Here are some plus and minuses for Valverde in almost a season and a half.
Good points:
- able to get good consistency for league campaigns
- calm and composed
- can get very good performances out of the more mature players
- good enough tactically most of the time, if we don't burden him with the Barca style and let him do his thing
- gentleman-ish, very fair play towards the opponents (maybe even more than needed)
- can keep most players happy and keep a good spirit in the squad
Bad points:
- tendency to not be daring and excessive caution at times, even against sides who can be outplayed by playing a more offensive brand of football
- lack of leadership skills (mostly a quiet guy who will let players express themselves without doing too much to inspire them), seems quite low key in this area.
- lack of creativity in terms of offensive tactics (debatable, but true imo)
- problems with keeping the players fresh, meaning multi-competition management and player rotation is off the mark (this means that he is less likely to have the team fresh and firing on all cilinders as games in multiple competitions start to pile up). Some players don't play enough, some play too much and almost never rest.
- lack of trust shown to Barca B players, not even a single player from Barca B got anything more than garbage minutes under his tenure so far
- has favorite players and because of this he is a bit unfair to other players (this is true for most managers though... sort of an universal flaw of the profession)
- development of young players under him is pretty average. He does not take this role as a priority, meaning he's very results oriented and is not very interested in leaving a mark on this team for the future. Has a lack of long term vision probably caring about the success of the club only while he is here.
