Ernesto Valverde - V1

[Sorin]

Bilbao have not played that type of football and didnt against Barca, neither did Sporting or Betis.

Napoli have played good football in Italy then concede 6 over two games against first good attacking team they played this season. Betis got hammered at home by Valencia and have not played all that amazing football.

Sporting never did much v Barca and Bilbao are struggling this season.

Sporting second in Portugal having scored 22 in 10 games, Bilbao tenth in Spain having scored 10 in 10, Betis 8th having scored 19 but conceded 18 and took a tanking at home to likes of Valencia as said.

Not sure how these are teams to look to as any example.

Can you for once stop focusing on results? Ok? Our results have been spectacular, above expectations really. Never questioned them. But our defense, gk and Messi and other player on a good day, have masked a lot of our shortcomings.

Sporting absolutely dominated us and we were gasping for air in the second part of the second half. They were all over us and we couldn't string 3 passes in midfield to keep away the pressure. One own goal and we won. Big fecking whoop.

Bilbao has been dreadful for the season, I agree, but in the second half they were better than us. For the whole half! 45 minutes! We managed to create shit squat. Result aside, please don't tell me that our performance was pleasing to the eyes to you?

Napoli has been playing, for almost 2 season now, a better brand of football than us with a team costing a fraction of ours. Sure they haven't achieved shit but their teamplay has been superb oftentimes. Of course they haven't achieved a lot but considering their budget compared to ours, Juventus or RM last year they've done great. Again this team is weaker than ours but plays better than us except in defence. And they don't have Messi.

Another thing, It's my personal opinion and that is that i don't enjoy watching Barcelona play for large periods of the games. Sure we have played to our potential at times(vs Atletico, Juventus or Eibar). But too sporadic for my tastes. Am I spoiled? Maybe. Still, I also believe that we can play much better than this with the same players we have now and whoever blames it only on the mismanagement of the team or the poor players we have now is full of it. I enjoy watching Man City more, I enjoy watching Napoli more. Likewise with Tottenham, Valencia, Real Sociedad or Dortmund. Maybe the expectations are lesser for these teams and this can skew my view of them but the majority don't have half the players we have and yet manage to play a more attractive brand of football for my eyes.

 

[MessiCam]

Can you for once stop focusing on results? Ok? Our results have been spectacular, above expectations really. Never questioned them. But our defense, gk and Messi and other player on a good day, have masked a lot of our shortcomings.

Sporting absolutely dominated us and we were gasping for air in the second part of the second half. They were all over us and we couldn't string 3 passes in midfield to keep away the pressure. One own goal and we won. Big fecking whoop.

Bilbao has been dreadful for the season, I agree, but in the second half they were better than us. For the whole half! 45 minutes! We managed to create shit squat. Result aside, please don't tell me that our performance was pleasing to the eyes to you?

Napoli has been playing, for almost 2 season now, a better brand of football than us with a team costing a fraction of ours. Sure they haven't achieved shit but their teamplay has been superb oftentimes. Of course they haven't achieved a lot but considering their budget compared to ours, Juventus or RM last year they've done great. Again this team is weaker than ours but plays better than us except in defence. And they don't have Messi.

Another thing, It's my personal opinion and that is that i don't enjoy watching Barcelona play for large periods of the games. Sure we have played to our potential at times(vs Atletico, Juventus or Eibar). But too sporadic for my tastes. Am I spoiled? Maybe. Still, I also believe that we can play much better than this with the same players we have now and whoever blames it only on the mismanagement of the team or the poor players we have now is full of it. I enjoy watching Man City more, I enjoy watching Napoli more. Likewise with Tottenham, Valencia, Real Sociedad or Dortmund. Maybe the expectations are lesser for these teams and this can skew my view of them but the majority don't have half the players we have and yet manage to play a more attractive brand of football for my eyes.

I applaud you Sir. (No sarcasm)

I'm of the opinion that it's Valverde's fault with his conservative tactics and selections.

 

[JamDav1982]

Sporting did not dominate Barca. Barca had almost 70% of the ball and had more chances on target.

Results are important if you are bringing up clubs Barca should play more like that are not reflected in their results.

Seen it all before when Barca play extreme passing game. Folk go mad when lose don't say oh well we got beat 4-0 but least had more of the ball.

 

[Horatio]

Seen it all before when Barca play extreme passing game. Folk go mad when lose don't say oh well we got beat 4-0 but least had more of the ball.

I thought Barca was criticized numerous periods of time for pointless possession.

 

[Birdy]

Would be great to see those projections for other games too.

I always see them, and the conclusion is what i said in the previous post. We deserved what we got so far in terms of results with 4 exceptions: the two supercopa games and Olympiacos (we deserved more) and Juve and Sporting games for CL (we deserved less)

 

[Ousmane Dembélé]

Sporting did not dominate Barca. Barca had almost 70% of the ball and had more chances on target.

Results are important if you are bringing up clubs Barca should play more like that are not reflected in their results.

Seen it all before when Barca play extreme passing game. Folk go mad when lose don't say oh well we got beat 4-0 but least had more of the ball.

 

[BusiTheKing]

One thing I really hate is that even though we're clearly not going for a slow build-up possession dominate style of football, we still very often wind up faced with something that resembles a bus.

If EV wants to employ the style he knows about, which is on all counts a reasonable thought, he needs to fucking instill into our players heads, that when we attack, we fucking attack. None of this waiting for the opponent to get organized because that's what we're comfortable with. We simply don't have the players to deal with that. Suarez, Gomes, Paulinho... their strenghts lie in completely different areas.

There is a force pulling in opposite directions of EV's vision and that does make his job a lot harder than it looks from here sometimes. I guess that's the baggage we have to carry around when playing Busi, Messi and Iniesta. As a result our football is all over the place, and I don't think EV has what it takes to get it sorted.

 

[MessiCam]

One thing I really hate is that even though we're clearly not going for a slow build-up possession dominate style of football, we still very often wind up faced with something that resembles a bus.

If EV wants to employ the style he knows about, which is on all counts a reasonable thought, he needs to fucking instill into our players heads, that when we attack, we fucking attack. None of this waiting for the opponent to get organized because that's what we're comfortable with. We simply don't have the players to deal with that. Suarez, Gomes, Paulinho... their strenghts lie in completely different areas.

There is a force pulling in opposite directions of EV's vision and that does make his job a lot harder than it looks from here sometimes. I guess that's the baggage we have to carry around when playing Busi, Messi and Iniesta. As a result our football is all over the place, and I don't think EV has what it takes to get it sorted.

Not going to happen with the way he is lining up and the players he is selecting. There is just no tempo when we have possession of the ball and players are often having to scan the field looking for passing options instead of it being instinctual. When Iniesta is playing we can transition quickly and he more often than not can pick out an attacking option but in this 4-4-2 formation Iniesta plays LM instead of a central position. Rakitic, Gomez and Denis haven't been able to do anything of the sort and in this 4-4-2 Paulinho plays too deep to be effective, he is not a passer either. The other player capable of transitioning from midfield to attack at pace, Roberto, is played as a RB despite the club paying good money for one in the summer.

Ah well, it is what it is. But I get the impression that Valverde is too conservative for a team like Barca.

 

[JamDav1982]

[youtube]-L7azZCYOqc[/youtube]

 

[Ousmane Dembélé]

[youtube]-L7azZCYOqc[/youtube]

 

[JamDav1982]

Apology accepted.

 

[hulinat]

Go awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

[Raketa10]

We have parked the bus against Sevilla at home. I have nothing more to say. Fucking nightmare! If we continue like this we won’t win anything...

 

[messi2140]

Subbing Paco off was an interesting decision.

 

[Mitchell1978]

Can't fault the results but he really is a conservative coach who overplays the big names.