20 - Sergi Roberto

[serghei]

He was great today.
I honestly think Semedo had earned himself a spot in the starting XI after his good run while Bob was out, but when the Spaniard is playing like this, he's really hard to replace.

Yea, just go with both and try to keep them both happy, because if they play like this, we have the RB side well taken care of. Roberto was really fine in defense too. Solid game from him. Semedo though is really growing offensively I feel. Much more ambitious going forward. I feel that he realized he needs to improve his attacking output.

I'm happy with our squad. We just need to get it going in CL and keep showing the same intensity and this season could turn out great. We're kind of past this difficult string of games, so we should look to give game time to Malcom and other players too.

 

[Trickykid]

Yea, just go with both and try to keep them both happy, because if they play like this, we have the RB side well taken care of. Roberto was really fine in defense too. Solid game from him.

Yeah, I'd go with that as well. The only problem of course being that we'll never know if Semedo in particular could elevate his play further if he managed to stay a starter for much long, making his synergy with the teammates and confidence stronger.

 

[serghei]

Yeah, I'd go with that as well. The only problem of course being that we'll never know if Semedo in particular could elevate his play further if he managed to stay a starter for much long, making his synergy with the teammates and confidence stronger.

Yea, but he's not that unique of a talent to completely take a player like Roberto out of the team. He's not exactly Dani Alves-like.

 

[Trickykid]

Yea, but he's not that unique of a talent to completely take a player like Roberto out of the team. He's not exactly Dani Alves-like.

Far from it, but so far a great deal of his shortcomings (his ineptitude in attack aside) seems to stem from lack of mutual understanding with the players around him.

 

[EdmondDantes]

His best game this season. Excellent!

 

[khaled_a_d]

Great game from start to end, MOTM for me

 

[pepi]

Always good in the big games

 

[Joan]

Valverde: "Sergi Roberto is a jewel for us, he can play in many different positions and he has an unbelievable talent."

 

[Barcaman]

He was great today.
I honestly think Semedo had earned himself a spot in the starting XI after his good run while Bob was out, but when the Spaniard is playing like this, he's really hard to replace.

 

[PhilS]

In these big games, because of the way Barca plays, the opposing defenders tend to tire. Then, Roberto can just destroy them in attack. When he switches from fullback to midfield late in the game, it's like getting fresh legs in midfield. The guy has endurance that is out of this world.

 

[BBZ8800]

This match is now a part of his 4 most epic performances:
Madrid 0:4
Psg, 6th goal
A solo action and a pass to Messi against Madrid for 2:3 in the 93rd minute.
5:1 against Madrid again.

In fact, he is quite good and deadly against Real.
3 world class El Classicos for him till now.

 

[soul24rage]

He just loves assisting Suarez in El Clasico.

 

[Catta]

He just loves assisting Suarez in El Clasico.

Suarez scored 9 goals against Real, Roberto assisted 5 of those. If we played each game of the season against them, Roberto would be a Bd'Or contender

 

[El Trencaxarxes]

Suarez scored 9 goals against Real, Roberto assisted 5 of those. If we played each game of the season against them, Roberto would be a Bd'Or contender

In general, Roberto is an excellent creator and assists quite often. 17 assists and counting in the past two seasons and the current one. Only four players have more assists to their name in that period of time. Messi with 41, Suárez with 35, Alba with 22 and Neymar with 21. I think we're quite spoiled with our fullbacks actually, even if Roberto has been criticised a lot in the past year or so. To have our fullbacks assist on nearly 40 occasions in less than two and half seasons is impressive. Especially when we consider our style of play. In Madrid, it makes sense, because one of their main gameplans during Zidane's tenure was to have Marcelo and Carvajal hurl cross after cross after cross towards Benzema, Ronaldo and Bale, but we rarely ever do that because it makes no sense for us to do. So for Roberto and Alba, it's much more about having great vision and being creative on the ball, than just smacking it from the wing and hoping for Bale or Ronaldo to leap higher than anyone else. Defensively Carvajal is undoubtedly the better one, but offensively I think Roberto is head and shoulders above any other Spanish right-back. Also Odriozola.

 

[PhilS]

Good, he is not starting today, he deserves a rest. However, if Barca does not do well in the first half, I would expect Roberto to come in as a defensive midfielder, to captain the team and serve as instructor on the field.