Ronald Koeman

Bobo32

Senior Member
Who knew that Koeman was so convincingly hiding his tactical brilliance?

The 3-5-2 makes this a reborn team. This setup helps in so many ways!

The 4 man backline was not even close to cutting it defensively against good competition. The three CBs with help from the two former fullbacks, Busquets and De Jong might be able to avoid slaughter by the capable attacks. This new position maximizes what Dest has to offer. Dembele is perfectly suited for the high-speed work this formation offers to him. The other big beneficiary is De Jong, now he can make his moves on goal pretty much whenever he feels the urge. The only important player who might suffer in this formation is Pedri, but he's a good bet to figure it out.

Now, somehow sell Greizmann this summer. Fati should also be devastating rotating in up front. Sergi Roberto, Moriba and Puig should also thrive.

I remember people saying similar things after 3-5-2 was first tried in the fall. After a couple poor games it was back to 4-3-3 and the team played better again instantly.
I can see something similar happening again, I was not at all as impressed by their performance, I think the win was due to a couple of individual brilliances and that they will find it hard to control games in that way going forward - yes Sevilla was pretty neutralized, but I think they can easily find ways to expoit that setup.

One good thing with 3/5 at the back is that Busquets doesn't get to drop, but can have his best position in the hole, distributing the ball. When they played with three at the back but two pivotes in front they were very easy to read. I think the extra man at the back is pretty superfluos most of the time, but I'd rather have an extra CB than Griezmann on the other hand...
 

malvolio

Senior Member
His contract is for another year I think, so I guess, we'll allow him to finish his contract.

what are his highlights? winning at bilbao and sevilla in the league? because those two matches seemed to get the most praise.

otherwise, we got schooled at home by both juve and psg. and we've failed in every crunch match of our season.

maybe a second place and cup turnaround would warrant him getting another season. but haven't seen something that would convince me he should continue.

him playing with kids was conjunctural. as the squad was thin and affected by injuries.

3-5-2 was barely tried in a match and people talk about it as some genius move.
 
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Gnidrologist

Senior Member
I agree, My feeling about RK ar subdued for now. I know he's in tough spot now and has changed some things in our play that i like. First of all attacking proves. I just can't stomach the valverdian type of super safe and pragmatic football. Our defense is absolutely atrocious now, but it's impossible to pin this on Koeman for obvious reason. If he can manage to make us more solid defensively after acquiring then cadre he wants, the he will really earn trust.

As of now, he shouldn't be hyped every time we have good match, because often it's because of some individually brilliant moves by some players and not team effort. The Sevilla match was a rare occasion, when it seemed like it's not only Messi doing Messi things, but squad was coherent, everyone knew what they were doing, passing was swift and to the point, no confusion in defense. Whether that's because Sevilla is in shitty form is hard to evaluate.

Anyway, he should be given benefit of a doubt, but not praised to heavans after every good match against mediocre opposition.
 

Horatio

You're welcome
Anyway, he should be given benefit of a doubt, but not praised to heavans after every good match against mediocre opposition.

It's not the victory after every mediocre team that gets praised. It's the consistency that he's building. Our team has a lot of weak mental players. After a tough start of the season he seems to have turned around the results in La Liga. I didn't mind losing here and there(now I do because we are in the race for La Liga) but I just want to see our players play with intensity and not put their heads down after taking a goal.

Having said that, he could have been first in La Liga with a solid run if it weren't for some atrocious individual player mistakes.

I think Koeman ranks highly in terms of tactical understanding(much higher than Zidane) and if he isn't going to win us a lot of prizes I still think he is a coach that will improve the players and teach them a thing or two. Also don't think he is the type of coach that will attract disastrous players like Arda, Aleix Vidal, Paco, Andre Gomes, Denis Suarez. Also not the type of coach that will lose the dressing droom easily.

In short, I believe Koeman is not the type of coach that can do a lot of harm here but if he does well he is going to do really well. Small risk vs substantial reward.
 
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fergus90

Senior Member
It's not the victory after every mediocre team that gets praised. It's the consistency that he's building. Our team has a lot of weak mental players. After a tough start of the season he seems to have turned around the results in La Liga. I didn't mind losing here and there(now I do because we are in the race for La Liga) but I just want to see our players play with intensity and not put their heads down after taking a goal.

Having said that, he could have been first in La Liga with a solid run if it weren't for some atrocious individual player mistakes.

I think Koeman ranks highly in terms of tactical understanding(much higher than Zidane) and if he isn't going to win us a lot of prizes I still think he is a coach that will improve the players and teach them a thing or two. Also don't think he is the type of coach that will attract disastrous players like Arda, Aleix Vidal, Paco, Andre Gomes, Denis Suarez. Also not the type of coach that will lose the dressing droom easily.

In short, I believe Koeman is not the type of coach that can do a lot of harm here but if he does well he is going to do really well. Small risk vs substantial reward.

In my opinion, his only real weak trait is his choice/timing of substitutions sometimes. Feels like we are too late to respond to the pattern of the game before making changes.

I don't think he's a world-class manager by any stretch but he's doing some important work with developing the younger players and we could certainly do a lot worse.
 

malvolio

Senior Member
I think Koeman ranks highly in terms of tactical understanding(much higher than Zidane)

based on what? he looked clueless vs juventus and psg.

Also don't think he is the type of coach that will attract disastrous players like Arda, Aleix Vidal, Paco, Andre Gomes, Denis Suarez. Also not the type of coach that will lose the dressing droom easily.

dest is on par with aleix vidal right now. otherwise koeman hasn't done any other transfers in order for us to get an idea on his scouting ability.
 

Gnidrologist

Senior Member
It's not the victory after every mediocre team that gets praised. It's the consistency that he's building. Our team has a lot of weak mental players. After a tough start of the season he seems to have turned around the results in La Liga. I didn't mind losing here and there(now I do because we are in the race for La Liga) but I just want to see our players play with intensity and not put their heads down after taking a goal.

Having said that, he could have been first in La Liga with a solid run if it weren't for some atrocious individual player mistakes.

I think Koeman ranks highly in terms of tactical understanding(much higher than Zidane) and if he isn't going to win us a lot of prizes I still think he is a coach that will improve the players and teach them a thing or two. Also don't think he is the type of coach that will attract disastrous players like Arda, Aleix Vidal, Paco, Andre Gomes, Denis Suarez. Also not the type of coach that will lose the dressing droom easily.

In short, I believe Koeman is not the type of coach that can do a lot of harm here but if he does well he is going to do really well. Small risk vs substantial reward.
Fully agree with this except tactical acumen. He doesn't seem to be big game player. He's still fumbling around like he has no clear vision of how we should play, which i'm pretty sure Xavi, whether successful or not, would be different. Clear vision and goals, but maybe too ambitious for his own sake. Just like Pep.
 
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malvolio

Senior Member
Based on The Netherlands which was pretty huge lol.

1. a final(he lost) in a glorified friendly tournament?
2. most international managers don't do well at club level. it's not the same thing really


Dest was 19 when he got here. Vidal 25.

true. doesn't mean he'll be better than vidal. and it's not enough of a sample by which we can evaluate koeman's scoutng ability?
 

Horatio

You're welcome
1. a final(he lost) in a glorified friendly tournament?

1. lol you just googled "netherlands past results" and picked the one you thought would help your argument.

2. Probably true. But again the brevity of your point shows me you didn't really read into what was going on at the time, otherwise you would've mentioned other things.
 

Joan

Well-known member
1. lol you just googled "netherlands past results" and picked the one you thought would help your argument.

2. Probably true. But again the brevity of your point shows me you didn't really read into what was going on at the time, otherwise you would've mentioned other things.

What was going on at that time? What makes you think Koeman's such a great tactician?
 

malvolio

Senior Member
1. lol you just googled "netherlands past results" and picked the one you thought would help your argument.

2. Probably true. But again the brevity of your point shows me you didn't really read into what was going on at the time, otherwise you would've mentioned other things.

i think i've had this discussion with someone else on here. i understand that for dutch people it was a turnaround when compared with past humiliations. but finishing in second place of a qualifying group that contained germany, northern ireland, belarus and estonia is no great achievement.
 

Horatio

You're welcome
What was going on at that time? What makes you think Koeman's such a great tactician?

Tons of articles out there explaining what Dutch team went through post-Brazil World Cup. End of a generation of players, difference being to other countries that went through same(Germany, Spain) is that (Dutch) pundits deemed Netherlands too small of a country to grow enough talent and compete with other countries. Brace yourself, glory days would be over and it would be rare to see us ever climb back to the level the Dutch were ate.

Between '14 and '17 Netherlands went through 3 coaches(two highly respected and awful Danny Blind) all failed to make the team work. Then Koeman came in rebuild team and tactics in a very short time and in span of half a year we went from a team that was written off to compete in the long future to a team that was ready to lose Euro and World finals finals again(joke).

Don't know why I am explaing this. Pretty sure at the time it was going on this was some of the talk in football circles, how Dutch had fallen. Probably because now it doesn't work in favor of some of narrative of some posters here people have become oblivious to it.
 
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