Other guys above has explained a fall of Msn in 2016 and 2017.
You are romantic.
You are remembering a 2015 and you think that we would be getting that player.
As others said, in 2015 even Suarez was a world class.
Busi was better than today.
And Raki had his best season here.
Is Raki from 2015 the same guy from 2019? No.
Is Suarez from 2015 the same guy from 2019? No.
The same applies for Neymar.
Regarding MSN magic, they were a crap in the last 18 Months here.
In La liga, we played very bad in a spring of 2016 and Neymar went MIA.
I used to post back then that he went on a spring break.
He had like 10-15 league matches in a row with horrible displays and with zero goals from an open play. Missing sitters for fun.
We won a title mostly to Suarez banging goals like crazy in the last 10 rounds.
In 2016-17, we sucked all season.
So, last 18 Months of Msn in La liga were a disaster.
In a CL, the same.
2016: Arsenal 2:0 and 3:1
Atletico 2:1 and 0:2.
Against Atletico, we scored two goals ONLY when Atletico got a red card.
2017:
Psg 0:4, 6:1
Juve 0:3, 0:0
So, basically, in the last 6 knockout rounds matches of a mighty MSN:
1. We couldn't score against AM at home in 11 vs 11
2. We didn't score against AM away, 0:2
3. We didn't score against Psg in Paris, 0:4
4. We didn't score against Juve in Torino, 0:3
5. We didn't score against Juve at home, 0:0
So:
1. In La liga, MSN managed to lose both titles in the last 18 months, in terms of number of points
2. In a CL, MSN was sterile and couldn't score in the last 5 out of 6 matches with 11 vs 11 players
We sucked so bad and we didn't even had EV.
Without Neymar, we were better than RM in the last 24 Months
2. And in a CL, no matter how bad we are, we are not as sterile as in the final days of a mighty MSN
So, yes mate.
You are living in dreams.
You are stuck in 2015.
Have to disagree with a lot of this.
We are missing a lot of nuance in this discussion at the moment.
I won't disagree that there were some things in his play that were problematic while he was here. Especially in his last season here, it got tiresome to see him try and dribble past 2-3 players when easy passes were on and you could tell that at times, it was disrupting our team play and chemistry as a result. Its why Alba suddenly looked so much better once Neymar left.
Sure, 16-17 wasn't a good year for us and Neymar. But for me at least, I put a lot more of that season on the wheels simply coming off of Lucho's system than individual players failing to execute. We had absolutely no control over games; we were wide open defensively and unless MSN could find 3ish goals a game, we were screwed because our MF had NO idea or shape to help us control matches with possession and our defense was always exposed because MSN pretty much had very little defensive responsibilities, we were only defending with 7 players and without any control over matches with possession, we were never going to be successful. The first leg in Turin, for me at least, was 100% Lucho. He tried playing a Cruyff diamond without Busi as the pivot (only way that can work well) and expected Mathieu to not get exposed on the left. Pretty sure both of the goals Dybala scored came from his side and by that time, the tie was over.
So while it may be revisionist that Neymar alone is why we got our second treble in 15, its equally revisionist to pin 16-17 on Neymar and evidence on why we shouldn't want him. Personally, I'd take Lucho's chaos over Valverde's snorefest any day of the week, because while it was very imperfect, at least we played decent, entertaining football under Lucho. Nothing is worse than EV's unimaginative 4-4-2, absolutely nothing.
Neymar's stats this year, despite playing in an easy farmers league, is still impressive. Out of 28 games, he bagged 23 goals and 13 assists and in the CL (in a very difficult group, mind you), he bagged 5 goals and 2 assists in 6 games. So I'm not convinced he's declined as much as say Suarez, Busi and Raki have since 15.
Personally, I think the player we should have spent this sort of money on was Joao Felix but Neymar has fire and enough of an ego to be willing to not just pass the ball to Messi when the chips are down and we
desperately need that at the moment. He was an ass for leaving but we all make mistakes and he had to try this just so he could know for sure if he could do this on his own. That would have been in the back of his mind when he retired, had he stayed with us the entire time so I get why he had to try it. The grass just isn't always greener and he learned that the hard way.
I think this whole year for him has been very humbling for him and its exactly what he needed. I also think we are the only club in the world that could actually get him to tone his on and off-field bullshit down. Off the pitch, he really didn't have too much controversy outside of the whole tax evasion thing (which was the blowback from his original deal, not necessarily his fault) and I think its because we have an atmosphere that discourages player controversy. A lot of our players are family men, not like we were under Rijkaard when players like Ronnie and Deco partied all the time, and I think that reduces the chances of a player like Neymar getting into trouble because of his social surroundings. I feel like Messi and Suarez would encourage him to find a real wife and stop fucking around with these money hungry thots who want to use his name to get famous (read as recent **** allegation) and that sort of mentoring would keep him out of trouble.
Furthermore on the pitch, I think everyone (Valverde, Messi, Suarez, Pique, etc.) would need to sit him down his first day back and be like "this whole diving a million times and trying to dribble everyone has to stop if you're going to play here again" and those players have the quality and clout to get him to listen. He wants to come back because he wants to win and the only way we will win is if he is willing to play our system, so I think we can use that desire to curb some of his behavior on the pitch. Finally, I'd say on paper at least, we will have a better midfield for him to operate and link with. He was playing with an aging Iniesta or Gomes a lot of the times. Now, he will have Frenkie, Arthur and (hopefully) Aleñá supporting him and giving him much better service. He was also the only Brazilian outside of Rafinha then and at least now, he'll have Malcom and Arthur there with him. Lets keep in mind that we did plenty as a club to push him away: fucking around and not buying Coutinho, letting Alves walk, not giving him the praise he deserved after La Remontada, not protecting him adequately during the tax evasion case. We aren't without fault in this saga, either.
So overall, I'd take him back provided he is serious about cutting down on the antics off/on the pitch and I don't think thats unrealistic to ask for, given the circumstances. The biggest question mark for me however is can Valverde get the best out of him? While you will struggle to see anyone more anti-Valverde than me now, I will concede that things
might have gone slightly different this season if we weren't playing with practically 10 men when Coutinho was on the pitch. If the only thing you replace is Neymar for Coutinho, would we we have tanked against Liverpool & Valencia? Idk, hard to say for certain but I think we'd be better than we are now with Neymar. I also wouldn't worry too much about his injury form atm. If he passed the ball more and didn't linger on it like he does at PSG, he'd get fouled less and would probably get injured less. As mentioned earlier, I think we could get him to overcome some of that with our players and our stylistic expectations, so that alone might reduce his chances of getting injured.
In conclusion, he has a lot of baggage but I think we could coax a lot of that out of him, reduce the burden on Messi while dumping some dead weight in the process (Rakitic, Coutinho) so I see more positives than negatives here when weighing out his potential return. People are talking about the potential return of MSN but honestly its Neymar-Messi-Dembele that I'd relish to watch.
