Last night and pretty much every other time he has started Denis was miles better than him. In fact, the only starters who drove the game forward was Alba, Busquets, Denis and Messi. Denis should be played as a wing though. He drew defenders out when he was at the edge of the box and had some nice moments with Alba there.
Not that bad lately? He has been a disaster in central midfield. A lot of passes but nothing of substance in the final third but that's what you like... Safe passes. He is a waste of space...
I wonder what you think about Messi and his risky passes and being dispossessed so often?
I can't take your posts seriously if you'll write things like Denis driving the game forward, lol.
You and me could play equally as dumb as Denis.
If you'll put me in Barca's midfield, I will just try a stupid risky through balls in every single opportunity, or I will just try to dribble past 3 players in every single opportunity.
I will probably have 1 good pass/dribble out of 10 attempts and I will have 9 lost balls.
Guys like you will then say: BBZ was good in that match. AT LEAST he was trying and he had 1 good through ball, while Rakitic played 10 backpasses whenever he had the ball.
Well, yes, Rakitic played 10 safepasses and lost 0 balls.
Denis created 1 chance and lost 9 balls.
So, we won 1 shot at goal after his throughballs, but we got caught at counters at 9 occasions due to him losing the ball in midfield when he tried stupid moves instead of playing it simple.
So, would you trade 1 good throughball for 9 times when your team needed to defend after his mistakes?
Would you trade 1 goalscoring opportunity for your team for 9 counters for your opponent?
I surely wouldn't. But you and some others would.
Football is not that simple that ALL we need is a short and technical player (Seri) who can pass the ball and "solve all of our problems". He will suck in 1000s of others areas in which Rakitic doesn't suck, for example.
The same is with 1 good throughball versus 5-6-7-8-9 lost balls on the other hand.
And yes, I get your point, I am not an idiot. WE NEED players who will try things and we don't need players who will play 50 safe backpasses.
But also, we don't need idiots who can't dribble past a player, but yet they are trying the same thing over and over, and yet due to their average skills, they can't create anything (Denis).
One more time, Rakitic is not a perfect solution for our midfield. But neither are guys like Denis.
I still can't see how Denis will ever be a starter for anything more than a midtable La Liga team, or Uefa cup team at best.
His skillset and percentage of successful attempts is just way too low/average for a top football.
Rakitic has been better lately I'll give you that, but Roberto hasn't played nearly enough in midfield for Valverde to truly assess whether he's a good fit there or not. Rakitic is being started in every match because he was a starter when Valverde arrived and he's hesitant to experiment despite Rakitic's form this season.
So your logic is that Rakitic is getting the playtime so he must a better player in the middle of the park than Roberto? I don't buy that for one second. Rakitic continually starting all our matches does not prove that he's a better player than Roberto, but rather shows that Valverde is too cowardly to give other players a chance. Even the likes of Andre Gomes have played more in midfield this season than Roberto. You keep saying Roberto hasn't played in midfield all that much so we should trust the coaches judgement that he's not good enough, but when has he ever truly been given a run of 3-4 games playing in his preferred position? I think that's the least we could do for him after playing him at RB for these last couple years; give him a chance. If somehow he manages to be worse than Rakitic he can stick to the RB position.
I know that you're going to reply with we are Barcelona and we can't experiment with other players in the middle of the season and that they have to prove their worth the odd chance they get a chance to play, but consider this: Rakitic hasn't been great this season and it's been pretty damn evident; it's not like we're benching Messi here for Denis, Roberto deserves a chance to prove himself in midfield and even if he flops in the matches he's tried out in he still wouldn't be that much worse than Rakitic. It's a low risk, high reward proposal.
Roberto may not be Barca starting material, but let's be honest, other than Busquets and maybe Iniesta who is? This is not a matter of Roberto being good enough to be a long-term starter here, but rather whether or not he can offer us more than Rakitic currently, which I certainly believe he can.
I'll get some hate for this, but ok.
About Roberto, people are too emotional about him and don't judge him objectively.
What are Roberto's biggest pros in his career?
1. 1 good match against Real, when we won 0:4. But he was a RM there, right?
2. a goal for 6:1 against Psg, which doesn't have too much with his actual Cm's playmaking skills, if you get my point. But he did earn 1000s of points in people's hearts for that goal
3. his solo run for Messi's goal for 3:2 at Bernabeu in the 93td minute. That was an awesome solo run, though and he earned 1000s of points for it again. But again, that is more like an isolated incident than something which he is doing regularly.
4. he is Catalan/La Masia kid, 1000s of points. Especially now, when he don't have too many Catalan players and people are desperate for any La Masia player to make it here. Also, add some emotional points for a political situation in Spain, and a need to have Catalan players in Barcelona's starting 11 in these rocky times.
5. he is a likeable guy. He never causes problems. More or less, everyone likes him as a person.
6. he is devoted to Barca and very passionate and stayed here, even though he had better options. 1000s of points for him again.
But when you look deeply in all these "pros" about Roberto, none of them are actually about him being a CM maestro.
Majority of his pros are: a good guy, domestic guy, passionate about Barca and involved in some emotional goals and wins.
Other than that, you can't say that he is actually extraordinary good in passing, creation, dribbling, scoring, imposing himself, in build up.
He is a good guy who can run like crazy for 90 minutes, but that is more or less it. He is nowhere close to Iniesta's type of a player and also nowhere near Xavi's level of a player.
The irony is, imo, he is the closest to Raki's type of a cautious midfielder. Except that he is a worse version of Raki, since Raki at least had 100s of world class midfield matches in his career for Basel, Schalke, Sevilla, Barcelona and Croatia.
On the other hand, imagine if Roberto wasn't La Masia kid.
Imagine if he was a young Russian/Czech/Romanian guy whom we bought for cheap, but who isn't possessing any particular strengths.
Roberto would have gotten Afellay's treatment if he wasn't a La Masia kid.
The same is with Samper. If he wasn't from La Masia, nobody would care about him, because his footballing skills are extremely average.
But add some emotions, bias and dry spell in La Masia and people's desperation to see local, devoted kids in our team and then you have tons of people buying a hype how Samper, Roberto and others are a real deal who deserve 100s of chances over and over.
About your question how EV should give chances to Roberto to test him in midfield.
Why?
1. Roberto played as a CM under Lucho.
EV has watched those matches. EV has other staff members who watched Roberto as a CM and they gave him their opinion whether he was average or a world class.
2. EV can see Roberto every day on training sessions and on matches during trainings where Roberto is surely sometimes playing as a CM also.
My guess is that EV has seen enough of his "midfield" skills, so that he decided: nothing special. I will play him as a RB, he is more valuable for our team on that position.
In short, EV surely has enough infos and a first hand experience about him as a CM.
Should EV give him more chances again? Why?
For example, we all agreed that Munir is not good enough for Barca.
Should every new Barca's coach bring him back from loans and test him again and again? (Because, EACH new coach should test him by himself?)
Halilovic? He sucked in other clubs and under Lucho in friendlies. But hey, let's bring him back and test him under EV. Maybe he will shine this time.
Samper? Let's bring him back each new season and test him again and again.
If you get my point?
Coaches, EV, our next coach, staff members. They all have opinions about all of our players. They are testing them in friendlies and on training grounds.
But our fans are desperate because we don't play well, and then people are making heroes and saviors out of players who were never good enough for a starter's level.
You can open Roberto's topic and read some posts from 1-2-3 years ago, when he was playing as a CM.
Majority of comments were: Lucho, please, don't EVER again play Roberto as a CM. He is just horrible as a CM: Use him only as a Cdm and nothing else.
But after that, Roberto had some good matches as a RB, scored some emotional goals, showed his love for Barca and people suddenly "leveled him up" into a starting material CM, lol.
So:
1. a guy fro whom people said: coach, please don't ever again play him as a CM
=> 2. plays as a RB and a hybrid Cm-wingback in 343
=> 3. and is suddenly a starter material Cm, lol.
You do realize that he hasn't played at all as a classic CM for almost 2-3 years?
But again, add some desperation because Rakitic, Gomes and others play bad. Add some need for La Masia kids. Add Roberto's likeable personality and loyalty to Barca, some emotional goals/displays and moments, and voila, you have a current situation where people would play: Denis as a Lw, Roberto as a Cm, and Semedo as a RB
That is a too emotional lineup from Barca's fan which don't have too much connections with objectivity and reality.
Raki sucks and is far from a world class midfielder for Barca's need, but still, from what we have, he is currently almost by far the best option, behind Busquets and Iniesta.
