Arthur

Great posts from my dude [MENTION=15262]serghei[/MENTION] ! I once tried and started writing same kind of message with lots of screenshots to show how static, useless and coward Rakitic is in the buildup. But I couldn’t post it because the images were too big and wouldn’t upload.

Nice work Serghei. You’re spot on on so many things. I’d like to just separate Busquets from Rakitic. Busquets is and has always been a deep sitting DM, who will accelerate the game from behind with his perfect one touch passes. But he’s never been a B2B, a guy who would run everywhere on the pitch. He’s never been mobile, has always been static and just made slight and short moves but which were enough when he played with a real CM and AM who knew how to correctly occupy their positions. And this Busquets was the absolute best DM in the world. What I’m trying to say is that Busquets has always been like that and it worked well for Barca, so you can’t expect him to completely change his game and become an Ngolo Kanté at 32 years old.

Rakitic on the other hand, was bought and is still supposed to be our CM/AM. And he’s even less creative, less offensive and less mobile than Busquets. He’s playing deeper than Busquets because he loves hiding. That’s not what we expect from him, and that’s clearly not the reason we bought him for. These are the things that make Rakitic the biggest fraud of this team. It’s like if Dembelé turned into a guy who always sits in Barca’s own half, brings absolutely nothing offensively, and instead watched Alba/RB try and fail to do all the offensive work on the wing. All this while his defensive contribution would still be not so significant. Dembelé would be the guy to blame for our poor offensive game, not the full back. It is the same with Rakitic and Busquets. Busquets is our iconic DM, he’s starting to decline. He’ll never play like an AM/CM, and he’ll never be energetic and mobile. That was never his role !

[MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION] take notes on that Serghei post, that’s what posts look like when a guy has real knowledges about the game of football, and can analyze it with his own eyes. But I can’t wait for your upcoming full of stats replies (same stats that you post here every week for months and months).

YodaMaster said:

[MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION] take notes on that Serghei post, that’s what posts look like when a guy has real knowledges about the game of football, and can analyze it with his own eyes. But I can’t wait for your upcoming full of stats replies (same stats that you post here every week for months and months).

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I have already replied.
Serghei posted kinda obvious things.
Arthur is good against teams who press.
Awesome.
A bad thing is that majority of our opponents sit deep and park the bus, so that part of Arthur's play is almost useless.
How will he resist press if there is NO press at all?

An analogy would be: we buy a Rb who is the best crosser in the world.
But then, we don't need his crosses since we never cross and have short forwards.

Or me posting pics how Rakitic is very good in interceptions.
I mean, ok, he is good in interceptions, but people are unhappy with him because he is not press resistant and he is not too creative.

Let's go back to Arthur, his skillset is useful against bigger teams who press and attack.
His current skillset is not too useful against Mickey Mouse la liga opponents where we play in the final third for a majority of match.

I have said the same to Serghei.
Or you can do the same.
For example, Arthur was subbed off early in home matches against Espanyol and Sociedad.
Can you analyze with pics his "impact" in the attacking third in the 2nd half of those matches when we were desperate for risks and risky passes and shots in the final third?

In those matches, even Rakitic is more useful since he will try a risky forward pass more often or he will try a shot.

Btw, I have checked now, Arthur has attempted only 4 shots in 36 matches for Barca.
So, one shot in 9 appearances.
Or once in 500 minutes.

So:
Arthur has 4 shots this season.
Vidal 29 shots.
Rakitic 40 shots.

So, again, when we are playing against weaker teams when we need risks, dribbles, assists and shots, Arthur's numbers are:
36 matches
0 goals
4 shots in a whole season
1 assists
20 key passes over 36 matches
14 dribbles over 36 matches

This is why I have said: imagine Messi getting injured and we have a Busi-Frenkie-Arthur midfield:
All creative burden would be on a pivot Frenkie.
And all shooting burden would be on 3 attackers.

Against weaker teams at Camp Nou, we need one Coutinho/Alena type of a guy.
Which means=bench for one out of Busi, Frenkie, Arthur even if Rakitic will be sold.

Lol, since when do we have a problem on Camp Nou vs the likes of Getafe? Sorry man, but if you look in the last seasons, we kind of win leagues beating the crap out of the likes of Getafe and Leganes, but shit our pants when we meet some intense team in CL who press the fuck out of us.

So, yea, Rakitic needs to be benched and Arthur needs to play more.

Midfield should be Arthur, Frenkie and Vidal if he stays.

Sorry but teams in La Liga who park the bus at Camp Nou lose the game before it even begins no matter who we play in midfield. Even this season our defeats and draws were against attacking sides, like Betis, Bilbao or Valencia, who scored us 8 goals between them.

You would have a point regarding Rakitic being more efficient vs parked buses if he was some sort of Lampard-like box to box midfielder who would bag 10-15 goals a season. He's far from having anywhere near Lampard scoring proficiency.

How many goals did Rakitic score last season in La Liga? 3 goals. Only 1 really mattered, the one vs Madrid.

YodaMaster said:

He’s playing deeper than Busquets because he loves hiding. That’s not what we expect from him, and that’s clearly not the reason we bought him for. These are the things that make Rakitic the biggest fraud of this team.

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Of course I do agree with you (and with Serghei's nice analysis) apart from the sentence above.

If you compare Rakitic playing under Lucho, he played like an average AM. He didn't try to hide back then, wasn't bad offensively and apart from scoring a few important goals, he wasn't too bad as a creator type either.
Under Enrique he was usually the player running the most per games.

His over-defensive and lazy phase started with Valverde and we should never forget that...

[MENTION=15262]serghei[/MENTION]

Cherry-picked screenshots are meaningless. I can compile a hundred screenshots of open passing lanes that Arthur either didn't see, or refused to pass through.

Your analysis is more of an indictment on the entire team, I don't see why it's used to glorify Arthur. Yes, our team is bollocks at moving off the ball, making themselves open and creating numerical superiority, but this does not mean that Arthur is some fabulous progressive passer that is only struggling due to the way the team is set up. Watch the way he plays for Brazil, it's almost identical to his style of play at Barca.

Can we be better? Of course, but that also doesn't mean Arthur is going to turn into some forward pass maestro with a new coach and different midfield partners.

Also keep in mind Rakitic has to deal with the exact same circumstances that Arthur does. I know the lad is the official scapegoat of BarcaForum, but he too must endure a sterile Busi and an Arthur that also moves very little.

The hypocrisy and muppetry on show is rather incredible.

Arthur: Averages 0.5 key passes per match. Praised as the future of the Barca midfield and all his shortcomings are pinned on the coach and rest of the team.

Rakitic: Averages 0.5 key passes per match. Is smeared as a coward, back-pass merchant and donkey with no vision. His teammates and the coach's tactical setup are never mentioned.

Spare me with this tired trope. Be consistent for once in your fecking lives. Arthur and Rakitic offer the same amount of creative output, play on the same side and deal with the same limitations. Rakitic also scores at a higher rate, assists at a higher rate and is better defensively across the board.

Now I wonder why Valverde prefers him to Arthur?

Final thoughts:

Who is hampered more by our slow, sterile style of play?

To answer this question let us look at their performances for their respective national teams:

Arthur - Plays more or less similar to the way he plays at Barca. Excellent press resistance, recycles possession, but struggles in the final third and is not very good at progressive passing. 0 goals and 0 assists in 10 matches for Brazil.

Rakitic - Plays counters, is constantly running, plays great long balls, accurate long shots, much better attacking output, high work rate, physical, wins duels etc. 15 goals, 16 assists in 102 matches. Directly contributes to a goal less than every 270 minutes (3 matches).

So who is affected more negatively by our tactics and their teammates? Not a very difficult answer, now is it?

Just wanted to chime in and put to rest some of the absolute shite and rubbish being spewed in this current circle-jerk discussion.

Knew it was a matter of time before Tackle shows up here.

The state of that post trying to make Rakitic look like the second coming of Jesus Christ due to cherry picking certain stats.

If you picked the 4 biggest braindead retards of r/barca and combined them into 1 person you would get Tackle.

messi2140 said:

If you picked the 4 biggest braindead retards of r/barca and combined them into 1 person you would get Tackle.

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"The name-calling technique links a person, or idea, to a negative symbol. The propagandist who uses this technique hopes that the audience will reject the person or the idea on the basis of the negative symbol, instead of looking at the available evidence."

messi2140 said:

If you picked the 4 biggest braindead retards of r/barca and combined them into 1 person you would get Tackle.

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He is getting paid to troll here. I would even guess he is an old member who disappeared once his contract is done, and now he is back with a new contract.

George_Costanza said:

He is getting paid to troll here. I would even guess he is an old member who disappeared once his contract is done, and now he is back with a new contract.

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Aye.

How can I be sure Benedito, Font, or Laporta aren't shipping you bags of money for every doomsday post you spew?



Muppets love to project.

Tackle is insanely deluded. The Anatoly Dyatlov of this forum.

Imagine berating others for low level arguments and pseudo-intelligence and then posting a false equivalence as simple minded as
Rakitic = .5 key passes
Arthur = .5 key passes

Q.E.D they are both equal in terms of creativity.

By statistical meaurement, Arthur averages less dribbles per game than Rakitic too (0.4 vs 0.6). However, anyone who actually watches games can easily tell which player is more comfortable as a ball carrier against pressure and has the confidence to actually take on defenders.

If you just look at key passes, Iniesta was less creative than Fabregas when they played together. Ozil was and always has been more creative than Xavi/Iniesta ever were. Modric wasn't actually the creative engine of Real Madrid, Kroos was. Dani Parejo this season was more creative than ANY season Iniesta ever had in La Liga. etc.

Tackle is as stupid as they come. Hilarious how he posts a couple of nonsensical cherry-picked stats and then tried to shit on serghei who took the time to analyze game film and actual sequences of football.

Tackle uses the term “aye” a lot, very common in Scotland. Could he be JamDav by any chance?

Hamzah said:

Tackle uses the term “aye” a lot, very common in Scotland. Could he be JamDav by any chance?

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I noticed that too, but the writing manner differs in some ways. I kinda miss Jamdav, he was always good for a laugh. Double spacing every line, providing us with meme material. Even then, I think he wasn't crazy enough to spew the nonsensical shite I've seen from Tackle.

Tackle is even more aggressive and a greater Barto/EV/Rakitic nuthugger than Jamdav ever was, like he takes massive personal offense whenever someone calls out any of them for being bad at their jobs.

Jamdav would rarely if at all go to bat for someone like Rakitic.

The dude has pretty much shat on him most of the time the day we bought him.