Ernesto Valverde - V1

henias

New member
It really depends. Defenders cannot see what's going on behind them, and would really require very tough mental capacity to track opponents and stay with your team's movement, whether they need help or are off their positions, or whether they need cover-up. Also, purely parking the bus won't get you anywhere, players like Messi would be practically useless in such situations and would be alone attacking most of the time. Even during counter attacks, without fast players, you are just going to lose the ball again and you have to track back and defend. It is very very physically demanding and every game you would just pray opponents don't score against you. Opponents defence also dont have to throw more men deep behind because they only need to mark one man and can bring more men forward during counter attack.

That being said now that Iniesta is injured, then there is no choice but to field the worst players against Chelsea but with a player like Iniesta, it is stupid not to make use his ability and control, to transition the ball better with fast technical players.

Juventus game was thought to be hard, but in the end we comfortably destroyed them, and didnt struggle one bit at the back because they were too preoccupied with our players and couldnt counter with numbers.

Attack can be good defense and defense can be good attack but ultimately it depends on on what players you have, if u have technicality then personally I would definitely choose technicality and have a bit of tacticality. Having only tacticality with very little technicality can easily backfire, as for Juventus and Atletico as they constantly fail.

We have an in-form Messi and Iniesta, and it would be stupid not to use their ability to transition better. We might as well just throw some random 10 men behind and 1 player in front and it would still have the same result.
 
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JamDav1982

Senior Member
Barca are scoring, creating and having as much of the ball as just about any team in europe.

It is not 'easy to defend' with ten men behind ball but it is irrelevant anyway as Barca are not doing that.

Can repeat for third or fourth time Barca created more chances and had more attempts on target v maybe the inform team in europe than City had vs a Chelsea team that looked like barely trying.
 

LeeRomeno

Active member
I will just drop it here:
Club; Shots per game; Shots on target per game; Goals
ManC 17,5 7,2 2,9
Live 17,5 6,3 2,3
ManU 13,5 4,9 1,8
Napo 17,7 7,1 2,3
Juve 15,4 5,9 2,4
Barc 15,1 7,2 2,6
At.M 11,0 4,5 1,7
Real 18,6 7,4 2,4
Baye 18,1 6,8 2,4
PSG 17,5 7,2 3,1

We are only behind ManC and PSG in goals per game. With PSG it is obvious, ManC has been dominant in Premier this season, so that is also obvious.
We are also on top level with shots per target.
What we are not on top level is total shots, which for me just tells me that we are not taking random shots (like Real), but instead wait until better chance arrives. So all that talk about us being defensive and not attacking, is just loads of bullshit.
 
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MessiCam

Guest
I will just drop it here:
Club; Shots per game; Shots on target per game; Goals
ManC 17,5 7,2 2,9
Live 17,5 6,3 2,3
ManU 13,5 4,9 1,8
Napo 17,7 7,1 2,3
Juve 15,4 5,9 2,4
Barc 15,1 7,2 2,6
At.M 11,0 4,5 1,7
Real 18,6 7,4 2,4
Baye 18,1 6,8 2,4
PSG 17,5 7,2 3,1

We are only behind ManC and PSG in goals per game. With PSG it is obvious, ManC has been dominant in Premier this season, so that is also obvious.
We are also on top level with shots per target.
What we are not on top level is total shots, which for me just tells me that we are not taking random shots (like Real), but instead wait until better chance arrives. So all that talk about us being defensive and not attacking, is just loads of bullshit.

I like this and I accept this but national leagues usually have about 15 average sides which have to be played twice but I am happy with those figures.

Lets chuck the Champions League in here then shall we.

Ball possession
Barcelona - 68%
Man City - 64%
Real Madrid - 62%
Bayern - 61%
Man Utd - 58%
Liverpool - 57%
Napoli - 54%
PSG - 54%

Club; Shots per game; Shots on target per game; Goals
Liverpool 19; 8.4; 4
PSG 16.3; 7.1; 3.7
Madrid 20.1; 8.6; 2.9
Man City 13.9; 5.9; 2.6
Bayern 20.4; 7.9; 2.6
Man Utd 13.6; 5.6; 1.7
Barcelona 13.3; 4.9; 1.4
Napoli 12.2; 5.3; 1.8

All of a sudden it doesn't look so good. We have most possession, most passes per game but we're 16th in terms of shots taken, 15th in terms of shots on target and 22nd in terms of goals per game in the Champions League.

Also, in the last 11 games since we Betis 5 - 0 we've only scored more than 2 goals on 1 occasion which was against Girona. The rest of the games, namely these, have been a grind. We were outplayed by Getafe, Eibar overran us in no uncertain terms, Chelsea outplayed us, we cruised against Girona but we were unable to fashion clear cut chances from open play against Las Palmas and Atletico. To top it all off we parked a bus and played counter attack football in the second half against Atleti.
 

LeeRomeno

Active member
I like this and I accept this but national leagues usually have about 15 average sides which have to be played twice but I am happy with those figures.

Lets chuck the Champions League in here then shall we.

Ball possession
Barcelona - 68%
Man City - 64%
Real Madrid - 62%
Bayern - 61%
Man Utd - 58%
Liverpool - 57%
Napoli - 54%
PSG - 54%

Club; Shots per game; Shots on target per game; Goals
Liverpool 19; 8.4; 4
PSG 16.3; 7.1; 3.7
Madrid 20.1; 8.6; 2.9
Man City 13.9; 5.9; 2.6
Bayern 20.4; 7.9; 2.6
Man Utd 13.6; 5.6; 1.7
Barcelona 13.3; 4.9; 1.4
Napoli 12.2; 5.3; 1.8

All of a sudden it doesn't look so good. We have most possession, most passes per game but we're 16th in terms of shots taken, 15th in terms of shots on target and 22nd in terms of goals per game in the Champions League.

Also, in the last 11 games since we Betis 5 - 0 we've only scored more than 2 goals on 1 occasion which was against Girona. The rest of the games, namely these, have been a grind. We were outplayed by Getafe, Eibar overran us in no uncertain terms, Chelsea outplayed us, we cruised against Girona but we were unable to fashion clear cut chances from open play against Las Palmas and Atletico. To top it all off we parked a bus and played counter attack football in the second half against Atleti.

You simply cannot compare CL statistics as results there are so much based on what opponent you face. We have played in CL so far more or less only opponents who just park the bus and happily allow us keep the ball. This clearly shows in the stats, Juve/Chelsea/Olympiakos were more or less only interested in now allowing us score, look at our possession. This also shows in goals conceded. We have only allowed 2 goals in, best in CL. There are positive and negative things in everything.
As for opponents, for example Liverpool have played opponents like Sevilla, Spartak, Maribor (scored 10 against them), stats lose relevance if the level of opposition is so different as it can be in CL, while in national league over the course of season it levels out. PSG still stands out as its national league is not as tough, but otherwise local league will always give better data over the course of 38 games vs CL with 9.
 

Stoichkov1

New member
Barca are scoring, creating and having as much of the ball as just about any team in europe.

It is not 'easy to defend' with ten men behind ball but it is irrelevant anyway as Barca are not doing that.

Can repeat for third or fourth time Barca created more chances and had more attempts on target v maybe the inform team in europe than City had vs a Chelsea team that looked like barely trying.

Nope, against Chelsea we didn't have a single shot on target and our goal came from a defender mistake.

City had a goal and some good chances like Bernardo Silva's shot or Sané's shot that was cleared by Azpilicueta.
 
M

MessiCam

Guest
You simply cannot compare CL statistics as results there are so much based on what opponent you face. We have played in CL so far more or less only opponents who just park the bus and happily allow us keep the ball. This clearly shows in the stats, Juve/Chelsea/Olympiakos were more or less only interested in now allowing us score, look at our possession. This also shows in goals conceded. We have only allowed 2 goals in, best in CL. There are positive and negative things in everything.
As for opponents, for example Liverpool have played opponents like Sevilla, Spartak, Maribor (scored 10 against them), stats lose relevance if the level of opposition is so different as it can be in CL, while in national league over the course of season it levels out. PSG still stands out as its national league is not as tough, but otherwise local league will always give better data over the course of 38 games vs CL with 9.

How this any different to national leagues? Especially those of different countries? Teams park the bus an awful lot against City. Even top 6 teams... It's the same with Barça, we face low blocks week in week out.

But in Champions League the opposition is usually of higher quality with only 1 team in a group being piss poor unless you get lucky with a group like PSG and Bayern did.

City also played Shaktar, Napoli and Feyenoord. Madrid played Tottenham, Dortmund and APOEL. We played Juventus, Sporting and Olympiacos.
 

JamDav1982

Senior Member
Nope, against Chelsea we didn't have a single shot on target and our goal came from a defender mistake.

City had a goal and some good chances like Bernardo Silva's shot or Sané's shot that was cleared by Azpilicueta.

Amazing how Barca can score without a single shot on target. What a team!

Nope. You need to read what is being said before trying to respond to a point that was never made.
 

LeeRomeno

Active member
How this any different to national leagues? Especially those of different countries? Teams park the bus an awful lot against City. Even top 6 teams... It's the same with Barça, we face low blocks week in week out.

But in Champions League the opposition is usually of higher quality with only 1 team in a group being piss poor unless you get lucky with a group like PSG and Bayern did.

City also played Shaktar, Napoli and Feyenoord. Madrid played Tottenham, Dortmund and APOEL. We played Juventus, Sporting and Olympiacos.

2 clear reasons, national league level is still more balanced, teams are of similar strengths, secondly for sure statistical reasons. If you have statistical base of 25 or 5 games, makes a huge difference. Liverpool scored 7 against Maribor for example, ManC had 5 vs Basel. We have had 3 teams not even daring to attack unlike Maribor/Basel, but just sat back. Sure there are teams like that in national leagues, but over the course of a year it will spread out and statistically speaking it is more relevant than CL ones.
 

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