Ronald Koeman

❗️Joan Laporta, when asked whether Koeman?s position will be in danger if they lose tonight: ?No, it's always in danger. A win or loss tonight won't change anything"

My president, but I may have added in that last part in for some spice teehee xx

serghei said:

Same. Losing ain't a tragedy if we play well and the match is competitive.

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With the squad he has at his disposal tonight, I would not have high hopes for a competitive game:

It's a given that 2 at least liabilities will start at the back, one will be Pique and another will be one of Lenglet or Garcia
It's a given that Busi will start and most likely play the whole game
It's a given that Sergi Roberto will either start at RWB (horrendous!) or come in as a sub
It's a given that Luuk De Jong will start and play the whole game, due to lack of options

How can you expect a positive result with so many negatives given??

Just to remind you, our best European game last season was the 1-1 draw at PSG, and the starting XI that night
had all of Messi, Dembele, even offensive liability Griezzy would press more than Luuk
then had Frenkie at Libero
then had no Pique at the back
and most importantly came at a point when the team had clicked and was playing good football

Huge differences.
Especially after watching how terrifying Bayern can be against Leipzig 2 days ago,
I would say a loss by 2 goal margin, would be a very very decent result

Birdy said:

With the squad he has at his disposal tonight, I would not have high hopes for a competitive game:

It's a given that 2 at least liabilities will start at the back, one will be Pique and another will be one of Lenglet or Garcia
It's a given that Busi will start and most likely play the whole game
It's a given that Sergi Roberto will either start at RWB (horrendous!) or come in as a sub
It's a given that Luuk De Jong will start and play the whole game, due to lack of options

How can you expect a positive result with so many negatives given??

Just to remind you, our best European game last season was the 1-1 draw at PSG, and the starting XI that night
had all of Messi, Dembele, even offensive liability Griezzy would press more than Luuk
then had Frenkie at Libero
then had no Pique at the back
and most importantly came at a point when the team had clicked and was playing good football

Huge differences.
Especially after watching how terrifying Bayern can be against Leipzig 2 days ago,
I would say a loss by 2 goal margin, would be a very very decent result

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I'm not that interested in excuses tbh. Yes, we are not favorites, but weaker teams surprise the better ones all the time when they play with motivation and proper tactics. Especially at home. Bayern drew 1-1 with Gladbach. We can do it too.

Bobo32 said:

Or surinamese-dutch to be more specific maybe. I don't know what Messigician was after tbh.


It is lucky because they almost went out in pretty much every leg, even against farmers. It's also a bit lucky that they didn't have to face any of the Madrid teams.

So here they were saved by luck instead lol
They faced Napoli 2020 because they had won the pretty tough group, they faced PSG 2021 because they couldn't win the little bit easier group.

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1)
Dude,
in 19-20 Ernieball Barca had 4 bad games in the group: Slavia both legs, Dortmund away and Inter at home.
Then the corpse team that Setien took over had another 2 bad games: Napoli away, and the Bayern humiliation.

I don't give a flying fuck if somehow we ended up winning that group. Honestly.
In total it's 6 out of 11 games being from mediocre to awful to humiliating. That's 55% of the games

In 20-21 Koemanball Barca had 2 bad games (PSG and Juve at home)
It's 2/10, that's 20% of the games

That's an improvement in our performances
Deal with it...

2) Atleti and RM went out to 3rd or 4th division sides
We played all the games away and were always better than the opponent, even with many changes
We beat two strong sides Sevilla and Bilbao to lift the Cup, and the final was one of the best performances of last season.
One bad game (Sevilla away) which was reversed by a heroic performance in the return leg.
We were the best team in Copa by a large margin

Only a super-biased person with anti-Koeman glasses could discredit the Copa

Bobo32 said:

So points is a relative metric, but Birdys opinion of the strength of the teams is more absolute?
Results were objectivally worse than ever since 2007, but if the team had played well, better over time, with some reliabality and stability after all, then I would see it and could still be optimistic. But Koeman seemed to have no clue about what he was doing, and one of the biggest tells was the way he switched systems after every terrible result

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If it was just my opinion, fine no one cares
But it's about the indisputable underlying stats that show the big improvement.

As for the rest, it's partly subjective, but I would rather have a transition with youngster and seeing less and less seniors starting, than trying to squeeze something out of players that are way past their prime.
The latter Valverde did, and we all know how it ended

serghei said:

I'm not that interested in excuses tbh. Yes, we are not favorites, but weaker teams surprise the better ones all the time when they play with motivation and proper tactics. Especially at home. Bayern drew 1-1 with Gladbach. We can do it too.

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No, we can't
We are not some midsize European underdog that the top team would not pay so much attention to.
Bayern wants to beat us again, and to humiliate us again I would say

These are realities, not excuses.
1) Bayern are in form right now, contrary to the time they drew Gladbach
2) they play wil full squad, a squad which is much better than ours when full
3) We play with half-empty squad especially upfront, and emergency solutions
4) Team has not clicked at all yet in the season

It's an agenda to disregard all the above, and put the blame on Koeman if we get thrashed tonight.
We are in for a big thrasing, any other result would be a positive surprise

Birdy said:

It's an agenda to disregard all the above, and put the blame on Koeman if we get thrashed tonight.
We are in for a big thrasing, any other result would be a positive surprise

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If we get trashed tonight of course the manager and the players will get blamed. It's obvious.

Serghei setting himself up for biggest Koeman rant not seen yet.

Horatio said:

Serghei setting himself up for biggest Koeman rant not seen yet.

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Nah, bar a 0-5 loss or some huge trashing like that, he'll be fine as far as I'm concerned. But if we continue to play like shit vs likes of Getafe who are 3-4 levels under us, it's a whole different story.

Also, if Stegen, Pique, Busi embarrass themselves again tonight and he will still consider them unbenchable, he'll prove again that his sense of fairness and equal treatment isn't worth a dime.

serghei said:

If we get trashed tonight of course the manager and the players will get blamed. It's obvious.

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Can you blame Pique for being past it? No
Can you blame Luuk De Jong for being limited in his abilities? No

Can you blame Koeman for playing the only players he has available? No
Can you blame him that his squad is 20 times inferior to Bayern's? No

We're in for a big thrashing because we have terrible players (bar Memphis and Pedri and FDJ) and a terrible coach. If we only had a bunch of terrible players + good - great coach, I would expect a narrow loss or draw at home.

So, if Koeman is worth anything he needs to at least deliver a draw or 1 goal loss. Not expecting a win obviously, even at Camp Nou.

Birdy said:

Can you blame Pique for being past it? No
Can you blame Luuk De Jong for being limited in his abilities? No

Can you blame Koeman for playing the only players he has available? No
Can you blame him that his squad is 20 times inferior to Bayern's? No

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You still don't get it. The only incentive to play Busi, Pique etc. is if they deliver at least decent performances. Otherwise, fucking play Mingueza - Araujo + De Jong, Pedri, Gavi.

Other than that, there is absolutely no use playing players who will not be around for the next cycle. Those valuable minutes should be used for the next lot of players.

Bottom line, if you think these players can still help, play them by all means, but deliver me the reward. If not, and you get trashed either way, bin them and bring in the youngsters. They can at least run.

The more physical and aggressive team we can field tonight, the better. Hope to see a few fresh names like Araujo and Mingueza, Luuk upfront. We've already seen what veterans can do against this Bayern side.

serghei said:

You still don't get it. The only incentive to play Busi, Pique etc. is if they deliver at least decent performances. Otherwise, fucking play Mingueza - Araujo + De Jong, Pedri, Gavi.

Other than that, there is absolutely no use playing players who will not be around for the next cycle. Those valuable minutes should be used for the next lot of players.

Bottom line, if you think these players can still help, play them by all means, but deliver me the reward. If not, and you get trashed either way, bin them and bring in the youngsters. They can at least run.

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Sure,
easier said here than done by a coach. Amigos clan still in power, even though they lost members the last 2 years

We have discussed this many times, and you know I am on the side of binning all veterans.

I don't think Koeman has the power to do so. Only the board can take the responsibility for such an action..
Only Laporta can move them out via different ways.

JamDav1982 said:

Koeman and Laporta know they are in the shit and playing games to put the blame on one another.

Koeman is in the right on this one. Laporta has to back him or sack him not undermine him at every opportunity in hope he deflects from his own failings and constant shite being spouted.

Any coach with self respect would do the same and come out firing. Either back me or sack me but dont play games to try and shift blame.

Laporta just once again acting like a politician with no plan at all.

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Agreed. I find it ironic that people on here are scapegoating Koeman for opening his mouth on Laporta, after the shitshow that Laporta pulled on him last summer.

Wtf is shit manager doing, can't he fucking see the players on the field are shit, why wait tell its 2-0 to make subs. This manager is fucking joke.