Bernardo Silva

[YodaMaster]

You really don't have a clue about what you are talking about. Bernardo Silva would have been a much better transfer than the scandalous Coutinho transfer (160 million euros!) and a much better fit as shortly described in post 394. The Coutinho transfer was just another (the most recent) confirmation of this idiotic board's pathetic transfer dealings. Buying players without a well-defined plan that don't fit the current "system" or what is left of it.

Dude, funny thing is that I agree with this. I was against Coutinho buy, it's third time since yesterday that I'm repeating it. But y'all need to stop with your bullshit "he can't play in midfield cause he doesn't work hard defensively" stories. Now that he's here, our coach needs to adapt him. And his qualities are more adapted to a midfield spot rather than a winger.

Hold your horses, son, until Pep wins a Cl with those players.

You will prove me wrong then.

Lol dude wtf. That has nothing to do with the argument. You were saying that Coutinho can't play in midfield.
So Pep can kick Liverpool's ass with a small technical schoolboy midfield but we can't even try once an Arthur-Coutinho midfield at Camp Nou against weak opposition ? Cause that's exactly what you're implying this whole time.

 

[Respekt_III]

Lol dude wtf. That has nothing to do with the argument. You were saying that Coutinho can't play in midfield.
So Pep can kick Liverpool's ass with a small technical schoolboy midfield but we can't even try once an Arthur-Coutinho midfield at Camp Nou against weak opposition ? Cause that's exactly what you're implying this whole time.

Pep has a system as we've mentioned before, our system is what exactly?
The issue isn't about playing him against weaker opposition, what the fuck was the point of spending that much money on him if that's what we bought him for. Against better teams he is a liability!

 

[Leo_Messi]

Dude, funny thing is that I agree with this. I was against Coutinho buy, it's third time since yesterday that I'm repeating it. But y'all need to stop with your bullshit "he can't play in midfield cause he doesn't work hard defensively" stories. Now that he's here, our coach needs to adapt him. And his qualities are more adapted to a midfield spot rather than a winger.

What are we arguing about then if you agree with me? I never wrote anything about Coutinho "not being able to play in the midfield". In fact I have argued here time and time again that he should be given more time in the midfield than the actual freaking 210 minutes (or was it 215 minutes, can't remember) that he has actually played as a midfielder so far almost 1 year after his move.

However (at least to me) it is as clear as day and night that Bernardo Silva would be a much better fit than Coutinho. Not to mention a much, much, much cheaper option. However, as I wrote earlier, he was merely a Portuguese next door and not some flashy Brazilian that this useless board has an obsession with often.

 

[YodaMaster]

Pep has a system as we've mentioned before, our system is what exactly?

Here we are ! That's exactly the problem: our system is shit. Who's fault is it ? Mr. Valverde.
That's what I'm saying. A world class coach would have found a way to fit Coutinho in the midfield. Obviously judging by his main qualities, Coutinho is way more suitable to the midfield than to the wings at Barça.

The issue isn't about playing him against weaker opposition, what the fuck was the point of spending that much money on him if that's what we bought him for. Against better teams he is a liability!

Well, go ask BBZ. He's the one saying that it's too risky to try other players and other systems than the ones Valverde is playing every game.
In my opinion, it should never be an issue to start with a Coutinho-Arthur midfield at Camp Nou, against any opposition. In away games, a midfield Busquets-Vidal-Coutinho should never be an issue too. Because we're fucking Barça, not Getafe. Barça should always play offensive football. But BBZ will tell you that it's too risky and that Valverde is right to never test new combos. Until now, Valverde never tested such things so of course, I won't ask for a Busquets-Arthur-Coutinho mid to be played first time in a CL QF. That's why I said try it in a home Liga game to see how it does and to let that trio create an alchemy. Then slowly you play against tougher and tougher opposition.

If you give that trio 3-4-5 games and they show that they're shit, well go back to the disgusting Busi-Raki-Vidal thing. At least, we'll know for sure that it doesn't work. But the coward Valverde will never try it because he's small team coach.

What are we arguing about then if you agree with me? I never wrote anything about Coutinho "not being able to play in the midfield". In fact I have argued here time and time again that he should be given more time in the midfield than the actual freaking 210 minutes (or was it 215 minutes, can't remember) that he has actually played as a midfielder so far almost 1 year after his move.

However (at least to me) it is as clear as day and night that Bernardo Silva would be a much better fit than Coutinho. Not to mention a much, much, much cheaper option. However, as I wrote earlier, he was merely a Portuguese next door and not some flashy Brazilian that this useless board has an obsession with often.

Well, I thought your point was Bernardo can fit in Barça while Coutinho can't. My bad. I agree that Bernardo would have been a better option (younger, cheaper), I found it crazy that the board never considered that player. But I also think that Coutinho would look great under Pep, and that Bernardo would struggle under Valverde. Because in my opinion, Bernardo and Coutinho have similar profiles. Bernardo might be/become slightly better than Phil, I agree.

 

[BBZ8800]

Lol dude wtf. That has nothing to do with the argument. You were saying that Coutinho can't play in midfield.
So Pep can kick Liverpool's ass with a small technical schoolboy midfield but we can't even try once an Arthur-Coutinho midfield at Camp Nou against weak opposition ? Cause that's exactly what you're implying this whole time.

We can play that way against weak teams at home.
Regarding B. Silva, he is surrounded by midfielders and wingers who run, work and defend.

Sane, Sterling vs Messi and Dembele.
Further, I thought that a debate is about a Cl.
We can't win a Cl with defensively weak midfielders.
And Pep probably won't either.

On La liga level, you can win in 100s of ways.
With Raki-Paulinho, Raki-Arthur, Raki-Vidal, maybe even with Cou-Arthur.

 

[Leo_Messi]

Well, I thought your point was Bernardo can fit in Barça while Coutinho can't. My bad. I agree that Bernardo would have been a better option (younger, cheaper), I found it crazy that the board never considered that player. But I also think that Coutinho would look great under Pep, and that Bernardo would struggle under Valverde. Because in my opinion, Bernardo and Coutinho have similar profiles. Bernardo might be/become slightly better than Phil, I agree.

Well, no harm done. I have nothing to "counter" your post with as we agree. However I will keep repeating myself as I did 1.5 years ago when the first strong rumors linking Coutinho to us appeared (spring 2017). Namely that Coutinho would not be the best fit, let alone fo the insane price that was rumored (never would I have imagined that we would actually end up paying potentially 160 million euros (!!!) for him pre-Neymar transfer) and that for instance the likes of Bernardo Silva (who was rumored to us occasionally as well) would be a much better fit and a much cheaper option. It is always easy to look back in time and say "hey, I was right" or say "you were wrong" but to me it was always an obvious thing. Lastly, I don't think that Silva and Coutinho are comparable. For instance I doubt that Coutinho would ever have been able to do what Silva did defensively yesterday. Guardiola or no Guardiola. He does not have the pace nor physique for that IMO. Coutinho to me has always been a more "luxurious" version of Ozil and such players do not tend to fit us well. Fábregas was a similar case years ago. I was always heavily against his arrival too.

 

[BBZ8800]

Here we are ! That's exactly the problem: our system is shit. Who's fault is it ? Mr. Valverde.
That's what I'm saying. A world class coach would have found a way to fit Coutinho in the midfield. Obviously judging by his main qualities, Coutinho is way more suitable to the midfield than to the wings at Barça.

There is one problem.
When Pep came to City, he was given:
1. Unlimited money for players
2. He is a coach
3. He is a sporting director, more or less

So, when Pep came to City, he had his system in his head.
Then he decided that 10 players from City are a good fit for his system.
He sold the rest and bought 10-20 players and subs with EXACT skills which he needs to execute HIS SYSTEM.

His project is something like a mini long term project and everything is planned.
And he has everything needed to build a team in a way which he wants.

Now, let's go to Barca.
We had:
1. 4 different sporting ditectors in 4 years.
Each of them was buying players for different projects.
2. We have Barto with transfers to win elections: Arda.
And then we have panic buys for 310 Millions in Dembele and Coutinho to calm down the fans.
3. And then, we had 5 different coaches in 8 years.
Each of them with different ideas and with different players whom they wanted.

So, when EV is our coach, he will have on his disposal:
Some players whom Lucho wanted.
Some players whom Barto wanted.
Some players bought by Robert, Zubi, Braida and now Abidal.
And a few players whom EV wanted.

So, basically, EV is getting a random bunch of players who's transfers don't have too much sense, logic or balance.
Plus, when EV wants a player (Willian and Paulinho), the board says: fuck you! You need to play with players whom you didn't want at all.

Now, let's go back to Pep.
He can buy/sell whomever he wants.
And he is building the exact team which he wants.

Ok, Pep is a better coach, but you are asking why we don't have a system at Barca?
= because everything is random and impulsive here.
Zero calmness and longterm planning.

Now you understand why Barca is a selfdestructive club since always.

To answer to your question: if Pep had Messi, he would surround him with technical and yet hardworking players.
Yet, at Barca, we have Messi, Suarez, Dembele and Coutinho paired together.
Pep would never build a team in that way.

The question is not: why Ev is not trying to integrate all 4?
But: why have we even built a team in such a stupid way in the first place?

 

[YodaMaster]

[MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION]

What concerns Messi, Suarez, Dembélé and Coutinho: Messi is the only player that should get the permission to omit defensive tasks, and in big matches, Messi can easily do same job as Aguero yesterday. Dembélé does his defensive job and shows involvement, Dembélé can definitely work as hard as Sterling and even Sané (who helps more in defense than Sterling). Coach should get more from Coutinho, learn him discipline, it's coach job + Phil is young. Suarez always worked hard but he's getting old. If Suarez or Coutinho don't want to defend, then tell them to fuck off and play with Dembélé and Malcom. These 2 young lads will have no problem to putting in the same work as Sterling and Sané. That's what a coach with balls would do. Valverde isn't one.

Mourinho benched Casillas and Pogba.
Conte benched Costa.
Pep benched Zlatan, Touré, Muller.
Allegri benched Dybala and told Bonucci (his best defender) to fuck off.
Lucho benched Piqué.

For the rest, well I can only agree with most of things you wrote.
This post will be quite short.

Valverde is a fraud, but the board is even worse. Of course they're the ones who pull all the shit. Horrible work. The club is dying since Laporta left.
Just look at the midfielders this board bought: Afellay, Mascherano, Cesc, Song, Rakitic, Arda, Gomes, Denis, Paulinho, Arthur, Vidal and the next one is Rabiot.
Arthur is promising and could be the only great addition. Rakitic and Vidal are good enough to help in certain circumstances, never good enough to be long term starters. These are the best ones. All the others were complete shit.

This is how they replaced fucking Xavi and Iniesta. Horrible.

To top it all, they brought the antithesis of what a Barça coach should be: Valverde.

We're watching a self destruction indeed, I completely agree.

 

[cracken]

In Bernardo's case, I was just stating that even though he's never been an Ozil before, he also never was this kind of crazy workhorse in his Monaco days. Y'all should go read french papers, they're surprised with Bernardo's crazy activity.

https://www.sofoot.com/si-bernardo-silva-tout-va-464461.html

This one for example says:
"Au point de reconnaître difficilement le Portugais qu’on pouvait observer il y a deux ans encore sur le Rocher monégasque. Celui qui était aussi talentueux que fluet."
"We couldn't recognize the Portuguese we used to watch 2 years ago at Monaco. The one who was as talented as he was frele."

http://www.maxifoot.fr/football/article-38414.htm

This one says:

"A Monaco, on connaissait le Bernardo Silva capable de sublimer le jeu de son équipe par sa vision de jeu et sa qualité technique. A Manchester, le Lusitanien a ajouté l'impact physique et la détermination en phase défensive à sa panoplie du parfait milieu de terrain. Un volume de jeu impressionnant. «Bernardo Silva a tout fait» , a lancé son entraîneur à l'issue de la rencontre face aux Reds."

"At Monaco, we knew the Bernardo who was able to sublime his team's with his vision and his technical quality. At Manchester, the portuguese added physical impact and determination in defensive phases to his game to become the perfect midfielder. An impressive volume in his game..."

Yes a great coach like Pep does transform young promising players with lot of potential into accomplished world class players by adjusting some things and developing even further some others.

About Coutinho, I never said that he needs to do this crazy Bernardo like workhorse performances. I answered in Coutinho thread. Go watch if you want.

What would I need to read some journalist's opinion? I'm French myself and watched him since the day he signed with Monaco. Obviously his workrate as a box to box midfielder is going to be higher than when he was just a winger tasked with sticking to one side. But to claim that he was one of the " least hard workers " in Monaco or to compare the way he played to that of Countinho's is just nonsensical and a clear proof that you never watched him play.

 

[Respekt_III]

[MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION]

What concerns Messi, Suarez, Dembélé and Coutinho: Messi is the only player that should get the permission to omit defensive tasks, and in big matches, Messi can easily do same job as Aguero yesterday. Dembélé does his defensive job and shows involvement, Dembélé can definitely work as hard as Sterling and even Sané (who helps more in defense than Sterling). Coach should get more from Coutinho, learn him discipline, it's coach job + Phil is young. Suarez always worked hard but he's getting old. If Suarez or Coutinho don't want to defend, then tell them to fuck off and play with Dembélé and Malcom. These 2 young lads will have no problem to putting in the same work as Sterling and Sané. That's what a coach with balls would do. Valverde isn't one.

Mourinho benched Casillas and Pogba.
Conte benched Costa.
Pep benched Zlatan, Touré, Muller.
Allegri benched Dybala and told Bonucci (his best defender) to fuck off.
Lucho benched Piqué.

For the rest, well I can only agree with most of things you wrote.
This post will be quite short.

Valverde is a fraud, but the board is even worse. Of course they're the ones who pull all the shit. Horrible work. The club is dying since Laporta left.
Just look at the midfielders this board bought: Afellay, Mascherano, Cesc, Song, Rakitic, Arda, Gomes, Denis, Paulinho, Arthur, Vidal and the next one is Rabiot.
Arthur is promising and could be the only great addition. Rakitic and Vidal are good enough to help in certain circumstances, never good enough to be long term starters. These are the best ones. All the others were complete shit.

This is how they replaced fucking Xavi and Iniesta. Horrible.

To top it all, they brought the antithesis of what a Barça coach should be: Valverde.

We're watching a self destruction indeed, I completely agree.

So we pretty much agree on most things and we're arguing for the sake of argument (other than Coutinhos physical abilities)

I Mentioned in the dembele thread the same thing as you in that he needs game time as a cm against lesser opponents to help him develop his game there.

Hopefully we appoint a decent coach and bring in a decent striker next year!

 

[YodaMaster]

What would I need to read some journalist's opinion? I'm French myself and watched him since the day he signed with Monaco. Obviously his workrate as a box to box midfielder is going to be higher than when he was just a winger tasked with sticking to one side. But to claim that he was one of the " least hard workers " in Monaco or to compare the way he played to that of Countinho's is just nonsensical and a clear proof that you never watched him play.

Hey dummy, I'm french too and I followed ASM almost every week during that Ligue 1 champion season in 2016/2017. Bernardo reached new levels of hard work against Liverpool. And generally he was far from being amongst the most hardworking ASM players. But to be fair, in that Monaco team everybody worked their asses off. I used BBZ favorite analyze instruments: Whoscored numbers. And they showed that Coutinho at Liv defensive numbers were similar/better than Bernardo's ASM defensive numbers.
Bernardo is getting better at defending under Pep while Coutinho is getting worse under Valverde.

Why would you read french papers ? Because we're having an argument and I'm showing you that plenty frenchmen think like me: Bernardo never worked as hard at Monaco as he did against Liverpool. And he never ran as much as he is now at City.

 

[Arizona Scott]

Since when is a midfield B. Silva, D Silva and Fernandinho, school boy? I assume Modric, Kroos and Casmiro is school boy too. Further, kicking Liverpool's ass is a stretch. Centimeters on 3 shots and all 3 went Pep's way (Sane in, Mane out, Own goal out). Epic match of two of the 4 best teams in world football (+Barca +Juv).

Coutinho is a Brazil 1st team fixture (and one of their best players), was viewed as the best attacking mid in the EPL, and feared by opponents in the EPL (1st thing they game planned vs Liverpool and it didn't always work). There was a reason Liverpool desperately did not want to sell. He is a talent and force, though clearly for Barca there has only been glimpses, its complicated (Yoda you could have a point about coaching, Klopp certainly loved Countinho even though in some ways he is not the ideal fit for what he is doing), but I don't think it is because B Silva is a better talent.

If Arthur becomes the player Rakitic is, Barca have struck gold. Rakitic has been a world lass midfielder for a few years now--fantastic buy who contributed to many, many trophies.

I do agree that all the Barca players sans Messi has to be committed to winning the ball back, period.

 

[cracken]

Hey dummy, I'm french too and I followed ASM almost every week during that Ligue 1 champion season in 2016/2017. Bernardo reached new levels of hard work against Liverpool. And generally he was far from being amongst the most hardworking ASM players. But to be fair, in that Monaco team everybody worked their asses off. I used BBZ favorite analyze instruments: Whoscored numbers. And they showed that Coutinho at Liv defensive numbers were similar/better than Bernardo's ASM defensive numbers.
Bernardo is getting better at defending under Pep while Coutinho is getting worse under Valverde.

Why would you read french papers ? Because we're having an argument and I'm showing you that plenty frenchmen think like me: Bernardo never worked as hard at Monaco as he did against Liverpool. And he never ran as much as he is now at City.

Why are you resorting to insults, abruti de footix? OBVIOUSLY he'e working harder now that he's a box to box midfielder,it's literally what the position entails. I never argued against this. My point of contention is your claim that he was "one of the least hard working player at Monaco " = false moronic statement. And " he didn't work harder than Coutinho " = again, false moronic statement. Bernardo was the hardest working offensive player in the team, he did everything you could ask from a winger. What was he supposed to do other than drop back and relentlessly press forward?

Guardiola noticed that his explosiveness and intense pressing is wasted on the wing so he moved him to the midfield, simple as. Yet after reading your drivel, someone might think that Guardiola took some lazy generic winger and converted him into a Kante-like workhorse.

 

[YodaMaster]

Why are you resorting to insults, abruti de footix? OBVIOUSLY he'e working harder now that he's a box to box midfielder,it's literally what the position entails. I never argued against this. My point of contention is your claim that he was "one of the least hard working player at Monaco " = false moronic statement. And " he didn't work harder than Coutinho " = again, false moronic statement. Bernardo was the hardest working offensive player in the team, he did everything you could ask from a winger. What was he supposed to do other than drop back and relentlessly press forward?

Guardiola noticed that his explosiveness and intense pressing is wasted on the wing so he moved him to the midfield, simple as. Yet after reading your drivel, someone might think that Guardiola took some lazy generic winger and converted him into a Kante-like workhorse.

Did I ever say that Bernardo didn't give two fucks about defense in Monaco ? You act like I did that.
So who between Bakayako, Fabinho and Lemar worked less than Bernardo ? I'm waiting for your explanation cause now the dude is outworking 21 players on the pitch. If you don't see a big difference, you're the moron here.
Coutinho did a decent defensive job during his years at Liverpool.

OBVIOUSLY he'e working harder now that he's a box to box midfielder,it's literally what the position entails.

Yeah cause it's so recurrent for a RW/RM to change position and adapt so well to a more responsible and physically demanding CM position. We shouldn't be giving any credit to his coach for that.

Tu brasses du vent mon pote. Ferme là et retourne sur Footmercato avec tes termes du style "footix".

 

[EdmondDantes]

Whilst Pogba is the most overrated footballer in the world, this fella is certainly the most underrated.



He should make Balon d'Or's top 3 at the very least.

[youtube]Ul2Lnrd-wiU[/youtube]