Do you still think that Arthur is a 4-6th pick? Valverde said that his fitness problems of the last season were due to a groin injury, and he continues to become more and more important to us with each passing game. Your opinion of him may have began to shift after his great attacking input in dribbles and forward passes.
Do you think there is any potential in a De Jong - Arthur double pivot with an energetic CM in front of them like we saw against Inter?
Well, he is not 4th-6th pick anymore.
Raki is dead, Busi is almost dead, Alena is suddenly MIA which leaves us with 2 midfielders: Frenkie and Arthur.
Regarding my comments about Arthur, I don't think that he is as bad as my posts were saying.
For years, I have some "problems" when fans are overrating our players way too much.
I can't resist the urge to bring back the balance with excessive shitting then.
So, I don't think that he is as bad as my posts were saying.
But still, I think that he is currently nowhere near the level of how our forum sees him.
Regarding his passing and shooting attempts lately.
It is obvious that EV or someone from a coaching team talked to him and told him the obvious: Arthur, you need to work more on your forward passes and an impact in the attacking third.
He is trying to work on those areas.
And btw, no one have gave a credit to EV regarding this. I know, why should anyone give a credit to our coach? Arthur has probably improved in that area "by himself"
Regarding his improvements in the final 3rd, yes, he has improved.
But still, for me, you can see that his forward game today is forced and not natural.
Imo, his DNA and natural instincts are saying to him: calma, calma, play it safe, that's your game. Keep possession.
While a coach, fans (and teammates) are saying: play it faster, play riskier, try more forward passes.
And then, you get a current Arthur, who is surely trying more forward passes, but lots of those passes are still kinda awkward and some of them are on a wtf level?
Khaled was one of the rare users who said the same even in his Gremio days, Khaled said something like: I think that he is not trying forward passes and long balls because he is very inaccurate in them.
Someone will reply: when you try forward passes, you will make some mistakes.
True.
But Arthur's forward passes have (imo) way lower percentage of a success than passes of guys who have forward passes in their blood/DNA.
All in all, even though he has improved, I don't want to see him too close to an opponent's box.
He should play only as a double pivot with Frenkie and do what he does the best: get the ball into an opponent's half, resist press, press on the opponents when we lose the ball and recycle possession till death.
He can do a forward pass here and there, but a club of Barca's level should really have a world class Cam/Iniesta and not guys like Frenkie and Arthur in advanced positions, who are good, but not natural and not world class in those positions.
Other position for Arthur is a CM in 433 with Frenkie pivot, Arthur CM and someone else as the 3rd, the most attacking guy.
Further, my estimation of Arthur's development on this forum: now, when he will play more, he will be tested more and more both against small La Liga teams and against teams like Liverpool.
Till now, probably no one really knows how good is he in defending.
We know that he is "there", he is playing and running, but he was never really tested at Barca in matches like Anfield.
In the past, if defense sucked, we could have always accused Raki or Busi for being turtles.
Now, if those two will be gone, if we will be eaten alive against some bigger opponents, people will start to point fingers into new scapegoats.
Look at the last few days, some posters (not haters like me), started to also point into some flaws, which is natural once when a player starts to play more.
And that is some weird nature of our forum, we all do that.
We are all pointing at flaws of majority of our players.
Messi lost pace, he is sulking, he is lazy, he doesn't move too much off the ball.
Suarez is fat, old, yelling at everyone, has a horrible first touch, can't make a pass etc.
Dembele is dumb, has a horrible touch, has horrible shortpasses, is a bad fit.
Coutinho is slow, lazy, low workrate, bad in defense, weak mentally, a bad fit.
Malcom is kinda slow for a winger, he doesn't have any obvious strengths.
Raki is old, slow, a turtle, bad against press.
Busi is old, slow, a turtle, bad against counters, prone to errors lately.
Vidal is old, sometimes wild and unpredictable, hot headed, sometimes not suitable for our possession play.
Alba is dumb, prone to errors, weakish in defense lately.
Roberto is bad in defense, bad as a midfielder.
Semedo is bad in attack.
Pique is done and prone to errors.
Lenglet is slow, prone to errors, not on Barca's level lately.
On the other hand, in early days:
Roberto was hailed as maybe one of the best RBs in the world, what a player.
Dembele was a generational talent.
Malcom was a beast.
Raki was: an awesome signing in the first season.
Busi was one of top3 midfielders of all time.
Semedo was the best RB in the world when we bought him.
Lenglet was a cheap world class NT player in the first season.
In short:
1. I don't think that Arthur is as bad as my posts are claiming, explained above
2. still, currently fans are still on a honeymoon with Arthur and this season he will finally be properly tested in lots of different matches and scenarios.
No matter how will he play, some new flaws will surface, like with any of our players.
Credit to Valverde for developing Arthur? You must have some serious nerve to say this after the Liverpool episode. Only thing EV does is limit both Arthur and De Jong. At least he plays them though so that's a plus that has been noted by most users.
