Adrien Rabiot

I have to agree with BBZ on the fact that Rabiot is a good player. And I'm pretty sure he would add something to the team, if he signed. There's imho no denying that, on the pitch, a player like him would be a good asset, especially for free. Can't imagine the hype that De Jong would get if he played against Barca like Rabiot did two years ago for the 4-0 in Paris. He was impressive, and he had quite a few other very big performances against other great teams. It is true that he hasn't been as great the past few months, but you can't just rule him out like that.

That being said, he seems like a whiny little cunt when it comes to his contract, and his mother probably isn't helping. Maybe his attitude will get better (I mean, were you all paragons of virtue and class at 23 ?). That would be my main concern with him actually.

Even Julian Draxler wrecked us that game and he's frankly speaking bang average.

Rabiot good player, but a bad fit for how football is developing. Barca need a more mobile, faster team.

DonAK said:

I get what you are saying @BBZ8800, but Rakitic came from a humble background. He worked his ass off to get to Sevilla and worked even harder to get to Barcelona. Heck the dude worked his ass off to learn Spanish fluently in less than a year just so he could ask his wife out for a date

Rabiot comes from a completely different background which have gotten him in trouble with the French NT already, an entitled attitude of a spoiled brat which is fueled by his crazy mother who acts as his agent.

He will demand a starting spot for Barca. We should go for players that are more mobile, moves the ball faster and does better defensively, are faster to get back defensively and to cover space.

Frenkie de Jong and Tanguy Ndombele are better at that and are proving themselves against good opposition too.

Signing Rabiot hoping he becomes Rakitic would be a mistake if it comes at the cost of better players suited for that role. And by that I mean the role you want him to play.

And why has Rakitic suddenly become the desired type of Barcelona midfielder? Of all the players Barca have had throughout the club's history and the type of midfielders dominating for other clubs we should look for something different and better.

FDJ and Ndombele are 1.80m and fast in open and close spaces. I would rather have that over a slower 1.90m player.

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No offense, Don, but I think that you are seeing only what you want to see.
Let's take Netherlands, for example.
People will say: they are good BECAUSE of De Jong.
But in order for De Jong to flourish, they need some hardworkers alongside him.
Against France, they won with De Jong-Wijnaldum-De Roon.

De Jong is Barca's DNA type of a player.
Wijnaldum is some mixture between a technical player and a physical hardworker (not in terms of height, but tackles, defending, fighting, running).
And De Roon is well, far, far, far from Barca's DNA.
And that is a Dutch NT team, coached by Barca player Koeman, and a country which follows tactics of Cruijff.

So, even their midfield trio, which is making wonders currently, has one and a half player which are far from Isco/Alena/Iniesta and similar.

So, you mentioned that more mobile players are a future.
What about Wijnaldum and De Roon then?

Further, look at Real in a CL. They can't play with Isco, Modric and Kroos.
They needed Casemiro.
Is Casemiro Barca's DNA type?
Is he that technical, light and mobile? No.
He is fast, but not as mobile as Arthur, Isco and players whom this forum love.

I am not trolling now.
Imagine if you were a coach, and you need to make a midfield trio (you have 200-300M to spend, but only on semi-available targets).
Try to create a midfield trio with:
1) mobile players
2) and one guy needs to be similar to Casemiro, De Roon or Rakitic.
3) try to add some muscles, fighting spirit. Don't play 3 schoolboys like Frenkie/Iniesta. At least one guy needs to be a semi-asshole and a thugish type.

I mean, seriously, would you rather face Atletico tomorrow in CLs semis on Calderon, 2nd leg with Frenkie-Puig-Alena or whatever, or with one guy like him (Van Bommel):


You know, it works BOTH ways:
1. some of you guys will say: we need fast, technical players like Alena, Puig, De Jong, Arthur to control matches. We can't have guys like Rakitic.
2. on the other hand, I could reply: we can't have scared schoolboys like Frenkie (and classical Barca's shy players).
They will often be scared by Atletico's or English thugs.
Or, when we will be losing 0:1 in the 80th minute, we need some crazy guys like Lucho, Puyol, Stoichkov, Van Bommel to yell on our players, to say: come on, fuckers, let's die on a field!
And someone who will kick opponent's asses when they will try to bully our physically weak players.

So, you can't have 3 Frenkies in midfield.
They lack defending.
They lack muscles.
They lack a fighting spirit and some thugish behavior.

So, now, try to field a midfield of 3 players for the future and try to have everything (or, how I call it: "a balance"):
1. mobile players
2. some pace, height, muscles
3. technique
4. one thug as a person
5. one Casemiro type
** Casemiro-thug guy can be the same person, of course.

So, the tendency of football isn't only=we need mobile players.
What about mental skills?
A tendency is also=you need fighters, not players who will sulk like Messi when we are losing. You need winners, leaders, warriors.

When you sum it all, you'll see that Rabiot isn't SUCH A BAD option, since he is offering a different profile, height, muscles, defending, a thugish behavior.
A lot of things which classical Barca's DNA midfielders are always lacking.

BBZ8800 said:

No offense, Don, but I think that you are seeing only what you want to see.
Let's take Netherlands, for example.
People will say: they are good BECAUSE of De Jong.
But in order for De Jong to flourish, they need some hardworkers alongside him.
Against France, they won with De Jong-Wijnaldum-De Roon.

De Jong is Barca's DNA type of a player.
Wijnaldum is some mixture between a technical player and a physical hardworker (not in terms of height, but tackles, defending, fighting, running).
And De Roon is well, far, far, far from Barca's DNA.
And that is a Dutch NT team, coached by Barca player Koeman, and a country which follows tactics of Cruijff.

I am not trolling now.
Imagine if you were a coach, and you need to make a midfield trio (you have 200-300M to spend, but only on semi-available targets).
Try to create a midfield trio with:
1) mobile players
2) and one guy needs to be similar to Casemiro, De Roon or Rakitic.
3) try to add some muscles, fighting spirit. Don't play 3 schoolboys like Frenkie/Iniesta. At least one guy needs to be a semi-asshole and a thugish type.

When you sum it all, you'll see that Rabiot isn't SUCH A BAD option, since he is offering a different profile, height, muscles, defending, a thugish behavior.
A lot of things which classical Barca's DNA midfielders are always lacking.

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Okay, let's for the sake of argument agree about that. I cut down the post to your main points so the page didn't become so long.

How is Rabiot thuggish or a winner and a fighter? He has never shown that side of him in his career, if anything he's been the opposite of that.

If you want a player that's good physically, aggressive and a fighter on the pitch you could always sign Ndombele and play Frenkie de Jong as a CM. He's really good at breaking with the ball forward with his pace and close control and when played in that position always tried to find a pass forward.

You can then get a midfield of Arthur-Ndombele-de Jong

Two players that's above 1.80m. Arthur to add control, de Jong to bring the ball forward and Ndombele as the true CDM able to get physical and win the ball back efficiently.

Perhaps I'm only seeing what I want to see, but I could argue you're doing the same trying to attribute certain skills or things to Rabiot which he just isn't.

Yes he's 1.88m, but he's the tall, lanky type of midfielder that's on the slower side compared to other options on the market. Not your physical midfielder and he doesn't want to play as a CDM. I think he want to play a role similar to how Iniesta played in the 4-3-3 for Barca.

To use an extreme example, Rabiot is like a Busquets playing further advanced with better mobility, but far worse defensive skills and not enough penetration forward.

PSG is a team full of soft players and that applies to Rabiot too. The true warrior in the sense you define them was Thiago Motta.

Rabiot is anything but thuggish.

I'm sure people have reasons for wanting Rabiot, but yeah he may be tall but "Thuggish" is the last word I would describe Rabiot. Thiago Motta was a thuggish like player but Rabiot? Nope.

BBZ8800 said:

have you totally lost your heads and you are living in some weird Pep's-based world where every player who is not Pep's prototype of a player is an absolute shit.
I mean, some of you are acting as if he is the worst player on a planet, because he doesn't moves like Xavi, right?

He is young (23 currently), coming for free, he is a different player profile than what we have among our young players (Alena, Puig, Arthur, possibly De Jong), he played 230+ matches for Psg, 33 Champions league matches, 6 caps for World cup champions France.

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Why do you constantly need to lie about what other have said? Because your arguments are retarded and you know that? You're 40 year old adult, why don't you act like one?
De Jong is nothing like Xavi and no one has ever said that. No fucking one. In fact, he's pretty much a premium version of Rabiot. He's physically strong, good in defense, fast and unlike Rabiot, can also make attacking contribution by splitting passes and dribbles. His football brain is in different league. Constanza made a good comparison of him with Beckenbauer approach wise. Maybe a bit like Rijkard too. So nothing like Xavi, but entirely new profile that we haven't had in my memory.

His only bonus is coming for free and i would take him if we lost both Rakitic and Busquets next season. Otherwise, fuck him.

Anyway, let's check one more time how he played vs our mightly MSN, Iniesta, Busi, Gomes last year, when he was still 21.
Quite a nice match for a crappy player like him, aged only 21, right?

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The whole match was like Harlem Globetrotters vs Washington Generals. Everyone on PSG side looked like world beater that day, while we were unbelievably crap. We all know what happened in the return leg, where we put at least bit of an effort.

Quite calm on a ball, doesn't make stupid passes, playing like he has 1000 matches in a CL on his back. Makes tackles, interceptions, passes, dribbles, good attacking runs, is bullying our physically weak midfielders and Messi in a lot of actions.

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So, exactly like DJ, only later does it for Ajax team of teenagers and crappy dutch NT and doesn't disappear against top teams most of the time like Rabiot.

And do you think that playing with 3 lighter players like Arthur/De Jong is the recipe for a success in 2020 and onwards?
A hint: those guys will be bullied against AM, Bayern and similar teams in a CL all the time.

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A hint: maybe you should start actually watching football instead of pulling shit out of your ass. Was DJ bullied against Bayern, France, Germany? Was Arthur bullied against Tottenham, Real, Inter? Stop with your alternative facts. :smh:

That doesn't mean that we need 3 Rabiots, but we do need some bullies and physical guys also.

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He is the Gomes type physical. A tall guy with retarded movement, who can win the ball sometimes by barging into other guy using his momentum. Can work against absolutely static opposition like Barca in 0:4 or ligue farmers. He's nowhere near archetypical bully/destroyer type mid like Makelele or Van Bommel and worse than Busquets against fast teams.

For BBZ, height = thugishness, basically. Probably considers Kante to be a weak player by his logic. Rabiot is far from being a combative tenacious midfielder, he is as soft as it can get. He is also elegant on the ball and his playing style is nothing like BBZ seems to imagine.

te amo barca said:

For BBZ, height = thugishness, basically. Probably considers Kante to be a weak player by his logic. Rabiot is far from being a combative tenacious midfielder, he is as soft as it can get. He is also elegant on the ball and his playing style is nothing like BBZ seems to imagine.

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Look at this beta male schoolboy :

te amo barca said:

For BBZ, height = thugishness, basically. Probably considers Kante to be a weak player by his logic. Rabiot is far from being a combative tenacious midfielder, he is as soft as it can get. He is also elegant on the ball and his playing style is nothing like BBZ seems to imagine.

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Yep, he's poor man's ''Barca DNA" player with stupid physique as the role he strives to play would work much better with low center of gravity. Giraffes are not predators for a reason.

Gnidrologist said:

A hint: maybe you should start actually watching football instead of pulling shit out of your ass. Was DJ bullied against Bayern, France, Germany? Was Arthur bullied against Tottenham, Real, Inter? Stop with your alternative facts. :smh:

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I'll start with this one:
Yes, FDJ was totally neutralized and bullied against Germany.
I don't know yet whether it was:
1) because they were still celebrating a win against France and he was mentally drained
2) or the opponents figured out that he is the brain and closed him down deep in his half
3) in defensive duels, he was bullied in Barca's DNA way

Now, let's go to one thing which bothers me since always as Barca's fan:

Gnidrologist said:

The whole match was like Harlem Globetrotter vs Washington General. Everyone on PSG side looked like world beater that day, while we were unbelievably crap. We all know what happened in the return leg, where we put at least bit of an effort.

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You see, when I read your post, I have an impression that you think that Psg's match was a one time thing. An off match.
On the other hand, I have wrote about that a lot of times and this is one of reasons why I am not too kind on soft, physically weak players (Barca's DNA type): imo, we are re-living that same match over and over for the last 30 years.

My first Barca's CL final was in 1994. We were huge favorites against AC Milan (in terms of skills, technique).
That match looked more or less the same as Psg:Barca 4:0.
We couldn't do anything.
They were running through our middle and doing whatever they want.
In every arial duel: we were too short.
On ever cross and corner: we were too short.
In every tackle: their players were faster, stronger and won the ball.
A match felt as if 25 year old men play against 13 year old kids, in terms of physique.
We were eaten alive and bullied for the first time in my life.

After that Barca sucked for some time and we didn't play in final stages of a CL.
In late 90s, the nightmare is coming back again:
We are always playing the most beautiful in early rounds, group stage, in La liga, in all EASIER matches.
But when the first thugish opponents comes, we are dead, in a same fashion all the time.
For example, in 1999/2000, we were quite strong, we reached CL semis under Van Gaal, only to suffer another Psg:Barca episode where Valencia was faster, stronger, more determined and more aggressive at Mestalla.
** Note how this "disappearing act" of our team ALWAYS happens against aggressive teams, and ALWAYS on AWAY matches.
I posted this video a lot of times. For guys who don't remember that match, well, just imagine Psg:Barca match and that's more or less it. Only with different jerseys:

So, again exactly the same loss as always.

Let's move forward to, let's say 2003', semifinals vs Juve.
1:1 in the first match.
In the 2nd leg it was 1:1, Juve had 10 players and we went to an extra time.
But we couldn't break their bus and lost from a cross and a counter, as always.

Or, my worst memory ever, 2005' when we were the best team in Europe with Ronaldinho, Etoo, Xavi and Deco.
2:1 first lef against Mou's Chelsea.
And 2:4 defeat at Stamford Bridge, when we played 3 physically weak midfielders: Gerard Lopez, Xavi, Deco and Iniesta as winger.
We were eaten alive.
I have never seen us being as bullied as that night.
After that night, I told my friend: Barcelona will NEVER win a Champions league again. Our style is just not good enough for the biggest things.
Luckily, in the next year Rijkaard moved away from our style with playing Edmilson-Motta-Deco midfield against Chelsea, and what a surprise, we weren't outmuscled and bullied in midfield in an away match and we won.

Then during Pep, Inter away in 2010, Bayern in 2013, Atletico in 2014, Atletico in 2016, Psg in 2017, Juventus in 2017, Roma in 2018.
So, you mentioned Psg's match as if it was some kind of a off match.
Imo, THAT is a TRUE BARCA when you are playing with too light midfield in CL matches against physical teams who are able to bully us in this or that way.

I know, you will now say: BUT BUT BUT, we won that way with Pep!
Again: we didn't even play against thugs in 2009 and 2010. We don't know whether team could have won against thugs either.
Also, against Chelsea in 2009', even Pep's team couldn't do shit and we needed help from refs and a lucky goal from the only shot on target.
Not to mention that we had the best generation ever.
Not to mention that even Pep was losing on more or less EVERY SINGLE knockout CL away game, right?

So, to some extent, a question remains: is Barca's type of football good enough against big CL boys?
Especially when you remove, magic named Messi, from maths?
I have seen the same deja vu match at least 10 times in the last 20-25 years and we are always bullied in the same way, as against Roma, Juve, PSg, Atletico, Milan, Chelsea, Valencia.
The same shit over and over again.
And a question: is Barca's DNA light midfield good enough for away CL matches?
= absolutely EVERYTHING indicates that an answer is: one big NO.

So, yes, my biggest nightmare as Barca's fan is having to play a CL quarters or semis with 3 Barca's DNA type of midfielders...
And since we are talking about De Jong, I have personally seen some of Barca's DNA (losing) traits in him against Germany.
I am not saying that I wouldn't buy De Jong. I would buy him.
But I am saying that we will need something DIFFERENT also alongside nice guys like Frenkie and other Barca's schoolboys.

For the end, my favorite nightmare as Barca's fan, a midfield of 4 light midfielders: Xavi, Deco, Iniesta, Gerard Lopez eaten alive by thugs Chelsea in 2005':
Grown men vs 13 years old boys who can't win any single defensive duel:

This is why I am cheering for at least 1-2 "different" guys in our squad.

Anybody who's not blinded by an agenda or doesn't live in a simple world of extremes where tall=strong, would know Rabiot is anything but a thug

Sometimes you wonder how is BBZ is a Barca fan with his fascination with tall strong workhorses

Frenkie has been declared to not have a warrior spirit ever at the age of 21 while Rabiot has it......

Wait why am i replying to such nonsense. Silly me.

You really have to be a special case to advocate buying Rabiot over Frenkie.

If BBZ had his way we would have a team of 30 plus pensioners who are tall and run like headless chickens.

One thing is to prefer Frenkie or another player. Fine.
Another is to call Rabiot : french Gomes, crap, thuggish. That´s pure stupidity. Rabiot is pure class. For free, even considering a signing bonus, he´s a great addition. Hands down.
What football do you guys see? lol

raki said:

One thing is to prefer Frenkie or another player. Fine.
Another is to call Rabiot : french Gomes, crap, thuggish. That´s pure stupidity. Rabiot is pure class. For free, even considering a signing bonus, he´s a great addition. Hands down.
What football do you guys see? lol

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Amen. Cheap, versatile and quality addition. Especially now when we need to fill many holes. Which takes money.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Barca/comments/9z5cmo/rabiot_vs_arthur/

There was also a voted down post on how if we signed Rabiot he would easily bench Arthur. I highly doubt that will happen considering how different Arthur is in terms of style compared to Rabiot is. Rabiot is not a controlling CM he's more of a support player in that regard.

I have to assume if he came here he would mostly be a Rakitic sub more than anything even if both profiles are different.

xXKonan said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Barca/comments/9z5cmo/rabiot_vs_arthur/

There was also a voted down post on how if we signed Rabiot he would easily bench Arthur. I highly doubt that will happen considering how different Arthur is in terms of style compared to Rabiot is. Rabiot is not a controlling CM he's more of a support player in that regard.

I have to assume if he came here he would mostly be a Rakitic sub more than anything even if both profiles are different.

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Doesn't squawka have a comparison per 90 minutes anymore? Of course he'll beat Arthur in every single stat when he played 500 minutes more. It's pointless. Literally. I'd be interested to see that comparison, though.