have surely worked.

Aye it comes down to argument at best of who is slightly less shit. In reality they all need replaced and would have been taken to cleaners with Dembele RW, Dest RB and Busi DM to try and help with Mbappe.

 

[Potroh]

Pique is finished and Mingueza is well below what is needed. Doubt it makes much difference either way.

Pique is 34, so no use to seriously expect anything outstanding from him.
But the main problem of the defense is different. It's mostly tactical.

Every 2nd class coach knows, that if you play two SLOW center defenders IN LINE with each other, in a horizontal line, sooner or later they will be beaten, because of their lack of pace and reaction time.
In this case - if you do not have fast and dynamic center-halfs, there should be a pacey midfielder returning to cover, while ONE of the slow center defenders, should try to temporarily man-mark the pass-line of the the most obvious first pass-choice of the opponent.
In essence it can be sort of successful, if along with the midfield the two CDs are constantly moving and changing place horizontally.
So one of them should always be slightly forward of the other...

 

[Rory]

My frustration with Koeman is not losing. It's losing in the same manner of our previous ucl nightmares whilst starting that same defence and busquets ahead when they are even older and slower than before.

Mingueza, Umtiti would have also shit the bed most likely too, for some reason I have to point that out too.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Pique is 34, so no use to seriously expect anything outstanding from him.
But the main problem of the defense is different. It's mostly tactical.

Every 2nd class coach knows, that if you play two SLOW center defenders IN LINE with each other, in a horizontal line, sooner or later they will be beaten, because of their lack of pace and reaction time.
In this case - if you do not have fast and dynamic center-halfs, there should be a pacey midfielder returning to cover, while ONE of the slow center defenders, should try to temporarily man-mark the pass-line of the the most obvious first pass-choice of the opponent.
In essence it can be sort of successful, if along with the midfield the two CDs are constantly moving and changing place horizontally.

This horizontal highlines is the future of football atm, and yes it needs fast players and those switches, I agree.
I argued since Bayern game that pacey defense and DM are the main concerns atm, without those you can't play modern football. You also need quick attacker to counter other team pressing and highline defense.

But the question here remains, should Koeman build something for the future? or adapt to the current team limitation.
The current game plan exposes our defense badly, and only Araujo is suitable for it between all our CB and DM,
If we change the way we defend, it messes all the tactics he is building, while if we retain it and it has a reward in the long run when we are able to get a new DM and CB who are capable of playing in it, and by that time we will already have the rest of the system set.

IMO, Koemann is doing us a big favour in the long run, something good is being cooked for the long term and most likely he won't be the one to get the end product out of it (due to his limitations in reading opponents and making changes) but I prefer him sticking to those tactics (even if he is doing some mistakes with it) rather than trying to adapt for those games.
We aren't winning anything this year, and unlikely next year, let us build this team slowly and steadily IMO.
It is a tough pill to swallow, but it is a necessity