Arthur

EdmondDantes

New member
Arthur is currently La Liga's assist leader with 3 in 5 games (tied with a couple of other players who played 8).


2 goals, 3 assists in 5.


EGPZ_p6XYAEsVEi.jpg
 
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EdmondDantes

New member
Valverde wants both the CMs to be pushed higher on the pitch to get more involved in the attack.

it appears we are getting more attacking out of Arthur but at the same time, we lose a bit of what he's excellent at and help to control the games.

That's pretty much it.


Valverde said in multiple press conferences this season he wants his CMs/interiores to stay higher up the field and be more involved in goals/assists.

But with that we lose in control and more importantly build up play. Meaning with either Arthur or De Jong farther up, that's at least one fewer option to pass to, and a huge amount of press-resistant, controlling talent not involved in the build up phase.


How many hopeless long punts were there by ter Stegen tonight (he was only complying with Valverde's tactics of course)?
 
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PhilS

Active member
Well, Arthur can light up the field on offense. On defense, he is clearly worse than Busquets, Rakitic, De Jong, Vidal and Roberto (Roberto when playing as a midfielder). When the team gets a good lead, he should always be subbed. When the team needs a goal, he should always be on the field.
 

xXKonan

Senior Member
Arthur is not worse than Rakitic, Busi, and Roberto at Defending.

Busi has been laughably bad and Rakitic has been substandard in defending for ages now and all Roberto has is work rate and positionally hasn't been good in Defending in the Midfield.
 

JohnN

Senior Member
This man has improved in every single thing this year. Of course he now has an actual partner in midfield too.
 

aqua2nd

New member
Well, Arthur can light up the field on offense. On defense, he is clearly worse than Busquets, Rakitic, De Jong, Vidal and Roberto (Roberto when playing as a midfielder). When the team gets a good lead, he should always be subbed. When the team needs a goal, he should always be on the field.

Check the fact please
This season he completed bunch of tackles, intercepts and won about 80% of ground duels. The problem is he was instructed to go higher into opponent's final third so he can't always cover the left midfield in the counter
 
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DonAK

President of FC Barcelona
Well, Arthur can light up the field on offense. On defense, he is clearly worse than Busquets, Rakitic, De Jong, Vidal and Roberto (Roberto when playing as a midfielder). When the team gets a good lead, he should always be subbed. When the team needs a goal, he should always be on the field.

Yeah, because defending a 3-1 and 3-0 lead with Rakitic and Busquets(+ Roberto vs Roma) in the midfield have worked out so well for Barca in the past!

This myth of Arthur being worse defensively than two guys who can barely cover anyone since they're too slow and move like a truck trying to make a quick turn, and a guy in Roberto who gets bullied defensively by 90% of the players out there, need to die.
 

BBZ8800

Senior Member
Yeah, because defending a 3-1 and 3-0 lead with Rakitic and Busquets(+ Roberto vs Roma) in the midfield have worked out so well for Barca in the past!

This myth of Arthur being worse defensively than two guys who can barely cover anyone since they're too slow and move like a truck trying to make a quick turn, and a guy in Roberto who gets bullied defensively by 90% of the players out there, need to die.

If Raki and Busi were proven to be shit against big CL teams, it doesn't mean that the next attempt (Arthur) will be better.
The same as in Roberto vs Semedo case.
Roberto sucked, people wanted someone new and we got Semedo.
Is he better? No.
He just sucks in different ways than Roberto.

Regarding Arthur, since Serghei is writing that he should be our CAM pick (lol) and since he is suddenly a better defender than other guys, I'll add a few things to balance this crazy (over)hype.

1. We still don't know too much about him, especially in defending
2. For me, he is still the slowest midfielder alongside Busi and Raki. Which means: when we will face counters, he won't help too much.
3. Out of two main defending stats, tackles and interceptions, he is truly attrocious in intercepting passes.
I have never seen Barca's midfielder with such a low numbers in that area.
Last season 0,3 interceptions per match in La Liga. This season even worse with 0,2 interceptions.
For a comparison, the most hated midfielder had 1,5 interceptions per match in La liga last season.
5 times more than Arthur.
4. Regarding tackles, I have wrote in the past. Imo, we have two areas of defending.
First: when we lose the ball, our players will apply pressure right away in order to get the ball back. In these type of actions, our players will usually make tackles.
Arthur is good in this part.
The second type of defending are actions AFTER our pressure: if the opponent has avoided our pressure, then they will attack us in a regular way in our half.
Then our midfielders use pace, interceptions, reading of the game, positioning and tackles.
In this part, from what I have seen from Arthur, he is mediocre at best.
But, let's give him a benefit of a doubt and let's see his real defending on a larger sample.
5. Further, not too many are mentioning, but once when he started to play well, two things emerged in his game:
1) he started to dwell on a ball even more and roughly once per match he makes a deadly mistake around our box and gives the ball away
2) the other thing which will not cost us points but which is highly annoying to me is=he started to fake and provoke fouls somewhat similar to Neymar. He holds the ball for too long, then he is asking for a contact, and then he falls down too easily lately and takes the ball into his hands while falling and immidiately looking at a ref and asking for a foul.

His possession recycling game is good.
His press resistance is good.
His play in the attacking third has improved, but he will never be a CAM.
About defending, we don't know too much.
And from what we know, he already has a lot of flaws.
And he is yet to play in his first type of Anfield CL KO match, where you guys will need to find new alibies if we will be eaten alive with Frenkie-Arthur in the same fashion as we have lost with Raki-Busi.

So, maybe we should slow down a little.
 
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Lapi

Member
I have never seen Barca's midfielder with such a low numbers in that area.

Hehe, nice try but you have mentioned all that at least 50 times.

May I humbly suggest you to WATCH more football and LESS statistics?
When you occasionally watch a Barca game, do you always have the urge to envelop it in numbers what you are just seeing?

Have you ever come across with Goethe's most famous lines:
"Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie,
Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum."?
 

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