18 - Gerard Martín

Knowing the limits of your own abilities is an extremely important trait, particularly for a defender. This is something Balde can learn from him. Always liked his work ethic and commitment.

Resurrected. Waiting the confirmation against Atletico

The prophecy is inevitable . Can't be the new maldini if u dont play at RB + LB + CB. He checked two of three boxes now..

The best central defender on the ball in Barcelona. Without a doubt.

Bored? What are you talking about? This guy was breaking up the lines with his passes the entire match.

Flick needs to keep Martin as LCB.

Dagger passes like Inigo Martinez but Not as agile as IM.

Lol keeping him at LCB won't end well.

Why do people over react some much, in one form or the other.

Solid game though

jamrock said:

Lol keeping him at LCB won't end well.

Why do people over react some much, in one form or the other.

Solid game though

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He'll get spun around the first time he faces a very good forward and people will then shit on him.

Gerard Martin is a servicable player. Nothing more.

I kind off admire how much he improved from where he started, around a year ago he looked like a player who shouldn't even be in second division, never mind La Liga or Barca. Today we can call him serviceable which is massive difference, even if part of it because of how shitty our defense anyway.

A guy like Mingueza is the closest to him in that regard, but Oscar was still fairly young and was a long time La Masia kid

Alaves at home but yeah decent performance.

I don't think his ceiling is much higher than someone like Bartra.

It's clear, we need two new starting CBs.

When your best defender is only a 4/10 player its an indictment of how bad overall the defense is and not that he magically became a good player

He's better than a 4/10 if you ask me more like a 6/10 at least right now, if you include his CB performances.

He's not perfect, but god, we have had a lot worse come through here than him.

Catalan Andrew Garfield. Just realized.

Watched game again and having a left footed cb helps Barca a lot in trying to combat the way teams have been trying to trap and Barcas full backs.. in this case Balde on the ball.

Teams have been doing it all season and Chelsea suffocated Barca with it.

Araujo kept just deferring the ball sideways to Kounde who wasnt quick enough in head to deal with the press and Cubarsi can pass it out clearly not as comfortable on the left or opening up to game.

I would bet my bottom dollar this is something they have been working on and and NOT these deferred passes to open full backs that the opponents then close in on.
It was noticeable that Gerard would play ball early to Raph or Lewa dropping for it or even step forward and try to commit a man in to free up space.

Can he do it v better teams? Fuck knows but will find out.

Gettimg a left footed CB who can pass would be gold dust for Barcas build up and the traps teams are setting.

See how often he turns down the 'easy' and obvious pass to Balde and prevents traps being set on him.