clemente
New member
Looks like you live in 2013 lmao, even right now look Keita to Liverpool for 80m, Fekir for 78m, but Eriksen is 50m?
7 - Philippe Coutinho - V1
- Thread starter AnfieldEd
- Start date
Looks like you live in 2013 lmao, even right now look Keita to Liverpool for 80m, Fekir for 78m, but Eriksen is 50m?
M
MessiCam
Guest
Again his ability to play in midfield is seriously called into question (after the Iniesta sub). Was very good upfront though.
M
MessiCam
Guest
This!
DonAK
President of FC Barcelona
Let's play him in the midfield in a 4-3-3 for a few games before we form any conclusions. I didn't watch the game tonight, but it seems like he played as a LW so I really don't see the point many are making. Coutinho is not going to play as a LW for us.
Besides, we're never going to play the same way we've played. Having a more attacking midfielder is fine as long as you complement him with a midfielder that can stabilize the midfield and control the flow of the game. We want to play faster, and a more explosive stye of football. Coutinho helps that even if he isn't your ideal midfielder or Iniesta carbon copy.
The Iniesta-Xavi era is over. Wake up and smell the coffee. We need to alter the way our midfield is set up if we want to win the CL again and having a creative force like Coutinho there even if we lose some control might be worth it.
Besides, we're never going to play the same way we've played. Having a more attacking midfielder is fine as long as you complement him with a midfielder that can stabilize the midfield and control the flow of the game. We want to play faster, and a more explosive stye of football. Coutinho helps that even if he isn't your ideal midfielder or Iniesta carbon copy.
The Iniesta-Xavi era is over. Wake up and smell the coffee. We need to alter the way our midfield is set up if we want to win the CL again and having a creative force like Coutinho there even if we lose some control might be worth it.
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gregorrin10
Senior Member
Exactly! I feel that the 100 some million would be much wiser spent on Eriksen, who is in fact perfect for that Iniesta role, while i would play last night's starting attack every time, while keeping Suarez as a super and impact sub, if he's content with it. If not, cash in and bring in a much cheaper solution or even keep Paco as that striker sub (plan B, if you will), even though i don't see that happening. But the starting attack should be (with Messi pretty much cemented in the middle) Coutinho and Dembele on the wings, giving us that pace and width, and that way Messi can actually afford to walk most of the time, not like now, when Suarez is doing the same and we're defending with 2 players less all the time, while Alba having to burst forward and leave all that space behind to even get some pace on our left hand side when attacking.
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Coutinho is better off as a winger, where he can try stuff and not cause us to suffer with his tendency to lose the ball.
He turns the ball over way too much for a CM, and he can not control the game and is erratic with possession
Messi flanked by Coutinho and Dembele is the way to go
In midfield we can put Busquets, Rakitic and Arthur/any other controlling midfield that can keep the ball, create and provide some workrate
DonAK
President of FC Barcelona
I disagree. I think losing some control is fine as long as you have another creative outlet in the midfield to advance the ball forward. With all due respect to Rakitic, he creates less chances per game than Real Madrid's LB, so he's not the man to do that job. Arthur could perhaps do it, but we need someone else beside him in the midfield and Coutinho's ability to dribble past players and play through balls as well as those wicked long shots is what we need.
We don't need midfielders that will pass the ball sideways and forward without creating anything of relevance until Messi has to drop down deep to collect the ball. We need midfielders that can get past a man and release the ball forward and be able to play cut-through passes to our wingers/Messi.
That's where Iniesta has lacked in the last 2-3 years. I love Iniesta, but he's not what he used to be. One part of his job is to be a creative outlet and he hasn't been able to do that. Just like Xavi his passing have gotten more conservative with the age where he's afraid of losing the ball and prefers to keep it safe instead of playing a risky pass to make something happen and advance the play.
We don't need possession and control for the sake of it. We need more chance creation and dynamism even if we lose more possession. That's the only way you can make our football multi-dimensional and put the opponent on the back foot.
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IMO dribbles and his ability to shoot on goal will be better used on the LW, and i don't see anything to suggest that he can't play throughballs from the LW position, just like Messi would as a RW in the treble season
In midfield. coutinho lacks awareness, his defensive effort is less than Iniesta's, and his ball retention is poor, he loses the ball too often and this adds more strain on Busquets and Rakitic since Coutinho himself is not that good defensively either.
I think this is also why Valverde has preferred using him on the wings, and he seems to get into scoring positions a lot
I agree with some posters who are suggesting that we sign a creative midfielder like Eriksen who can actually play as a midfielder, and keep Coutinho on LW, which to me is his best position,
......................................Ter Stegen
....Semedo............Pique.....................Umtiti..............ALba
...................................Busquets......................................
......................Rakitic...................Eriksen
...........Dembele.........Messi.............Coutinho
gregorrin10
Senior Member
This would be the perfect lineup for me, with a few quality subs like Cillessen (like Ter Stegen in 2015), Sergi Roberto, Arthur (like Xavi in 2015) and Suarez (like Pedro in 2015) coming from the bench, but also starting many matches in between. With all of them challenging for the starting lineup in any given moment, especially Arthur for Rakitić, which i suspect could happen before the end of next season, if he would come in the summer, have the whole pre-season and adapt into the team quickly. So that's 14-15 players, who play almost every match, when fit.
The rest of the spots in the squad can be covered by young players and La Masia. That being Mina (or De Ligt, which i would prefer, if we could get him and thus send Mina on a 1 year loan to get him adapted to European football more until Vermaelen leaves), Digne, Samper?, Denis?, Alena and possibly even Arnaiz. And keeping a couple of good experienced ones like Vermaelen and Paulinho. So that's a 22-24 player squad, which is more than enough to rotate regularly (especially play young players and La Masia in easier La Liga matches and Copa, while keeping the starting lineup fresh for the bigger matches and UCL knockout stages) and compete without trouble in all 3 competitions equally as successful. The others should be sold (Gomes, Vidal, Rafinha, Paco, Munir - we would get some solid money from all of these sales too, let's be optimistic and say even 100M, if we would manage to get like 30M each for Gomes and Rafinha alone. You add like 20M for Paco, and 10 for each of Vidal and Munir, that would be 100M exactly then.
So we'd have the midfield finally patched up, while having that extra money to spend it on another high profile forward in a few years, after Messi won't be here anymore or if he moved further back to midfield for his last couple of seasons. My preferred two choices for that being Dybala, who would be perfect for that CF/AM 'false 9' position that Messi plays in. While my 2nd choice would be Mbappe, if we somehow managed to get him away from P$G by then. Or even save the money and give a chance to Abel Ruiz, if he were to turn out really good over the next 3-5 years. But maybe that's too far ahead to be thinking about right now really.
As for Griezmann, not only would i like him to stay at Atletico, because we need a WC midfielder like Eriksen more, but also to keep Atletico and La Liga competitive, and maybe also to show that loyalty isn't forgotten in football.
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Messi983
Senior Member
We stopped to play in second half (except for the last 15 minutes or so), hard to judge Coutinho's performance based on that. I still think Coutinho can and will adapt to the midfield role next season.
behindbrowneyes
Well-known member
Give him a few games as starting CAM before you judge his ability of playing the role of Iniesta.
I think we wont be signing Eriksen unfortunately. We'll be going with what we have now, add Arthur in the winter and De Jong next summer.
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