Yeah, we've been pretty crap away from home in CL throughout the Messi era. Just got lucky against Arsenal and Chelsea in 2011 and 2009, respectively. Plus won some home legs by 4 and 5 goals - a lead not even Messi's Barca is capable of blowing.
One man's error is another man's data. Do you believe Valverde managed those games well? If so, you are in the minority, if not im not sure what your point is.
There is a valid theory he got the most out of the team . He also employed different tactics than Lucho not leaving the team as exposed in the back . Not to mention he didn’t have Neymar and his 2 replacements were flops to little fault of his own .
In the Roma game probably yes . However, let’s not forget we really didn’t play well vs Chelsea in the previous round. So the signs were there. For the Liverpool fiasco , I blame the players way more . That first goal was a big individual mistake from Alba . The 4th the players went to sleep . And in the first half we had plenty of chances to kill the game off. Chances weren’t taken . That’s on the players . Dembele also fluffs an amazing chance in the end of the first game that could have put the game really out of reach . That’s not on Valverde.
So considering you thought Valverde produced a masterclass against both Liverpool and Roma by losing 3-0 and 4-0, I take it you were in despair after hearing he was sacked? I mean he won the league twice and was by no means at fault for both the Champions League humiliations? What did Valverde get wrong? In the Roma game, he doesn’t play to the strengths of the team and opts to play a conservative and cautious 4-4-2, which includes both Roberto and Semedo down the right, aiming to contain an average Roma side. When you play conservatively and you aim to contain, particularly against a high line that Roma were playing, you need an outlet to counter and expose the gaps left behind the team that is pressing forward, we didn’t have any. Both Alba and Semedo sat deep the entire game and not one player in the midfield had any legs to provide an outlet. Poor management. The midfield was being overrun and bullied and Valverde did nothing to change that, even with the likes of Paulinho on the bench and while he is no world beater he could have provided a bit of a bite and energy to a midfield that was on it’s knees. Nope, nothing. Poor management. What does Valverde do? He sits back and hopes for the best, even though there are absolutely no signs of the performance improving. When does he change things? In the last 10 minutes of the game, the last 10 minutes!!! And what happened when Dembele came on? He immediately exposed the high line that Roma were playing. I am no big fan of Dembele but he was very much required in that game. The above are just a few tit-bits of what went wrong against Roma. As for the Liverpool game, you mention us having chances in the second leg, well just a reminder, Liverpool had a load in the first leg, and these weren’t just half chances these were a shit load of golden chances that they should have scored but they fluffed. One of the issues in both Liverpool games was the approach, like the Roma game Valverde opted to contain, against a side like Liverpool that doesn’t happen, he should have played to the team’s strengths (defending certainly isn't) and opted for a possession based game, like Setien is doing now. While the approach to the game was wrong the main issue in the first leg was the match up between Mane and Roberto, I mean any manager that thinks that a super slow player like Roberto is going to be able to contain one of the quickest players there is deserves to be sacked right there and then. The entire game Roberto was having a nightmare against Mane, the entire game, he ran him ragged. All game, the tactics from Liverpool were basically give it to Mane. Roberto didn’t have the pace to get up the pitch to push Mane back so Mane had no defensive responsibilities whatsoever and just banked himself high up the pitch and caused havoc. It was only when Semedo came on that the game plan changed from Liverpool and Salah and the rest of the team got to see more of the ball but by then the match was over, not due to Valverde but due to Messi magic. The second leg you can blame it on missed opportunities or individual errors (and of course the players are partly to blame) but when it comes down to it, the same thing happened the season before against Roma and Valverde failed from preventing it happening again, there is no defending that no matter what spin you put on it. Being able to problem solve by making the right changes at the right time, whether that is tactical or personnel wise, is a sign of a manager that has a clue, Valverde was out of his depth and he fully deserved the sack.
1 - I never said Valverde provided a masterclass. 2 - I think I stated that he got it wrong vs Roma. Somehow you read it as if I said he did nothing wrong. I am a bit baffled. 3 - So if we had many scoring chances vs Liverpool in both legs, doesn't that mean Klopp messed up tactically just as much ? Food for thought. You should see how many goal scoring chances Liverpool concede in the EPL ... teams have just been choking in front of the goal. 4 - Roberto didn't have a nightmare vs Mane. Alba had a nightmare game. Semedo started vs Roma was horrible. People forget ... 5 - This team, with it's roster, always has problems with high intensity teams. You can play 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-3-1-2 ... whatever formation ... they will struggle. It's a team that doesn't bunker well and if it goes with an attacking 4-3-3 leaves holes behind. Like I said, before Valverde we lost to Juve and PSG away badly with a 4-3-3 WITH Neymar and Iniesta.
1. The fact you state it was individual errors and you fail to mention anything Valverde did wrong indicates to me that you thought Valverde managed the game rather well. Masterclass was an exaggeration of course but i do find it rather strange that anyone can claim Valverde did well considering it was a 4-0 hammering. Do 4-0 hammerings happen? Yes, of course they do. Should all be treated as a crisis? No, they are not day and night situations, context is required to read most situations, particularly ones that repeat themselves and the fact of the matter is the loss to Liverpool was spectacularly similar to the flat, uninspiring and calamitous loss to Roma only a year ago. As i mentioned earlier, it's down to the manager to problem solve and on two occasions Valverde has failed to do so. 2. The fact that i asked if you thought Valverde did well or not and you answered by replying 'yes' led me to assume that you thought he did well. But upon further reading i understand now that you didn't, my bad. 3. It's not simply about chances, there are many other things to consider when judging a manager's performance. Can he weather a storm? Is he capable of noticing and exploiting weaknesses in a team during a match? Is he capable of making the right substitutions at the right time? etc etc. If Valverde had a history of winning major trophies then he may be forgivable for these two results but because it happened two years in a row then of course major doubts of his quality of a manager will be raised. Others may disagree but there were only 15mins (the last 15 in the the first leg) in the entire tie that i thought Barca were on top, the rest of the tie was all Liverpool and they fully deserved to go through. 4. If you think Roberto didn't have a nightmare in the first leg then we surely are seeing things from two opposite ends of the spectrum. Roberto was left for dead on pretty much every occasion Mane was in play. That said, i do remember Roberto making one crucial sliding tackle in preventing Mane getting through so credit to him for that but other than that he provided nothing in defence or in attack. A modern day full back needs to be able to add width to a team and also be able to defend, Roberto does neither.Why did Valverde stick with him for so long? On the other hand we have Semedo, now granted he isn't the best defender in the world but notice the width we have in the last couple of games with him in the side? e.g the Griezmann goal. Valverde had many opportunities to bring someone in but he was a fan of Roberto for whatever reason. Bad management. Thankfully Setien has now noticed that Semedo is the better option out the two, i'm just hoping he sticks with him now. Whether he is the long term answer or not i don't know, but he is certainly the better option out the two. 5. You're right, this team doesn't 'bunker well' (why do you claim Valverde managed the game well then, considering we 'sat deep?), hence why i said Valverde was wrong with his tactics and that we should have played to the team's strengths and played a 'possession game'. That doesn't mean you should attack and leave holes behind or even 'bunker' it means you keep the ball and prevent the other team from obtaining the ball. Of course, that's easier said than done with a high intensity, pressing team that Liverpool are but what's the alternative? You 'bunker' with a team that is awful at defending? Nope, not for me, bad management. You claim Valverde was at fault for the Roma collapse and not for the Liverpool collapse whereas i'll counter that by claiming he should be critisized more so for the Liverpool game than the Roma game as he wasn't able to learn any lessons from what happened against Roma in order to apply them to the Liverpool game. The exact same thing happened, that's on the manager! All that said, the board have been just as bad as Valverde in not providing him with adequate transfers, Valverde is gone and hopefully this board is out next.
Roma was worse IMO. Just because Roma aren't especially good and Liverpool, by contrast, are the best team in the world. so huge difference there. Also IIRC, Barca had their chances v Liverpool, just didn't take advantage of them. Against Roma I don't recall too many chances other than the 4 that they scored (at least one of which was a total gift). The "didn't learn from the lesson of the previous year" would apply had Barca not actually been quite good in the first 3 halves against Liverpool. But when you play the best team in the world you have to put away your chances.
Depends what you define as 'good', Barca certainly weren't any good in my view and i think you'll find very few people about would agree that Barca were any good. Other than a few opportunities created by individual brilliance the entire performance was flat and unimaginative. As i said in my previous post, the only time Barca were on top were the last 15 minutes of the first leg, other than those 15 minutes Liverpool dominated both legs. Creating a few chances here and there doesn't mean you deserve to go through but creating chances, bossing play, pressing and showing heart and desire to come back from a 3-0 defeat while missing a number of key players (Firminio and Salah) very much does, all that was made possible due to Klopp being a world class manager, Valverde on the other hand.... Also, claiming Liverpool are the best team in the world (which i agree with) doesn't justify the humiliation, particularly when you consider how Liverpool have struggled at times with games at home in the champions league.....with full strength teams. If you are a capable manager you do not let a 3-0 lead slip, and if it does happen you for sure don't let it happen again the following season. Edit He should be critisized more due to not learning any lessons from that match, nothing to do with the quality of the teams. Huge difference.
Well, they are essentially undefeated since something like Jan 2019, so for me that makes them best in the world from then 'til now. Especially since they won almost every match in these 13 months, not alot of draws either.
I've seen enough of Semedo to not be convinced. Very average player. That's my opinion. It's easy to say the team should just maintain possession. Many can't accept that this team can't maintain possession against certain types of teams. You have to accept that there are teams out there that are better than us right now. Like I said , I don't care what formation you put out there, against certain teams, we won't be able to impose our will like we used to. Play a more "attacking style" and we will just lose the ball more often and get killed in the counter. I don't see how that's not clear at this point. What Valverde tried to do is play more pragmatic vs Liverpool and try to hit them with the open spaces they leave when attacking. We don't fully bunker because Messi and Suarez don't defend 95% of the time. The plan worked vs Liverpool in the 2nd leg 1st half because we got plenty of decent scoring chances. Why did he do this ? We can't match their tempo and physicality. If you watch the Barca documentary that came out, you will see Messi at half time saying that "we can't match them for speed and physicality". Look at the match we played today with Setien. Same shit. When Athletic wanted to press high, we were clueless and lost loads of balls. People just can't accept that our roster is currently not that great.
I'm not saying he is this good or that good, i'm saying he is a better option than Roberto. Not that difficult to understand surely. Who said it would be easy? I said we should be playing to the team's strengths in order to give us the best possible chance of qualifying. Haha, now you're just making things up. Who said to play an attacking style? My quote exactly: 5. You're right, this team doesn't 'bunker well' (why do you claim Valverde managed the game well then, considering we 'sat deep?), hence why i said Valverde was wrong with his tactics and that we should have played to the team's strengths and played a 'possession game'. That doesn't mean you should attack and leave holes behind or even 'bunker' it means you keep the ball and prevent the other team from obtaining the ball. Of course, that's easier said than done with a high intensity, pressing team that Liverpool are but what's the alternative? You 'bunker' with a team that is awful at defending? Nope, not for me, bad management. Nope, no sign of me saying we should have gone 'attacking'. What? By leaving players like Malcolm and Semedo on the bench and having a midfield with no legs countering a team that are in their prime? And who's fault is that? Yes Bartemou partly, but lets not put all the blame on him, Valverde for sure will have had an input on signings. Marquee ones like Demeble and Coutinho probably not, but i'm assuming the likes of Boateng and Paulinho were all his. Anyway, we are going around in circles here, i believe he got it wrong, you believe he got it right, fair enough.
Actually, since we created more clear scoring chances in the 2nd leg 1st half, you could even say Valverde got his tactics right. Unless you expected us to steamroll Liverpool. Even before their 3rd goal Suarez had a great chance to score a goal if I remember correctly.
The same collapse happened two years in a row.....Two.Years.In.A.Row. Bad management in a number of areas over the course of his tenure here, did not have the answers to resolve issues and whether you like it or not, and by the sounds of things you bizarrely don't, he deserved to go. On to greener pastures with Setien? Who knows, Valverde has stunk up the joint with a rancid fart and shut the door behind him, it will take a while before the stench of Valverde's reign is gone.
No . My point was that the problem was not only Valverde . Shit , if Dembele was healthy and only good it could have been a different story . You can’t predict that shit .
Coutinho was fit but was never molded into the team. Malcom, Vidal too. Valverde kept playing the old guard. Kept playing craperto! But I agree the chaos started from the top with Bartomeu.