JamDav1982
Senior Member
Rapinha fortifies mf with his support in off ball movement and explosiveness.
When on top of not being able to play pedri and Olmo is on pitch with Casado, Raphinha not there is too big of falloff.
Barca will fall way too short of meeting threshold of off the ball movement to substantially increase winning chances.
So even if Raphinha plays bad in terms of chances wasted and contributing little offensively, he is big contributor to not allowing opponent to overrun is and winning ball back more often in dangerous areas.
Loss against Sevilla example of this.
Yamal is bigger drop off.
Loss against Sevilla? Where none of Joan, Balde, Eric, Fermin or Yamal started along with Raphinha.
Also the drop off last night is not just without Raphinha it is without his back up also and Pedri and Frenkie etc according to reports should not even have been playing due to injury that saw him miss training.
