Daniel Alves

DonAndres said:

Before the beginning of this year, Alves didn't play as much due to form dip/injuries. Therefore the attack was emphasized and shifted down the left flank. This is why Iniesta was a god on the wings and his linkup with Alba was divine.

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That's a very good point. The only thing is, this is nothing to do with Dani, this is entirely down to management. We've seen Clasicos were Dani has been very disciplined about staying in defense and barely venturing forward, in the process he had Cristiano in his pocket.

Dani should definitely be kept, but the management need to be stronger and should be more open to varying their tactics. Switching line ups where Iniesta is on the wings and in midfield keeps the opposition on their toes. Switching lineups where the attacking fullback is left sided or right sided does the same. Also if Alba is injured we can maintain the attacking level with Dani on the right. If we sell him and Alba gets injured, we'll have a lesser attacking full back. Even if there is no injury it can be used to minimise the effects of Alba getting tired.

You don't even need to switch lineups. You can instruct the fullbacks during the game as to how offensive they are.

Stric said:

Wow, after reading this I wonder if we're talking about the same season.

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Well most goals we've conceded have come from the left

oz187 said:

That's a very good point. The only thing is, this is nothing to do with Dani, this is entirely down to management. We've seen Clasicos were Dani has been very disciplined about staying in defense and barely venturing forward, in the process he had Cristiano in his pocket.

Dani should definitely be kept, but the management need to be stronger and should be more open to varying their tactics. Switching line ups where Iniesta is on the wings and in midfield keeps the opposition on their toes. Switching lineups where the attacking fullback is left sided or right sided does the same. Also if Alba is injured we can maintain the attacking level with Dani on the right. If we sell him and Alba gets injured, we'll have a lesser attacking full back. Even if there is no injury it can be used to minimise the effects of Alba getting tired.

You don't even need to switch lineups. You can instruct the fullbacks during the game as to how offensive they are.

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Very much agreed. Tito and Roura should find a solution to the problem, because we can't have both wingbacks attacking at the same time.

Deco 20 said:

Very much agreed. Tito and Roura should find a solution to the problem, because we can't have both wingbacks attacking at the same time.

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IMO, alternating between Alba/Montoya and Alves/Abidal would be the solution. It'll add some variety to our lineup, as well as strengthen our defense. With Montoya-Pique-Puyol-Alba or Alves-Pique-Puyol-Abidal, our defense should be pretty strong.

Our poor defensive record isn't because of our players (though Puyol having to rest so often for Masch does contribute to it). For now, we definitely have the players to have a good defense, even though we will need a new CB next season. Like people are saying, our defense has been bad mainly because of the management, not the players.

Deco 20 said:

He's been better in defense than Alba (when he's been defending). Despite Alves being in poor form early in the season most goals and chances we've conceded have come from the left side. This isn't mainly Alba's fault as he needs more help, but you shouldn't be blaming it on Alves.

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The goals from the left are not always Alba's fault, in fact mainly they are caused my mistakes from Mascherano. I'd say we've conceded around 30% from the right, 30% from the leftish center, and 40% from poor defending from set pieces. Alba uses his pace to run back to pressure the defenders well and actually tries hard in defense unlike Alves who sometimes doesn't even track back.

I'm not saying Alves alone is the reason for our losses and that he should be sold (obviously we need him a lot because we can't play our CB's as fullbacks that much). All I'm saying is that the attacking influence from his flank, the right side, has both limited us in attack and crippled us in defense. Even though there are games where he plays well, the entire system is kind of worse than what it should be. When the team focuses on the left side for attack we've looked very dominant and creative and all the players have been in amazing form. However since January, we've been very shaky and our play has been disjointed and lost at times. Honestly the better Barcelona side is the one that functions from the left. I know Alves as an individual player is great but when influencing the system as a whole, the team plays better when he isn't the emphasized player.

Deco 20 said:

Well most goals we've conceded have come from the left

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Eh disagree with you there. Most left sided goals are caused by Masch more than Alba (Alba has been at fault sometimes). Most of the deadly opposition attacks I see though come from the right flank or from the left-middle side which are both occupied by Alves and Masch respectfully(our 2 suspect defenders this season). It's not always a good measure to see where the goals themselves are scored from, moreso where the attacks are created and which defenders are out of position during those attacks.

DonAndres said:

The goals from the left are not always Alba's fault, in fact mainly they are caused my mistakes from Mascherano. I'd say we've conceded around 30% from the right, 30% from the leftish center, and 40% from poor defending from set pieces. Alba uses his pace to run back to pressure the defenders well and actually tries hard in defense unlike Alves who sometimes doesn't even track back.

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That's just what I said
Tbh both Alba and Alves have made mistakes in defense too.
The reason our left side is so vulnerable is due to a combination between Alba, Mascherano, Iniesta and Cesc. It's like we're inviting them to attack it..

I'm not saying Alves alone is the reason for our losses and that he should be sold (obviously we need him a lot because we can't play our CB's as fullbacks that much). All I'm saying is that the attacking influence from his flank, the right side, has both limited us in attack and crippled us in defense. Even though there are games where he plays well, the entire system is kind of worse than what it should be. When the team focuses on the left side for attack we've looked very dominant and creative and all the players have been in amazing form. However since January, we've been very shaky and our play has been disjointed and lost at times. Honestly the better Barcelona side is the one that functions from the left. I know Alves as an individual player is great but when influencing the system as a whole, the team plays better when he isn't the emphasized player.

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We were still conceding when we attacked mostly on the left, and while it did work well against lesser teams it has been found a bit lacking vs more difficult opposition. Iniesta at LW also increases our risk of conceding.

DonAndres said:

Eh disagree with you there. Most left sided goals are caused by Masch more than Alba (Alba has been at fault sometimes). Most of the deadly opposition attacks I see though come from the right flank or from the left-middle side which are both occupied by Alves and Masch respectfully(our 2 suspect defenders this season). It's not always a good measure to see where the goals themselves are scored from, moreso where the attacks are created and which defenders are out of position during those attacks.

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Actually I'm mostly referring to where the attacks came from.. Looking through the goals we concede many come from crosses from the left, and some when Alves goes to the centre and leaves space to the right (but looking at the videos he often did right, such as vs Sociedad). A horrible example is one of the goals we conceded vs Malaga when Alves was late in pressioning and nutmegged and Alba left 2 players free on his side.

We're all kind of arguing different sides of the same coin. From my memory most counters which have led to goals have come from the right flank. Wether they start on the left and end on the right really comes back down to the fact that we can't play with Alves & Alba at the same time.

I'm with darthvader7888's idea that we have to rotate Alves/Abidal & Montoya/Alba. As long as Dani doesn't have a problem sitting sometimes it could be really beneficial to the team. It gives us a lot more variety of how we can contain and attack teams. I want to see Montoya progress but I just realized he's only 21. If we use this defensive rotation he'll still get experience and when Dani is ready to move on Montoya will be ready.



think we all can agree Alexis has to go though

DonAndres said:

Honestly the better Barcelona side is the one that functions from the left.

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Disagree. The better Barcelona side is one that involves Messi in the play. Alves is Messi's best partner. Past couple of months Alves has raised his attacking level while Alba's has dropped dramatically.

Alves is also a better defender than Alba. Alba is very good at interceptions but too many times the opposition wingers beat him 1v1. Also he doesn't pressure enough to prevent crosses from the left. We know Alves is not the tallest so once the cross is made to the back post he can't do much.

Towards the beginning, Alves had issues with blocking shots (Sevilla and Real Madrid) but that seemed more of a tactical problem than Alves doing something wrong.

ronaldo thrieves in space. and he gave it to him.

terrible game

ammarfcb said:

ronaldo thrieves in space. and he gave it to him.

terrible game

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What?

He was good, the only reason he gave space to Cristina was because we needed to score a bazillion goals to advance... There was really nothing else he could have done...

Surprinsingly, BOTH Cristina goals had nothing to do with Alves, he was in the opposite flank... Alba?

I thought he was the best of the worst. The only one who tried to do something.

Great game, he really looked fired up.

If he leaves defence, he has to do something. But he did nothing. Not even his famous crosses that lead nowhere. He was almost inexistens up front, yet he was never in defence either. I don't see how people could say he was good. He's NOT a winger. He's a defender and he has to stay there or at least near most of the time. Should be replaced with Montoya ASAP.