Champions League game 4: Olympiacos vs Barcelona 0-0

Kohe321 said:

Yeah I hope so. Our midfield is at the lowest it has been in a long time, and here we have a fantastic midfield talent coming up from our own ranks who is nearly 20 years old. I hope that good forces within the club can put some pressure on Valverde to start bringing him into the first team. The transfer market is so saturated with oil money nowadays that any good midfield reinforcements will cost an arm and a leg, and we need it badly.

Getting one "for free" from our own ranks?

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This is why it feels like 2nd grade level common sense to just promote Aleña. We would not be the first team in the world relying on a young gem to fill a critical role in the squad at a time when needed. Bayern have done so with Kimmich, United did it with Rashford, Spurs with Dele Alli, etc. You don't even need to look at the past examples of Barca teams to find precedent for promoting Aleña in this abysmal midfield situation. It's like a textbook scenario to do it. Even frigging RM have given their full trust to Asensio despite having one of the best squads in the history of their club.

DonAndres said:

This is why it feels like 2nd grade level common sense to just promote Aleña. We would not be the first team in the world relying on a young gem to fill a critical role in the squad at a time when needed. Bayern have done so with Kimmich, United did it with Rashford, Spurs with Dele Alli, etc. You don't even need to look at the past examples of Barca teams to find precedent for promoting Aleña in this abysmal midfield situation. It's like a textbook scenario to do it. Even frigging RM have given their full trust to Asensio despite having one of the best squads in the history of their club.

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The main argument for not promoting Alena never has anything to do with his current level of quality, that's what's so alarming. It's always just that he needs to develop with the B team. As if growing as a player isn't even possible with the first team or that if he doesn't have an OVR of X or higher he won't be worthy of starting for us, or something.

DonAndres said:

This is why it feels like 2nd grade level common sense to just promote Aleña. We would not be the first team in the world relying on a young gem to fill a critical role in the squad at a time when needed. Bayern have done so with Kimmich, United did it with Rashford, Spurs with Dele Alli, etc. You don't even need to look at the past examples of Barca teams to find precedent for promoting Aleña in this abysmal midfield situation. It's like a textbook scenario to do it. Even frigging RM have given their full trust to Asensio despite having one of the best squads in the history of their club.

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Real Madrid loaned out Asensio for a year and a half and he became a part of their team at a later stage and dont even think Kimmich was at Bayern at this point.

Alena should start getting minutes soon and decent/challenging minutes not just playing against shit.

God Serena said:

The main argument for not promoting Alena never has anything to do with his current level of quality, that's what's so alarming. It's always just that he needs to develop with the B team. As if growing as a player isn't even possible with the first team or that if he doesn't have an OVR of X or higher he won't be worthy of starting for us, or something.

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Thats not quite the argument.

The argument is that he is better served to grow in tough, physical games in Segunda where he is leader and centre of team as opposed to almost token minutes for first team in games he will be another cog keeping it neat and tidy in a game Barca cruise to a win.

For him would rather he goes to first team regularly when ready to be used as first team squad member which must be soon.

JamDav1982 said:

Thats not quite the argument.

The argument is that he is better served to grow in tough, physical games in Segunda where he is leader and centre of team as opposed to almost token minutes for first team in games he will be another cog keeping it neat and tidy in a game Barca cruise to a win.

For him would rather he goes to first team regularly when ready to be used as first team squad member which must be soon.

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But the thing is, with our current midfield, he could easily be a key player for us. The only midfielder we have who is definitely a better player than Alena as of present is Iniesta and his age is a massive issue for him. Given the pre-season he had I would have been surprised if even Lucho would have been able to ignore his talents.

God Serena said:

How many? I really couldn't tell you. But Thiago might not have played as much at 19 as opposed to 20 when we had the greatest midfield in the world. Alena is sitting behind midfield legends like Rakitic, Gomes, and Paulinho. It's easy to just try and compare ages as if there are no other variables but that's just flawed thinking.

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When Thiago was same age? he played only one game in CL in 10/11 season, against Rubin Kazan after we qualified and had the whole team rested
I don't think Alena would get any minutes in CL unless we get first place before last game
That said, Thaigo played in 12 games with 662 minutes total in Liga, Alena need those.

mesiesta said:

We had Semedo as RB, Roberto as CM, no Rakitic, no Gomes, no Pique, Denis playing - full wishlist from the Barcaforum users and got the worst game of the season so far ))

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Will watch the game later, but I was thinking about this before the game. It was basically everything people here wanted except for Alena not playing, yet it is disappointment

This game was to similar to the one against Lisbon, no creativity, just predictable passing and attacks, we only won that game because of a fortunate own goal. Messi has also played a big part in our undefeated form in the league, but he will have bad games over the season, and unfortunately the team is not good enough to compensate for that. The truth is Valverde is a mid table manager, he is content with playing scrappy football to get a point. That is not what we need at Barca, I am tired of this trend of hiring inexperienced managers to try take us to the top.Rikjaard (to an extent) and Pep were exceptions, even Lucho at least managed a semi giant in Roma but Valverde has only managed mid table teams. And bringing that mindset to Barca is a disease. Mark my words Valverde will only last one season, and it will be a long, boring and painful season for us Barca fans.

Valverde is being much more pragmatic than I anticipated. The 4-4-2 again is interesting and I think our away game Lisbon made him consider this shape. We suffered in 4-3-3 in that game and it's because we have no passing creativity in MF sans Iniesta and Busi. I don't mind the more direct approach of a 4-4-2 away from home and without Iniesta but our best games have been a 4-3-3 and that's where Aleñà comes in.

Outside of Iniesta, we don't have a good CM that can get the best out of that formation. Raki, Gomes and Denis don't really have the vision and creativity needed and Paul leaves too much space behind him. The 4-4-2 is really to get the best out of Luis and give Paul freedom to attack but Luis continues to struggle and Paul isn't so great that he makes the change of shape worth it.

For our more traditional 4-3-3 to work, the ball has to move quicker during passing sequences and we need more penetration from deeper passes that can release the front forwards. These key aspects allowed Pep's football to work so well and like many have said, Aleñà can provide that to the team right now. He might start off as a bit player but if we actually saw what he could do with Iniesta, Suarez and Messi around him, he has the potential to really shine and force his way into the starting 11. That's how poor our MF is right now; a 19 year old could walk on and instantly improve our overall game.

Lastly, I'd say Aleñà has even better reasons to be playing in the first team than Thiago or Roberto during Pep's tenure. They were both fighting Xavi, Iniesta and Cesc those days; three MFs who had won practically everything you can win between the three. Gomes, Paul and Raki are nowhere near as superior to Aleñà as Xavi and Cesc were to Thiago and Bob at that point in their careers. Point being, in the past we just had so much quality on paper that it was hard for promoted players to break through and they still played more. So there really is no reason why Aleñà shouldn't be getting a look in the first team now. It's brought us success in the past and other teams are doing it now and are threatening to do it better. So the time is now.

khaled_a_d said:

When Thiago was same age? he played only one game in CL in 10/11 season, against Rubin Kazan after we qualified and had the whole team rested
I don't think Alena would get any minutes in CL unless we get first place before last game
That said, Thaigo played in 12 games with 662 minutes total in Liga, Alena need those.

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You are comparing 2010 midfield with the current one?! We had the best midfield in the history of this club compared to now possibly the worse midfield. So, of course, it was difficult for Thiago to get minutes from Xavi and Iniesta but Alena could easily be better than Raki and Gomes. Last summer, Barto and Roberto F. promised to promote few B players and one of the main reasons for hiring Valverde is because he usually works well with youngsters and promotes them (as per Roberto reasoning for choosing Velvarde). It's all lies now!

On a lighter note, I really thought it was funny how the Olympiakos fans kept wailing sirens and loud screeching megaphone feedback when we had long spells of possession. Very clever, their fans were immense for them!

i_bleed_blaugrana said:

On a lighter note, I really thought it was funny how the Olympiakos fans kept wailing sirens and loud screeching megaphone feedback when we had long spells of possession. Very clever, their fans were immense for them!

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Always a great boost for there team Olympiacos fans are amazing. It was however very annoying to hear that noise throughout the game 😂

Well maybe now the results based apologists will acknowledge just how shit we are. The funny thing is that we've played worse this season and got the win... So as said it is just not sustainable...

I'll admit I was happy with his starting 11 except for Suarez but for heavens sake stop this 4-4-2 nonsense. It doesn't help one bit and I'll tell you why...

The players look completely lost in this formation, the wide midfielders look terrified of getting forward and there is no compactness leaving Busquets (who was a juggernaut once again) terribly exposed. This type of setup is geared to a more direct style of play but we're trying to pass teams to death using a 4-4-2 that is very restrictive in terms of passing channels and as such the passing is laborious.

That said, the individuals didn't cover themselves in glory either... Denis is not a midfielders arse, Roberto must have thought he is still playing as right back, Paulinho offers nothing playing this shape because it's his duty to play alongside Busquets which competely neuters him. He is more an impact player and should be used as such, Deulofeu is a one trick pony that is too insistent on getting to the byline to provide crosses that lack the necessary quality. Semedo looks a player that doesn't know what his role is and Suarez, holy shit, is like a fart in a perfume factory when he gets in the box. Just how much longer can Valverde accommodate him in his current form. Then we have Messi, even in a sub-standard game for him is still the only creative outlet we have.

The second half, after the tactical switch to a 4-3-3, I thought we looked better in terms of shape but there was just no penetration.

Also, some credit must go to Olympiacos. They defended very deep, reminiscent of how some teams defended against the Pep era Barcelona. They stuck to their guns and pulled it off.

Terrible stewards first of all. Islamic State jihadists could have detonated themselves whenever, wherever they want on the pitch.

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path

The team wasn't motivated to play in the first half. There was some improvement in the second one, but still some WTF moments happened. The same old scenario "pass the ball back to Messi to shoot" when you can score yourself or pass to someone in better position than Messi. I will never understand this game plan.

So, when we play a regular starting 11:
1. we play ugly
2. but we are at least winning.

When forum's favorites play, who should turn our game into more fluid and beautiful:
1. we still play ugly
2. and aren't even winning

Remember, this is a team which is in downward spiral for 2 years.
1. Valverde isn't that bad. He is doing wonders with a pile of crap of players which we have
2. also, if Rakitic and Gomes are bad, that is NOT suddenly making Denis, Roberto and others=good players or a starting Lw/Cm material.
Because there is a reason why they almost never play at these positions as starters.

When something is bad, people are looking for desperate solutions and answers.
1. first we had Rakitic, Gomes and Luis Suarez
2. then people are asking for Denis, Roberto, Deulofeu
3. now they will call for Alena as a right away savior (again, in a moment when we have 9-1-0 score in La Liga with +8 points infront of Real. Let's risk everything and see how a 19 year old kid will adapt.)

Guys accept it:
1. Rakitic, Gomes and others suck
2. Denis, Robrto and fans favorites suck even harder
3. current Alena is probably even miles behind both 1 and 2

Sit down, relax, and hope that:
1. let's wait for Dembele, we will probably play better
2. players will start to adapt Ernesto's ideas better and that we'll play more fluid in the future
3. maybe we'll get Coutinho
4. and let's hope that Alena will be SLOWLY integrated in a team, not by a being a starter
5. let's hope that the results will continue to be good inspite of an ugly play

BBZ8800 said:

So, when we play a regular starting 11:
1. we play ugly
2. but we are at least winning.

When forum's favorites play, who should turn our game into more fluid and beautiful:
1. we still play ugly
2. and aren't even winning

Remember, this is a team which is in downward spiral for 2 years.
1. Valverde isn't that bad. He is doing wonders with a pile of crap of players which we have
2. also, if Rakitic and Gomes are bad, that is NOT suddenly making Denis, Roberto and others=good players or a starting Lw/Cm material.
Because there is a reason why they almost never play at these positions as starters.

When something is bad, people are looking for desperate solutions and answers.
1. first we had Rakitic, Gomes and Luis Suarez
2. then people are asking for Denis, Roberto, Deulofeu
3. now they will call for Alena as a right away savior (again, in a moment when we have 9-1-0 score in La Liga with +8 points infront of Real. Let's risk everything and see how a 19 year old kid will adapt.)

Guys accept it:
1. Rakitic, Gomes and others suck
2. Denis, Robrto and fans favorites suck even harder
3. current Alena is probably even miles behind both 1 and 2

Sit down, relax, and hope that:
1. let's wait for Dembele, we will probably play better
2. players will start to adapt Ernesto's ideas better and that we'll play more fluid in the future
3. maybe we'll get Coutinho
4. and let's hope that Alena will be SLOWLY integrated in a team, not by a being a starter
5. let's hope that the results will continue to be good inspite of an ugly play

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It's not about finding desperate solutions but rather trying to band aid existing problems until reinforcements arrive. I will happily admit that Denis, Roberto and Semedo sucked but I will not defend a Valverde system, clearly implemented to accommodate an underachieving player, which is not working and which is a big part of the problem. He, in his own words wants to play a possession based game, but persists with a system that is alien to the players and which is restrictive to the very game he wants to play. The passing is not crisp and the movement of the ball into areas is laborious because the players don't know where the others are and have slow play to a crawl to pick out their teammates.

Edit: You just can't open up defences like that. This problem is somewhat negated when Iniesta plays because he is able to pick out Messi blindfolded if need be. To top it all off the system he discarded which was working well in the beginning is his go to system when goals are needed. It happened against Las Palmas, Atletico and against Olympaicos. Where is the disconnect?

Have you considered where Dembele will play in this system when he returns?