Nelson Semedo

Ursegor

World Champion
Most coaches have it right most of the time when they give certain players little game time (exceptions like Mourinho and KDB also happen). Giving those players 15 games in a row isn't even necessary, in training a coach sees everything. Remember when people were crying about the likes of Bartra, Montoya, Deulofeu, Samper, Grimaldo etc. deserving more yet which of them proved Barca wrong after leaving? People had this genuine opinion that Montoya was defensively more stable ("Catalan Abidal" was the description I think) than Alves around 2012 and that he apparently had pocketed Ronaldo in a Clasico after Alves got injured and Montoya hit the post even though he was horrible in that game too apart from that almost goal.

If Valverde, who is a respectable and experienced coach after all, gives Semedo so little game time even though S. Roberto isn't exactly prime Alves, I'm inclined to believe he doesn't have what it takes. Although Semedo truly looked the real deal at the beginning of the season what are the odds that he beasts in training but Valverde is blind or has a personal dislike?

I think coaches can also spot the difference whether a player doesn't have the level or is simply in bad form/low confidence. After all Suarez did not get benched for Paco or dropped for Messi false 9 when he was in a bad state and people called him finished. A few months later he is chasing the Pichichi trophy despite missing games and having such a slow start.
 

God Serena

New member
Most coaches have it right most of the time when they give certain players little game time (exceptions like Mourinho and KDB also happen). Giving those players 15 games in a row isn't even necessary, in training a coach sees everything. Remember when people were crying about the likes of Bartra, Montoya, Deulofeu, Samper, Grimaldo etc. deserving more yet which of them proved Barca wrong after leaving? People had this genuine opinion that Montoya was defensively more stable ("Catalan Abidal" was the description I think) than Alves around 2012 and that he apparently had pocketed Ronaldo in a Clasico after Alves got injured and Montoya hit the post even though he was horrible in that game too apart from that almost goal.

If Valverde, who is a respectable and experienced coach after all, gives Semedo so little game time even though S. Roberto isn't exactly prime Alves, I'm inclined to believe he doesn't have what it takes. Although Semedo truly looked the real deal at the beginning of the season what are the odds that he beasts in training but Valverde is blind or has a personal dislike?

I think coaches can also spot the difference whether a player doesn't have the level or is simply in bad form/low confidence. After all Suarez did not get benched for Paco or dropped for Messi false 9 when he was in a bad state and people called him finished. A few months later he is chasing the Pichichi trophy despite missing games and having such a slow start.

Nah, I don't think this is the case. Is Vidal really just low on confidence, and not actually a terrible player? How about Paulinho? And Gomes? If this applies to players who don't play it should apply to those who do as well, and anyone with eyes can see these players don't have what it takes.

Valverde has obviously chosen his favorites and is sticking to them. That's fine as long as we continue to win. But with the way we've been playing lately, it seems like we're on borrowed time.
 

Joan

Well-known member
He had to play. Not because he's better or sth but he can't play vs. Chelsea and Roberto has played too many games lately.
 

Riordon

New member
What are we going to do if this guy doesn't succes? IMO Roberto needs to be moved to midfield ASAP, so we need a solution for the RB. Roberto is miles ahead of him in terms of positioning, passing and way better offensively.
 

Danic

New member
Miles ahead.... Wonder where this miles have been lately.
Apart from that. How should Semedo improve if he doesnt play?? If he gets another winger every second game?? How should he link up with anyone??
Valverde is definitly getting a bit out of line recently...
Its same with Coutinho. Imo Valverde is not good at integrating new players.
 

El Barcelona

Active member
He looked so promises in the beginning of the season when he played on the same flank with Dembélé. Such a shame how the season went for him and hope he still can get a chance to proof Valverde wrong. His last games were terrible attacks wise, totally the opposite compared with his first games.
 

God Serena

New member
Miles ahead.... Wonder where this miles have been lately.
Apart from that. How should Semedo improve if he doesnt play?? If he gets another winger every second game?? How should he link up with anyone??
Valverde is definitly getting a bit out of line recently...
Its same with Coutinho. Imo Valverde is not good at integrating new players.

Lol. If Semedo doesn't play how should he improve? I mean, really? What happened to being good enough to play from the get go?

I'm not saying Semedo is good enough or not good enough but come on, we've seen this exact scenario play out countless times, the only difference is, instead of being a promising B team player, it's a supposedly big signing. I'm actually glad that Valverde will give a player less time if he deems them to not be ready. One massive flaw with Lucho is he didn't give a fuck what kind of form a player was in or whether they were good enough, they were gonna play. That's why we were so often stuck watching Gumbau, Douglas, LB Mathieu, Adriano, Bravo (Yes, believe it or not Bravo sucked before he finally left), Paco, Gomes and Arda stink up the place without any ideas of even finding something better.

Semedo could have and should have played against Eibar. The fact that he didn't could quite possibly be saying something about Semedo himself, instead of something about the man who sees him play every day and knows his level.
 

Danic

New member
The difference to players u named is that they dont have potential.
Semedo has it. Thats where the coach comes in.
 

Neeraj

Senior Member
Agree with both sides here. I don't think Semedo has shown too much when given the chance. However, he has barely played consistently, and the right side is difficult for any RB, considering the number of players who shuffle through at RM/RW.

Unfortunately, as we enter March, we hit the business end of the season, and I can't see us giving him an extended run at all. So it's going to be a difficult summer for him.
 

FinBarcelonafan

Well-known member
He looked so promises in the beginning of the season when he played on the same flank with Dembélé. Such a shame how the season went for him and hope he still can get a chance to proof Valverde wrong. His last games were terrible attacks wise, totally the opposite compared with his first games.

It's crazy though. First few games he showed so much promise, but I think he lost his confidence going forward. He's a quality player but needs playing time and Coaches confidence.
 

Joan

Well-known member
I think it's time we start using Dembele - Semedo combo in the league on the right. Should be good for both.

See if he's hit or miss.
 

BBZ8800

Senior Member
The difference to players u named is that they dont have potential.
Semedo has it. Thats where the coach comes in.

I think it's time we start using Dembele - Semedo combo in the league on the right. Should be good for both.

See if he's hit or miss.

A word potential is causing a lot of problems on this forum.

People usually assume: if we'll play a player, he is going to improve a lot, so it's a win-win.

On the other hand, quite possible in the case of Dembele-Semedo combo:
1. we play them both
2. we lose La liga
3. they turn out to be average, or not good as expected

Imagine losing La liga and not getting absolutely anything out of that attempt to "test" 2 new guys.
Again, the problem is that probably 90% of people are blinded with a word " potential" and majority here don't even think about that Dembele might not make it here, and slightly more people have some doubts about Semedo.

We have been through this 100s of times and people don't understand that Barca is not a place where you can test things.
Or if we are testing things, we can't test them for too long.

For example, in season 2016/17.
We bought Denis, Gomes, Digne, Paco, Umtiti.
We had youngsters Samper and Alena.

Now, with this "we need to test players a lot and give them a lot of chances" logic, we would waste last season with playing Denis, Gomes, Paco for 25-30 matches.
Since, you need to play a player for at least 20 matches to see how he fits, links up with teammates, to see how a player will adapt to Barca, to see his skills.
What about Samper? We would have needed to give 20 matches to him also.
With all these tests, there is no way that we would win La liga or competed for a CL.

Fine.
Let's say that we wasted 1 year... for "a brighter" future.

And then a new season starts.
Now we bought Dembele, Deulofeu, Semedo, Paulinho.
What now, to play them 25-30 matches again and to see what will happen?
Ok, fine.
Let's say that a lot of them will suck in the first 20 matches, but we'll test them further, right?

This way, we would lose another La liga surely.
Then, in January we bought Mina.
And young Alena is here.
Now, we should give 20+ matches to Mina and Alena, right?
= to test them... To see whether they are good enough.

And then, we wasted 2 years in a row for testing.
And let's say that during tests we figured out that:
Denis sucks
Gomes sucks
Paco is not good enough
Deulofeu sucks
Dembele might be a bad fit
Semedo is not as good as expected
Samper is not good enough
Let's say that Mina will turn average (in theory).

Oh, and Coutinho is here also. We need to test him also...
So, 2 seasons in a row wasted and not too many new players gaines (most of them didn't reach expectations).

Then in summer 2018, we'll sell Gomes, Denis, Paco, Digne, maybe Semedo, Samper etc.
And we'll bring Arthur and 5 new players.
And the same story again:
= we need to test new guys properly, give them a lot of chances

If we would work this way, we would turn into Arsenal.
We would just test things each new season.
1 out of 3-4 players would be good enough, other 2-3 would be failures.
Then we would buy 4 new guys.
1 would be good enough, 3 would fail.
Then we would buy another 4 guys.
1 would be good enough, 3 would fail.

By then, Messi, Luis, Busi, Iniesta, Raki will retire.
then we'll need 5 new Cms, and 5 years to test them and find 1-2 good guys.
But by then, we'll need new Cfs again.
** Oh, add 2-3 new B-players whom we need to test in each new season.

In short, we would NEVER have a team who could play RIGHT NOW.
We would just be testing and testing over and over for the better future. And that future would never come, since we would be just testing over and over.

My point: this story explained above is a reason why we can't give 100 chances to Semedo if he is not good enough currently.
Or why we can't play Mina currently.
Or why Dembele didn't play yesterday.
Or why Alena and Samper can't play too much etc.

Players will get a certain amount of chances.
But unless if they will show some basic level of quality for Barca's level, they will soon play less and less and their Barca's career will soon come to an end.

That doesn't mean that we should give up from players after 5 matches, but.
I'll said it now, a lot of people will jump, but that's reality.
1. if Semedo will play equally as average as this season in the next 18 Months, we will surely buy a new RB in a summer of 2019 and he will be sold.
He was average this season. If he won't improve, quite likely that he will be gone after 2 years (like Denis and Gomes)
2. this will hurt a lot of people, but the same is with Dembele.
Imagine if his next season will be the same as this one.
Imo, he will be gone in a summer of 2019.

We didn't buy those guys to start to play good in 2022 or 2024.
And we can't wait for too long.

The same is with Denis, Gomes, Paco, Digne this summer.
We had them for 2 years. None of them improved in the 2nd year (except Gomes to some extent, but even that is not good enough for our level), and that's it regarding their Barca's career.

Everything what people said about Semedo is true:
1. he needs time
2. he will be better with more matches played

But still, he played 24 matches till now.
Barca won't give him 100 chances to test whether he will upgrade his play then.

Also, about ideas to, play Semedo-Dembele, lol.
What about Roberto then?
Should we move him into midfield then?
But then we'll play Iniesta-Busquets-Roberto-Dembele.
What about Rakitic, Paulinho, Coutinho?

So, let's test youngsters who are not performing well for now and let's kick out of a team older guys who are proven players on a world class levels and who are playing well RIGHT NOW?
Again, yes, we need to give chances to youngsters and new players, but only a limited number of chances.
 
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