Ivan Rakitić

[Vilarrubi]

My genuine thoughts on Rakitic:

He looked good during the early MSN era, because there were Iniesta, Busquets and even Xavi in fine form; they were able to draw alot of defenders in one area through their stellar dribbles and passes, Rakitic was then able to exploit the space left behind by his compatriots and drive long passes or switch plays to Neymar or Dani Alves, who are often making runs on the left and right respectively due to their burst of pace. He also provided extra defensive aid whenever Barcelona gets caught in a tight situation and an extra men upfield whenever they are on a counter attack. His workrate was amazing back then.

Despite all that, Rakitic has always been slow, really slow, and was never really too good at tight space dribbling, largely has to rely on his teammates to do that at times. Fast forward to 2017, his flaws becomes more apparent and magnified due to the lack of controlling midfielders, fast wingers and fullbacks on both sides (Alba and Roberto, No Neymar, no Dembele). Rakitic now often gets caught more in tight spaces and run out of ideas of who to pass to, more often than not, resulting in him taking the safer route and passes most of the time.

There is still no doubt Rakitic has lost some of passing or longshot techniques and most prominently, his workrate and pace on the field. Especially with so many old players who lost their pace, namely Suarez, Messi, Iniesta and maybe even Alba who now work alone without Neymar, Rakitic can ultimately get exposed pretty badly. Worse of all, with Paulinho now co-existing with Rakitic in a 442 setup, who are both somewhat "workhorses", it simply is a recipe for disaster. With both of them lacking options to pass to, it will only double the problem that already exists: lack of width. You simply cant have too many workhorses on the field, their similar flaws will definitely cause more incongruity and their inability to compensate each other.

For the sake of the greater good, Barcelona has to give up either one of them, and Gomes. Rakitic is not a bad player; he's just not relevant anymore due to his age and decline.

Yeah very nice post!

Solution = Buy Coutinho for midfield

 

[Sorin]

He is not up to Barca's standards. As simple as that. Saying he's shit is unfair, on the other hand saying that he's a complete midfielder or that he's adding some valuable quality to our mid is also a gross exaggeration. He is mediocre for our standards. He's being used as a jack of all trades. Unfortunately he doesn't have any world class attribute and Sergi Roberto is currently better than him. He is faster, more incisive, can dribble much better, equal passing if not better.

Hard to see why Rakitic is still being used over him. Not his fault, it's on the manager, but yeah let's not sugarcoat it. He needs to get replaced in the starting eleven by Roberto asap, and eventually sold and a wc player brought in. Or with wc potential at least. Prefer someone established though.

 

[Giginho75]

we are talking about a player who (despite he is no more so brilliant, despite with a slow playing way) plays in a team first in spanish league and CL...

possible is a shit for many users?
possible valverde is so crazy to put him in the starting 11 almost all matches?

would many users like to sell him?
ok, it's a respectable choise, but i think is better doing it in the summer session, not in january.

 

[Ripsta]

Cannot wait till he finally fucks off, a truely horrible excuse for a footballer

 

[Dan1983]

Absolute dross, but sadly he is Valverdes's version of a teacher's pet.

 

[MIXA]

When the team went down to 10 men, Valverde moved him into DM and Busquets into CM! Busquets clearly has more creative abilities so not a bad move.

What is depressing though is that the coach actually has more faith in Busquets ability to create a goal over that of Rakitic. The team shouldn’t be working in this way. It’s clearly broken. Someone log a call with maintenance. Midfield needs a fix.

 

[Leong157]

He left Roberto under 2 VS 1 many times!!!

And same old shit.

 

[LeeRomeno]

Maybe you should stop reading about him and start watching him. He has been poor for the vast majority of games.

I have seen majority of games, only a few games where he has been poor.

I don't know what you think people here mean about the extent of his crapness but if I had to summarize then rakitic in his last 2 seasons he has been extremely mediocre and doesn't deserve to be a consistent starter for a team like barca by any means possible. Not a single top club will start rakitic in their starting 11 if they had rakitic.

And there is no group-effect here. If one remembers then rakitic wasn't criticised too much once he started playing bad. He was forgiven for a very long amount of time until it was like a whole season. Suarez has also been only recently been criticized too much after ages of being mediocre. And right now rakitic IS arguably the worst consistent starter of our team. Even in case of neymar there were always two opposing sides that debated ruthlessly for ages and that wouldn't have been possible if there was this groupthink you talk about.

I don't know if you are aware of this but its not just you but like 90% of the members here who have other sources of barcelona news apart from barcaforum. No one lives under a rock.

I don't know why you bring jamdav into this, he is one of those who has called rakitic average way before most people started calling him that here. Also just because he is different doesn't mean he is the voice of reason. I agree with him on a lot of stuff but he also has a weird boner for barto and co and keeps defending them which is dumb.

Literally no one on here thinks much about what others are saying before posting. I am guessing you once had an unpopular opinion which was rejected by most users here and since then you have made up your current opnion about this place.

And barca reddit is indeed delusional. Did you read the post posted in reddit a few pages ago? Its unbelievable it got such a postitive response on reddit and mind you that post didn't say rakitic isn't as bad as you think which is what you are saying right now. It said rakitic is a "complete midfielder" and "his best is yet to come". Don't make me laugh. There was one thread about Mats where someone claimed he and umtiti were the best signings of the recent times but then someone replied "How could you forgot raki" and that comment got a huge amount of likes as if rakitic was such a great signing. That one treble season has really made people blind to how terrible he has been ever since.

So much random guessing based on nothing.

Not a single top club will start rakitic in their starting 11 if they had rakitic.

Hilarious, so we are not a top club suddenly? Last time i checked we are.

I don't know if you are aware of this but its not just you but like 90% of the members here who have other sources of barcelona news apart from barcaforum.

Did you make a survey? Do you know all 5000 members personally?

I don't know why you bring jamdav into this, he is one of those who has called rakitic average way before most people started calling him that here.

average is not synonym for poor

Literally no one on here thinks much about what others are saying before posting.

That i agree with rofl

I am guessing you once had an unpopular opinion which was rejected by most users here and since then you have made up your current opnion about this place.

not really

Interesting thing about group following, no one will ever admit it anyways, everything thinks they are individuals and it is all just random coincidence.

So basically you admit that the hate didn't start overnight. It took a lot of time. Have you ever wondered that maybe people criticize gomes,suarez and rakitic because they have actually been shit and not because they want to sound cool? Why don't we hate on players like umtiti mats alba etc to sound cool?

And no mate even when raki and suarez have good games no one lashes them. When suarez has somewhat of a good game which he hasn't had recently but he just scored 2 okayish goals and when he did the only response you could see here was "lets hope he gets back in form with this". No one said that he continued to be atrocious. Same with rakitic.

It always takes time for group to form decision. You only need a few scapegoats, why would anyone hate on Umtiti? You only sound cool if u trash the ones the bullies have picked out, not everyone.
The last part is completely untrue and main reason I actually started this conversation.

So are u encouraging users to be like JamDav to always go against the majority for the sake of doing it? Since u said the truth is "somewhere in between", JamDav isnt making any better by having a completely opposite and extreme opinions at times. He still isn't a good example. And exactly which medium are u talking about? Are these medium correct as well? Obviously some social media or journalism wont blow up matters or speak the ugly truth bcos they have to accomodate to the fans or avoid public outcry. So, If those mediums are the majority, wouldn't we be the "minority", in the grand scheme of things? Shouldn't we then be praised for our sheer "honesty" like JamDav?

You already said those were "extreme cases" and it doesnt represent the entire community here. And now u are lumping everyone together and magnifying and blowing it further, by comparing us with "other mediums". You too cant handle the different opinions here frm what u nomally read in other platforms. You yourself couldn't break away from the traditional mindset as well. So why criticise the people here for speaking their mind?

No, im encouraging people not to trash players just because majority does. Mediums as in blogs, yt channels, newspapers.
Typical situation after game:
Newspaper review on Rakitic - 7 played his position well and delivered some nice assists
Barcaforum - utter shit

 

[DonAK]

Are we supposed to look at newspaper reviews now too? The same newspapers telling us this squad is absolutely amazing? Because that's what MD and Sport constantly spew. Take one player(Messi) out of this squad and it would be 4th right now in La Liga behind the Madrid teams and Valencia. The team would struggle to score and create and the defence and GK can only take that much pressure before it starts leaking at the back too. It's at times so bad that Messi has to come back to our half and get the ball directly from ter Stegen or Busquets like this game, for something to happen. The few times he tries to set him up in an advanced position, the ball never arrives at his feet.

Whose fault is that? The midfielders and wingers. Rakitic being one of two midfielders with the responsibility to advance the ball forward is a significant part of that problem.

Come on.

Rakitic has been poor for a long time now. He has had some good games in between, but his poor or average performances overwhelm this good to great ones.

 

[Ousmane Dembélé]

He deserves to be publicly humiliated and shamed for singlehandedly killing our CL aspirations and making us a mid table club.

 

[Nothanks]

I also do find it odd that this forum in particular truly rates rakitic much less than anywhere else.

and then the simple response is that everyone not here are casual fans or viewers lol

 

[Raketa10]

He deserves to be publicly humiliated and shamed for singlehandedly killing our CL aspirations and making us a mid table club.

WTF dude? With supporters like you who needs enemies? WTF is wrong with you people?

Is he great? NO! But he is also not the worst player in our midfield. Not by far! There are plenty of others who should GTFO before him.

Is he on the level we would like Barca midfielder to be? NO! But who apart from Busi is???

So stop being cunts and support your player until someone better arrives. When that happens he will be benched for sure but until than stop trashing him 24/7.

 

[xXKonan]

Felt like he left Roberto out to dry defensively several times this match.

overall a standard Rakitic match today, that's all that needs to be said.

 

[Raketa10]

Felt like he left Roberto out to dry defensively several times this match.

overall a standard Rakitic match today, that's all that needs to be said.

When?

 

[Ousmane Dembélé]

WTF dude? With supporters like you who needs enemies? WTF is wrong with you people?

Is he great? NO! But he is also not the worst player in our midfield. Not by far! There are plenty of others who should GTFO before him.

Is he on the level we would like Barca midfielder to be? NO! But who apart from Busi is???

So stop being cunts and support your player until someone better arrives. When that happens he will be benched for sure but until than stop trashing him 24/7.

Roberto is already light years ahead of Rakitic. Someone needs to truly shame Rakitic like he's been shaming Barcelona to show him the damage he's been doing to our club and guilt him into retiring.