Arthur

Everyone who watched a bit from him should have seen that he isnt a player like Cou who make the crazy things and killer passes. He is more like busquets. I said it in preseason already. Dont play busi and him together cause they are too similar and Arthur fits better in his position.
Valverde should have seen this by now...

Danic said:

Everyone who watched a bit from him should have seen that he isnt a player like Cou who make the crazy things and killer passes. He is more like busquets. I said it in preseason already. Dont play busi and him together cause they are too similar and Arthur fits better in his position.
Valverde should have seen this by now...

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so he moved from new Xavi to new Busquets, only shorter and less gifted defensively with no aerial presence at all

BBZ8800 said:

One more time, I know that it is stupid to compare anyone with Xavi, but since people are often mention Xavi in this thread (and you have now mentioned him again), so NO: Xavi wasn't cautious at all in young years.

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Lol are you forgetting about 'the windscreen wiper' nickname? Xavi was heavily criticized for not being forward oriented enough.

BusiTheKing said:

Lol are you forgetting about 'the windscreen wiper' nickname? Xavi was heavily criticized for not being forward oriented enough.

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watch xavi's videos that BBZ posts and you will see how he was making plenty forward passes

gasgas said:

watch xavi's videos that BBZ posts and you will see how he was making plenty forward passes

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Xavi had his debut in La Liga four years prior to that game. Arthur hasn't played a full fucking game yet.

BusiTheKing said:

Xavi had his debut in La Liga four years prior to that game. Arthur hasn't played a full fucking game yet.

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Have you watched the debut video?

BusiTheKing said:

Xavi had his debut in La Liga four years prior to that game. Arthur hasn't played a full fucking game yet.

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I wonder how BBZ would handle Xavi in the modern era as in now. At Arthurs age.

It's funny considering what we know of BBZ's preference of players is that Xavi doesn't fit the mold BBZ likes out of certain Midfielders. technicality? probably but he will probably complain how short and weak and slow Xavi is.

His argument comes off as using Xavi as a moving goal post in order to criticize Arthur when he probably would have likely criticized Xavi for some of the same problems as being Slow, short and not known for his physicality.

gasgas said:

Have you watched the debut video?

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Yeah, it's beautiful.

Hope you're not seriously comparing the tactical circumstances to those of Arthur in the Girona game though. When you receive the ball so much lower on the pitch with so much less pressure on you, it would stand to reason that you're going to bring the play forward more than if the ball was already high up on the opponents half.

The only way to look at this is qualitatively. You can't say that x out of 10 passes should be forward. It makes absolutely no sense to look at that number in a vacuum. If you pick out each situation and say, well here he could have easily chosen a more progressive option because the pass was open and he had the time and space, then fine. But this quantitative shit is real stupid.

gasgas said:

Have you watched the debut video?

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Yeah. Teams couldn't defend back then. So much space you could land a fucking jumbo jet between the lines.

Half these people complaining about Arthur would of said Xavi was trash at the same age. People forget Xavi only became truly a big name in Europe once Pep took over, Messi came of age and was well into his 20s.

The way Arthur receives and protects the ball under pressure while also keeping his head up... and moving to space without the ball is already 10x better than Gomes, Turan and Denis Suarez combined. He clearly looks way more comfortable than those ever did. Comparing him to Gomes only reflects how truly out of depth some of the fans on this forum really are.

Is Arthur going to be world class? Is he going to be as good as Xavi? We dont know. He's barely played. There is no way to tell. All we know is that he has a lot of potential, that is clear, while potential was never clear with Gomes, Denis or with Turan once he started playing for us.

Gnidrologist said:

Yeah. Teams couldn't defend back then. So much space you could land a fucking jumbo jet between the lines.

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so the current defenses warrant a player to make only backpasses and side passes

BusiTheKing said:

Yeah, it's beautiful.

Hope you're not seriously comparing the tactical circumstances to those of Arthur in the Girona game though. When you receive the ball so much lower on the pitch with so much less pressure on you, it would stand to reason that you're going to bring the play forward more than if the ball was already high up on the opponents half.

The only way to look at this is qualitatively. You can't say that x out of 10 passes should be forward. It makes absolutely no sense to look at that number in a vacuum. If you pick out each situation and say, well here he could have easily chosen a more progressive option because the pass was open and he had the time and space, then fine. But this quantitative shit is real stupid.

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By the way Gomes made an incisive pass on his debut vs Sevilla in the supercopa, to digne who crossed for Messi to score and it's been a while since i watched the highlights but i am pretty sure he made more forward passes too

Gnidrologist said:

Yeah. Teams couldn't defend back then. So much space you could land a fucking jumbo jet between the lines.

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But, look:
If teams are playing so defensive right now, then ALL Barca's players would have problems with forward passing, right?

Messi has 10s of forward passes.
Dembele also.
Busquets also.
Vidal had lots of them.
Coutinho... wow, no need to comment.

Disclaimer: I am NOT comparing Coutinho and Arthur, since they play in different roles (even though both are some version of CMs).
I am posting this just because of your comment how teams are defending differently today (which is true).
But the point is: even today, players who WANT to pass and who have skills can find 10s of spaces to do that.

This is what Coutinho has been doing against the same opponent as Arthur.
And Coutinho was doing this when we played 10 vs 11, so we even had a man down (and less options to pass the ball to).
Look how Coutinho is able to find space for a forward pass in probably 2 out of 3 actions when he has the ball.
Arthur is doing the same 1 in 10 times, against the same opponent:
** One more thing, look at how Coutinho is NOT passing the ball every time to the closest possible player.
Coutinho could have passed to free Busquets a few times but he rather passed to Semedo or other players FURTHER away from him=to speed up the play.

xXKonan said:

I wonder how BBZ would handle Xavi in the modern era as in now. At Arthurs age.

It's funny considering what we know of BBZ's preference of players is that Xavi doesn't fit the mold BBZ likes out of certain Midfielders. technicality? probably but he will probably complain how short and weak and slow Xavi is.

His argument comes off as using Xavi as a moving goal post in order to criticize Arthur when he probably would have likely criticized Xavi for some of the same problems as being Slow, short and not known for his physicality.

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For someone like BBZ, the way he's commenting about things, it's illogical to consider Xavi a better player than Lampard for example.

BBZ basically likes physical box to box midfielders who aren't really specialized in anything but can do bits of everything. He certainly would've bitched non stop about Xavi lacking in some clear areas like speed, athleticism and muscles, goals, tackling.

At the same time you and other people tend to forget that Xavi was heavily criticized in his post Pep years for being too conservative, only passing sideways. Do you think it's all because he got senile or maybe teams simply figured out how to suppress our midfield better?
Comparisons to our attackers is silly, because their primary job is to make thing happen in the final third. Vidal showed nothing, his passes mostly lead to nothing. \he was good workhorsing around defensively though. Not sure why he is being praised so much. Arthur's prime comparison should be Rakitic and later doesn't play positively at all. Only when in acres of space, face to the goal he occasionally makes a sharp pass.
Anyhow, i think there's way too much talk in this thread after barely a whole match played (summarily) by a new player from different continent. Think in era where internet forums and youtube weren't available yet, people wouldn't even have an opinion formed yet, but here we are, drawing definitive conclusion about player, who just debuted in Europe in a quite sloppy (for the team as a whole) match.:/