He scored goals when he was in form. Nobody is denying this. But that was close to his only contribution to the team back then. The fact that he's only scored once this year and that it was in mid January says it all about how he's not a reliable goal scorer. Also, how have our two new players ruined his "Well oiled machine"? Are you trying to blame Coutinho and Dembele for Paulinho playing like shit every week? Him being the third best goal scorer on the team isn't very impressive when our entire attacking strategy revolves around setting up Messi and Suarez. At one point our 2nd best goal scorer was Fabregas... It just says more about our lack of options attacking wise than it says about the midfielder.
Nice lie, here are some stats for Paulinho before and after we started integrating Coutinho and Dembele:
Goals before 8 (1 every 138th minute), after 0 (519 minutes and ticking)
Assists 2 vs 0
Shots every 40th minute vs 47th
Key passes 8 vs 3
Longballs 15 vs 6
Dribbles 20 vs 3 (massive change here)
Interceptions 11 vs 2
And so on, his role has changed since we have 2 "new" players and he is clearly not comfortable for whatever reason. Nothing new, our entire form has been much worse since the new players and this pretty obvious. Many January transfers mess things up, even with big names. Fabregas was just another scapegoat, joined with massive hype, his profile was never suitable for the team and although he had great start of his last season, his falling off in second half is only thing people remember. Similar to Zlatan and many others. Perfect player for the black and white squad here to flame the blame.
The job of a Barca midfielder is not to score goals. That's the reason why he has more. Iniesta, Rakitic, Busquets... these are all players infinitely better than Paulinho by any metric, who do not score goals. If he's such a threat in the box why has he not scored since January? And what positional sense are you talking about? Do you mean in the box? Because inside the box is the only time Paulinho is in a good position. His off the ball movement is atrocious and usually just involves running towards the opposing box, which is a large part of why he sees so little of the ball, but we'll get to that, because you said something really dumb later on in your post that addresses that.
Says who? We have been searching for Plan B for ages, a scoring midfielder is great to have among the ranks. There are several reasons why he has fallen off. He is getting less chances, but also bottles those. Which for me shows that his role has changed and his form has turned bad. And yes I was referring his positioning in the box as we were talking about goalscoring.
Whoscored is just about as unreliable as it gets when it comes to stats. On their site, right now, they have Paulinho's strengths listed as through balls, key passes, and passing, while listing his weaknesses as aerial duels. It's like they're a parody website. You must not even watch the games if you think Paulinho averages as many tackles as Pique and Vermaelen. Perhaps you should reconsider your sources for stats? Because you couldn't possibly genuinely believe that. And besides, this isn't a dick measuring contest between him and the other midfielders. Paulinho is supposed to bring something different, that only he can offer, right? If he's producing similar stats to players we already have who offer more in many other aspects of their play, what's the point in playing him?
Pretty interesting statement considering the fact that whoscored gets their data from Opta like many other sites. Remember Opta? The source you brought into this? I havent even remotely talked about their player profiles or rankings, which are definitely biased, but the raw stats are not.
Once again, trying to measure dicks. It doesn't matter who has better numbers. If you keep talking up how dangerous he is in the goal scoring department, let him be dangerous. Thus far, he is not. Or at least, he hasn't been in a very long time.
Lol, you brought the stats up, not me, you starting measuring dicks, i just brought comparison into the game.
This is probably the dumbest thing you've ever said, tbh. You think having 33 passes per game means he's just bad at passing? No, it means he's really bad at movement. He's never in a good position to receive the ball. He has little to no influence on our buildup play. He doesn't have anything to do with retaining and circulating the ball. You'd have been better off saying "He was never bought to be a midfielder" because that's essentially what you did just say.
Not really, he was never brought to be a playmaker, which means that he gets less balls because players search Rakitic or Busi for the distribution. He was brought to add tempo and agility to midfield and help with attacking movement. He was brought as a midfielder, but not traditional Barcelona midfielder, which imho makes him such a good asset if used properly.
You do not get to define me or tell me what I do and don't find joy in. You're just trying to take a holier than thou attitude and nobody gives a fuck.
Yes I do, its a forum after all and what you write here gives pretty good clues. It is also pretty hilarious how people who respond in such way claim that noone gives a fck. If noone would give a fck, noone would respond to anything.
He is.
No it wasn't and I have proven so in this very thread.
It is my opinion that his goal scoring was the only thing keeping his performances above subpar. Aside from the goals he scored, his passing, dribbling, and off the ball movement were still more or less identical to how they are now. These flaws are just magnified by how he's now incapable of being a threat in the box.
Sure, just glad your opinion does not really matter.
