Bernardo Silva

Andresito said:

Now that I look, I see that he reached more than 10G + 10A in one of his seasons at City (13G+14A), otherwise he's pretty close to it almost every season, between 18-20 G+A in total over 50 games. I thought he'd be a bit lower.

But question remains whether he's benefitting from City's play or if he can go to any team and elevate them. That's the type of player we need after Frenkie having failed to do so. Especially when paying 80m. No more passengers/system players who heavily rely on how it looks around them.

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Andresito said:

Now that I look, I see that he reached more than 10G + 10A in one of his seasons at City (13G+14A), otherwise he's pretty close to it almost every season, between 18-20 G+A in total over 50 games. I thought he'd be a bit lower.

But question remains whether he's benefitting from City's play or if he can go to any team and elevate them. That's the type of player we need after Frenkie having failed to do so. Especially when paying 80m. No more passengers/system players who heavily rely on how it looks around them.

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Bobo32 said:

Of course Valdes, Pique, Busquets, Xavi, Pedro and to a degree Iniesta were all "system players". Bernardo Silva is no Messi, but he is the best option possible - a player who can both play positional play from the middle, as well as decide games with his dribbling etc from the outside. He is potentially filling two gaps, improving two parts of what is needed in Barcelona.

He IS benefiting from City's play, as any decent player should, but he is also helping to build their play, and what Barcelona should look for is a return to a play where all players can benefit from the structure.
A player like Dembele for example is benefiting massively from Barcelonas current structure, but he is also destroying the structure at the same time.

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Andresito said:

Is Casemiro a system player? If you put prime Casemiro with Xavi and Iniesta, or prime Busquets with Modric and Kroos, who do you think suffers most? Just because a player has a certain playing style doesn't mean he's a system player. Not going to argue about this whole system player thing though, been done before.

I like Bernardo too. Always amazed by technically superior players who work extremely hard and can dominate big games. I usually don't watch Portugal, but is he as influential and productive there?

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Bobo32 said:

That is one aspect of it too, most technically brilliant players don't work that hard. De Bruyne has got that too, but I don't think he is as good as Bernardo when it comes to this argument I made - KdB is wasting the ball too often for my liking, trying to decide games. Bernardo Silva is very balanced in his decisions.

Not sure what your point about Casemiro is - I think both midfields would be great still, but I don't think Casemiro-Xavi-Iniesta would ever be remembered as the best of all time - maybe the Busquets-Modric-Kroos would. Casemiro is a player who stands on his own, but he is not a legendary player who can help build a really legendary team.

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Andresito said:

Now that I look, I see that he reached more than 10G + 10A in one of his seasons at City (13G+14A), otherwise he's pretty close to it almost every season, between 18-20 G+A in total over 50 games. I thought he'd be a bit lower.

But question remains whether he's benefitting from City's play or if he can go to any team and elevate them. That's the type of player we need after Frenkie having failed to do so. Especially when paying 80m. No more passengers/system players who heavily rely on how it looks around them.

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Catta said:

So now Busi is the reason why Xavi and Iniesta were legendary. But the funny thing is, the clubs best season was with Yaya as a DM behind them. Real wouldn't have won even half the CLs they have won if they had Busi instead of Casemiro.

I still stand that the clubs biggest mistake in the 21st century was getting rid of Yaya and Eto'o. We would have had at least 2 more CLs if those two stayed.

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vegitot said:

Iniesta never hit those numbers though.

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Andresito said:

He was effective in other ways though. It's either that type of Iniesta offensive influence or more of a directly measurable one with goals and assists (which imo should be minimum 10+10) we should expect from an 80m player. If Bernardo could do either of those at current Barcelona then I say go for it.

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vegitot said:

When was the last time Barca's midfielder hit those numbers??? Xavi in 2011/2012. The closest one was Rakitic in 2014/15 (not double digit goal + assist though).

Xavi asks Pedri to reach these number next season though i don't think he will hit them.

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