Ronald Koeman

[Richard.H]

No matter how much you dissect the PSG game and change the lineup around we're still getting smacked. That's just the cold reality imo and alot of fans need to accept that. Last December we played Juve without Pique and Busi and it was more or less the same result. Yeah maybe Fati could have made a difference or maybe Puig or whoever but it's just same ifs and buts all over again. Fact is we got beat and it's not a narrow result it's the same ass whooping yet again. It's becoming a continuing trend and it shows our game needs to evolve. If it doesn't, we risk falling further behind or worse falling into complete irrelevance. Get the remaining oldies out and adopt a quicker, direct game with technical and athletic players.

+1000

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

No matter how much you dissect the PSG game and change the lineup around we're still getting smacked. That's just the cold reality imo and alot of fans need to accept that. Last December we played Juve without Pique and Busi and it was more or less the same result. Yeah maybe Fati could have made a difference or maybe Puig or whoever but it's just same ifs and buts all over again. Fact is we got beat and it's not a narrow result it's the same ass whooping yet again. It's becoming a continuing trend and it shows our game needs to evolve. If it doesn't, we risk falling further behind or worse falling into complete irrelevance. Get the remaining oldies out and adopt a quicker, direct game with technical and athletic players.

Agree. I think we go in panic mode after conceding a goal. Player are humans, the roma and anfield humilations have destroyed their mentally strenght. The 2-8 against bayern give them the rest. Of course our team isnt good but as many people said PSG had more difficult matches in their farmer league as that teams are running like crazy and have not several humilations in their head. Lorient was two goals behind and turned the match to a win. Barca cant do that anymore, we need to sell our old players and rebuild a new team with a new mind.

 

[Bobo32]

With the Alaves lineup I am confident it would not've been 1-4
Switch Firpo with Alba and maybe Griezmann with Pedri and Mingueza for Pique and it would be even better.

It's mostly a fault with the approach, though. Falling too much, pressing too little, being too sloppy with the ball. Evidently, the players are not agreed on how to play.
No matter how you see it, Koeman was at fault for not changing more earlier, they managed to hold on to 1-1 until halftime, but afterwards, it looked just as bad as after the equalizer.
As usual, after starting to change, he changed too much at the same time, leading to some confusing play.

 

[i_bleed_blaugrana]

I wanna make clear that I am happy with Barca becoming a better version of Ajax 18/19, and I don't want to make Barca into Bayern or Liverpool. But in order to become that version, several things that are needed.

1) The difference is Fati and Pedri stood out right away at the age of 17. When you put a 17yr old in Barca's XI and you see that they make the team better in most respects, then the trial is successful.
Same about Frenkie. He was transferred in because he was the best midfielder in Europe in 18/19.
Dembele was the best young player in Germany in 16/17.
You have to have strong evidence before you make any such bet.

Can you say the same about Ilaix? No!
Give him playing time, loan him out, see how he develops? Yes, but that's different from saying 'let's bet on Ilaix'

You can't hope to make those risky bets with many players, and the hope at the same time to have a build a competitive team.
Even in the golden team of Pep, you had only Pique, Busi, and Pedro being the bets (each in different year).
All the rest were already proven

2) Arturo Vidal 18-20 is half the player Wilajdum currently is. Plus: they bear some similarities, but Vidal is less versatile and can play fewer roles in the team.
Then,you don't seem to have watched the player a lot. You think SMS, Kessie, Tielemans or Ruiz are better than him. None is!
They are more technical, but they cannot do half of the jobs that guy is doing on the pitch.
They are not as disciplined defensively, they are not as stamina monsters, they are not as versatile positionally, they do not concede less possessions, they are not as good readers of the game with off the ball movement.
I don't care if they can play better through-balls than Gini. Why? Because we have other players for that (like Pedri, Frenkie).
A team is all about balance of roles. You seem to be dreaming only of a Pep midfield with all excellent passers

Now about him turning 30, that's a valid point and Liverpool is not renewing him for more years because of his age.
But again, I never said he is a player for the next decade.
But he can be very crucial for at least 2 seasons, when the team is trying to get rebuilt and compete for domestic titles next season.

3) If you really want Barca to do that, you should be happy with Koeman though. Because he has started introducing some elements, like physical preparation, players having stamina to run, like some pressing and intensity. He has started installing some aggression on this - entirely until 2019 - passive team.
But you don't seem to acknowledge that, and you don't want Koeman to continue on that path. Why?

Then, I am skeptical about how Xavi or Pimienta can do that. I don't know what films you are referring to.
Someone posted here some time ago a thread on how Xavi's Al Saad plays, and i felt like being transferred through a time-machine to 2010 and I was watching again all the triangles and positional play of Pep's Barca all over again.
Honestly, the only trial that will tell if Xavi can succeed at Barca, if he is really taking into account the modern needs of the game, and he is not some fixated Pepista idealist, is if he takes charge of a 2nd tier European team in a serious league, like Leicester, like Roma, like Gladbach, or like Valencia,Villarreal or so in Spain.
Trusting Xavi to take charge of Barca now, can only be dangerous.

And it's not that I think Koeman is the best coach out there. I just happen to see progress on the path of addressing modern football needs.
If club wanted to hire Ten Haag for example, who has a proven record in doing so, I would be all in.

1) We have seen like maybe 30 mins of total game time from Ilaix, it is very early to indicate either way right now. All I am saying is lets give the kid a proper look this season and we might not need someone like Gini.

2) We are going to have to agree to disagree on Gini. I get it, he works hard and that is invaluable but again, I fancy those other players I named more than Gini for the reasons I spelled out and more. I just think we can do better and particularly younger if we absolutely must go to the market.

3) I for one am not necessarily against Koeman just yet. I have said this before somewhere else on this forum but I see some similarities to him and van Gaal. He is laying the foundations for what we could be in the future but his record against strong teams has to improve drastically. If just half of our game against the top teams were draws or wins and if we had only lost 2-1, 3-2 or a 2-2 draw to PSG, I would be more okay with him staying here for another season. He deserves a lot of credit for taking on an unenviable task. But to get smacked like that against PSG and then looking back on our record, it is pretty damming for Koeman. Especially when you bring out the clowns again on defense...

Anyways, I would love ten Haag too but I doubt he would actually come and I would like Xavi at the very least to have some time in Europe with another club foo but I do not think we have that sort of time to wait for that to happen. And I actually think he has faced some unique challenges at Al Saad could be invaluable to him here. We will see but I think he is the best long term and attainable manager at this point in time.

 

[serghei]

I really thought we'd attack a lot more. PSG are vulnerable at the back. Plenty of teams in ligue 1 have scored past them this year and no matter how bad we are this year we are levels above any other remaining ligue 1 team.

That's on Koeman. He approached this game with totally the wrong mindset and approach. Tbh, it's alarming that he thought we can sit deep vs this PSG. It's also on him that we looked like clowns.

 

[Blaugrana Bull]

We did not sit deep at all. Thinking we are able to control the game and dominate opponents like Bayern or PSG has been our biggest problem and the reason why we got 8 last year and got destroyed again this year.
Only reasonable move would be to install another pivot besides Busi and squeeze everything up in our half while defending. We are not able to press constantly against good opponents so that is no possibility. Would also help defenders like Pique or Lenglet who can't do shit on their own when their opponents have some space.
Would also open up opportunities on the break, especially for Dembele.

I was happy when EV was gone at the end because I saw no progress with him as a coach. But what he did very well was realizing how to stabilize the team. Now EV had a Messi who was levels above current Messi and deadly Suarez so it was not rocket science to go for that approach.

Right now it would not make sense to implement a more defensive approach in regular league games against most teams. We obviously found rhythm there and fortunately have plenty of options to score and collect the expected points against Betis, Alaves, Huesca and so on.
BUT if you want to avoid huge trashings and being embarrassed, you need to go for a more timid approach.

 

[serghei]

We did not sit deep at all. Thinking we are able to control the game and dominate opponents like Bayern or PSG has been our biggest problem and the reason why we got 8 last year and got destroyed again this year.
Only reasonable move would be to install another pivot besides Busi and squeeze everything up in our half while defending. We are not able to press constantly against good opponents so that is no possibility. Would also help defenders like Pique or Lenglet who can't do shit on their own when their opponents have some space.
Would also open up opportunities on the break, especially for Dembele.

I was happy when EV was gone at the end because I saw no progress with him as a coach. But what he did very well was realizing how to stabilize the team. Now EV had a Messi who was levels above current Messi and deadly Suarez so it was not rocket science to go for that approach.

Right now it would not make sense to implement a more defensive approach in regular league games against most teams. We obviously found rhythm there and fortunately have plenty of options to score and collect the expected points against Betis, Alaves, Huesca and so on.
BUT if you want to avoid huge trashings and being embarrassed, you need to go for a more timid approach.

We did that "timid approach" in the last 2 knock-out games. The result? 3 - 12.

Those "adjustments" don't work. Time to ditch them and start playing how we need to play and shape that team in that direction. Nothing else to lose. Take on advanced positions on the field, with a high line, and a short distance between the compartments. See how it goes. But the managers have been too afraid for that. Even Koeman who is supposed to have guts chickened out vs PSG. For what? We still got humiliated, and we were lucky not to lose 6-1. If it was Bayern instead of PSG they would've scored 6 with this "safe" approach.

The only card we have right now to play, is to take off Busi from the line-up, and play Puig. We looked very well in La Liga when we did this because of more energy in the middle, more pressing, faster passing and all that comes from it.

 

[Bobo32]

We did that "timid approach" in the last 2 knock-out games. The result? 3 - 12.

Those "adjustments" don't work. Time to ditch them and start playing how we need to play and shape that team in that direction. Nothing else to lose. Take on advanced positions on the field, with a high line, and a short distance between the compartments. See how it goes. But the managers have been too afraid for that. Even Koeman who is supposed to have guts chickened out vs PSG. For what? We still got humiliated, and we were lucky not to lose 6-1. If it was Bayern instead of PSG they would've scored 6 with this "safe" approach.

The only card we have right now to play, is to take off Busi from the line-up, and play Puig. We looked very well in La Liga when we did this because of more energy in the middle, more pressing, faster passing and all that comes from it.

But Busquets played in La Liga...
The problem against PSG, and all season, has mostly been in midfield/attack. Too much loss of possession, too bad defensive work.
I guess you want De Jong at DMC? He is all over the place, it will be even tougher to build from the back with him in that position.
Puig should be a given at MC, Busquets at DMC. Preferrably the other MC should be someone better positionally, but De Jong has qualities and can play there temporarily (I want him as CB)
Griezmann should never play again, Pedri could take his place (Fati is perfect in that role though). Dembele needs to be strictly isolated with a small role if he is to play, but I don't think he works with Messi on the pitch.

Koeman is a pussy, I guess he must've told Ter Stegen, who could always play the pass, to just put it out for a throw or to their CBs if he feels the least threatened?

 

[Blaugrana Bull]

We did that "timid approach" in the last 2 knock-out games. The result? 3 - 12.

Those "adjustments" don't work. Time to ditch them and start playing how we need to play and shape that team in that direction. Nothing else to lose. Take on advanced positions on the field, with a high line, and a short distance between the compartments. See how it goes. But the managers have been too afraid for that. Even Koeman who is supposed to have guts chickened out vs PSG. For what? We still got humiliated, and we were lucky not to lose 6-1. If it was Bayern instead of PSG they would've scored 6 with this "safe" approach.

The only card we have right now to play, is to take off Busi from the line-up, and play Puig. We looked very well in La Liga when we did this because of more energy in the middle, more pressing, faster passing and all that comes from it.

No we did not have a timid approach in the last knockout games. Against Bayern we tried to keep up with them and play the way we always play instead of opting for a more defensive approach without the ball.
Our pressing high up the pitch is too bad to use it against top opponents who can recycle possession under pressure. With Messi and Busi in the squad it is impossible to press as a unit and it invites teams who are good on the ball to progress in our own half rather easily and overrun us quickly.
Moving forward we need to change that but the present looks different and we need to go for different tactical approaches against teams who are better than us.

 

[behindbrowneyes]

We did that "timid approach" in the last 2 knock-out games. The result? 3 - 12.

Those "adjustments" don't work. Time to ditch them and start playing how we need to play and shape that team in that direction. Nothing else to lose. Take on advanced positions on the field, with a high line, and a short distance between the compartments. See how it goes. But the managers have been too afraid for that. Even Koeman who is supposed to have guts chickened out vs PSG. For what? We still got humiliated, and we were lucky not to lose 6-1. If it was Bayern instead of PSG they would've scored 6 with this "safe" approach.

The only card we have right now to play, is to take off Busi from the line-up, and play Puig. We looked very well in La Liga when we did this because of more energy in the middle, more pressing, faster passing and all that comes from it.

I criticized him for the same, but I get what he was trying to do. I mean, having a look at the options in defense, him playing a high line against a PSG being expected to be very good at counter-attacking could have resulted in a much bigger debacle, on paper. If he plays "Hollywood" and loses 8-2 everybody shits on him because of that. Dest and Pique back from injury, Lenglet already being exposed from the high line Koeman introduced all season, Alba being Alba and we don't even have to mention Busquets' shortcomings in this setting on a top level. Given the circumstances it was legitimate to try this approach, but he should learn from it and never try it again. This team has proven more than once that they can't play it safe. You only lose your forte in offense by not gaining much in defense. Sometimes playing more defensively exposes you even more defensively, like seen at Anfield.

His tactics were an analogy of FDJ playing CB. You lose more in offense than you gain in defense. Somehow, he went for the same approach other coaches before him also chose with this team. I expect from Koeman that he changes that approach back to his own approach, which suits this team much better. It very probably will fail against top teams, but he should try to attack with as much pressing as possible and we'll see the outcome. That half-arsed approach between defense and offense didn't work before him and it didn't work the few times he tried it this season. It's time for him to stay true to his colours.

 

[i_bleed_blaugrana]

If you play a high line and press PSG and leave it to Lenglet, Pique and Busi to try and keep up with Mbappe on the break, you are going to get exposed. If you sit deep and hope that Pique and Lenglet magically remember how to mark in the box and clear crosses against Kean and Icardi, you are going to get exposed.

On top of that, Dembele apparently thought he was too good to track back and left Dest, who was also coming back from injury, to get double-teamed by Mbappe and Kurzawa. It was ridiculous to allow their most dangerous player to be in such an exploitable position. Either way if Koeman told Dembele to stay forward or if he just was not coming back despite the instruction, the fact that Koeman did not immediately try and adjust that during the match was insane. And again, it is weird because he has shown the ability to read games well in previous matches. Tbf, he really does not have THAT much experience at this level and I think it has really shown in these big matches.

Our shambolic defense lead by Pique however has always been the main culprit in these disasters over the years. It really right now does not matter how good Messi is, what sort of approach we bring in terms of pressing, if our midfield is creating or if our forwards look dangerous if time and time again, our defense is going to concede easy goal after easy goal. Again, you cannot build a fortress without a solid foundation. Goes to show just now immense Araujo has been.

It has been the same story for years and until we sort out a back line that can actually handle the demands of the game these days, these matches are inevitable.

 

[Porque]

High line with a fit Dest and Araujo could of narrowed the score. Pique could organise and Busquets could play his game knowing we had the pace in CD to match a counter.

On the other hand Busquets would probably make a third CB in possession to help with Araujo lack of ball playing.

Which in another way, is a checkmate.

No way to win.

 

[JamDav1982]

If you play a high line and press PSG and leave it to Lenglet, Pique and Busi to try and keep up with Mbappe on the break, you are going to get exposed. If you sit deep and hope that Pique and Lenglet magically remember how to mark in the box and clear crosses against Kean and Icardi, you are going to get exposed.

On top of that, Dembele apparently thought he was too good to track back and left Dest, who was also coming back from injury, to get double-teamed by Mbappe and Kurzawa. It was ridiculous to allow their most dangerous player to be in such an exploitable position. Either way if Koeman told Dembele to stay forward or if he just was not coming back despite the instruction, the fact that Koeman did not immediately try and adjust that during the match was insane. And again, it is weird because he has shown the ability to read games well in previous matches. Tbf, he really does not have THAT much experience at this level and I think it has really shown in these big matches.

Our shambolic defense lead by Pique however has always been the main culprit in these disasters over the years. It really right now does not matter how good Messi is, what sort of approach we bring in terms of pressing, if our midfield is creating or if our forwards look dangerous if time and time again, our defense is going to concede easy goal after easy goal. Again, you cannot build a fortress without a solid foundation. Goes to show just now immense Araujo has been.

It has been the same story for years and until we sort out a back line that can actually handle the demands of the game these days, these matches are inevitable.

They played a high line and didnt press.. do one or other.

The PSG midfield and CBs had all the time in world to zing ball out wide to Barcas right and expose Dembele, Dest, Pique and Busquets on that side. There was no pressing in that are bar at times FDJ and when he goes on own it is pointless..

Seen folk pointing to pass accuracy of Pique and Busquets as if they did well with ball... PSG let them come out with it and take bakc line up park then pressed when got over half way line. The passing from those three did nothing for Barcas game but slow it down and play into the hands of PSG.

 

[serghei]

The purpose of playing a high line is to compress space in midfield and force PSG into playing long balls with poor accuracy to escape those pressure zones. Deny the likes of Verratti and Paredes - who ran the show btw - the opportunity to receive the ball freely, unbothered, and set up Mbappe, Kean, Icardi. This was a go-to tactic against MSN Barca as well, another top-heavy team just like PSG. High press or park the bus are the only options. And parking the bus is only an option for extremely hard-working and defensively proficient teams (2010 Inter, 2009 Chelsea, 2016 Atletico, teams like that).

For us, pressing was the only option he had. And if we did that well, the quality of service that PSG's front 3 received during the whole match would've gone down exponentially. Now, we probably lose the match anyway, but we surely test that PSG shaky defense more and score more than 1 while denying Mbappe especially so much space and time on the ball. The match was fucking easy for Mbappe. We made him look like Il Fenomeno reincarnate . The whole match was a shitshow from start to finish from Koeman and the players. There was nothing in it for us, to take from it and say "at least we gave it a go". Just shit in all registers.

It's pretty clear what the plan should've been. Tight midfield, with pressure on key areas. So when PSG shaky as glass backline has the ball, the front 3 press, and those players have basically 2 solutions. Playing in pressure zones and risking bad errors and dangerous spills leading to turnover and counters, or going long (safer approach), in which case Pique and Lenglet pick up most balls and we have to be careful so that the 2nd balls and random bounces don't drop to PSG's star players.

We fucking did nothing of the sort. PSG bad no issues building from the back even with that crap defense, there was no pressure in midfield and no shortage of supply to PSG's front men. Messi's walking again turned up to be a major weakness at impeding the other teams' progression (it basically means that the CBs almost always can pass vertically to the 2 midfielders, since Messi carelessly walks next to them), but other players were equally shit, and Koeman's tactics were really bad.

 

[Blaugrana Bull]

There is not just black and white.
You can sit rather deep and start pressing in midfield. Squeeze everything there and leave a rather small space between defense and goal. The likes of Verratti are allowed to get the ball round the center circle (where our strikers operate and try to close down lanes) instead of giving them freedom between our lines ~40m away from goal.

That has nothing to do with bus parking.
And what kind of reasoning is that we would lose the match anyway under any circumstances so going for a bit more entertainment in attack would make sense? That is just bullshit. That is how you concede 8 in a game.