OFFICIAL: Jordi Alba Joins Barcelona.

Arquitecto wrote:Alba hasn't had an excellent Euros. He was roasted by Maggio, had a troubling game vs Croatia and Portugal. His attack shouldnt deceive from his poor defense and intelligence.

Espana has 2-3 better LBs than him

Interesting... I rarely disagree with you Arq, but I have to here.

I am struggling to think of one Spanish lb better then Alba.

Jordi Alba didn't make any foul in the 570 minutes he played as left back for Spain at the Euro.

Now that is some stat.

jiopsi wrote:Jordi Alba didn't make any foul in the 570 minutes he played as left back for Spain at the Euro.

Now that is some stat.

Indeed I found it displeasing how Ramos, Arbeloa and at times Pique fouled players when they knew the player would get past them and the referee at times didn't punish them (with a yellow card Im talking about) and they consistently did that.
Hang on, how did Alba get a yellow card? Was it for dissent?

For anyone interested, you can watch his live presentation on this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dJoKYgw89PQ

Thanks Danny! I've never actually watched a live presentation

Can't wait to ses him and Iniesta ripping the left flank. Madrid beware.

Wish he wasn't at Olympics tbh and I hope they don't choose him.

You guys still hold this same opinion? You would do this deal over again?

For € 14M (was it?)? Yes. He's good enough for about 30 games in La Liga (Real Mehdrid, Atletico Mehdrid, Valencia away, Sevilla away, Athletic away excluded) and group stage CL games against scrubs + Copa del Rey games. He just shouldn't be anywhere near the starting lineup against strong teams. But for € 14M I'd certainly have him in my squad again.

I assume 14m, I have no idea but reading back through this thread nobody says anything different.

Personally, I still wouldnt btw.

I guess it depends. If we could have gotten Filipe Luis or Mathieu already in 2012 (ideally both) I too wouldn't.

Blasphemy! I can't believe you questioned Alba the thunderbolt's signing.

not trolling right now. how could this scrub start for Barca for so many seasons ?

Never want to see him in a Barca shirt again after this season

Agreed.
Here's what I want see
1. Offload Mathieu
2. Kick out alba
3. Sign "iniesta replacement" ASAP
4. Sign a decent backup for Busi
5. Sign a " Perdoish" player willing to be backup for MSN so that they don't burn out during crucial stage of season due to excessive playing time.

For me no. 3 is most important. The only reason we didn't miss Xavi very much was because we still had Iniesta delivering in crucial matches and Rakitic played the Janitor role perfectly. So the creative responsibility was shared by iniesta- Messi and busi while Rakitic did the dirty work. But taking into consideration the recent iniesta performance I am am feraid the great war horse is nearing his end. Never saw him this struggling. We need to have someone who can carry ball forward in midfield in iniesta absence. Busi cannot do it because he has to play as anchor and Rakitic simply doesn't have that skill. This maybe the very reason we are seeing Messi playing more centrally. So we need to have a player that can make the transition of iniesta having lesser role easier for us.

Valkyrja wrote:

not trolling right now. how could this scrub start for Barca for so many seasons ?

Not even the worst thing he did on the night.

http://gfycat.com/CostlyComfortableHen

Spoiler:

Possibly the worst starting player in modern Barca history. Physically a 10 year old would beat the shit out of him, useless in the air, no composure at all when playing it out of the back and useless in the final third. Tries the same pullback cross to Messi and 1 out of 200 attempts it reaches the target. Lucho saw it right, replaced him with Mathieu in the big games when he first became coach. Unfortunately Mathieu doesn't work as a leftback anymore at this point of his career.

So you'll sign Gaya then?

Kick wrote:So you'll sign Gaya then?

That's the problem. Quality fullbacks are a rarity these days. You couldn't do much worse than Alba though so any replacement would do.

Aside from Alaba.

Who would you actually want as a LB?

futbol wrote:.http://gfycat.com/CostlyComfortableHen

I saw this and remember thinking, "Dre, he had to be offside. No way he did not see that play and think it was best to pass back. No way. Nope. Not a professional footballer."

Well Bale used to try a score on stuff like that until this year

Alba has been absolutely trash this season, but I also don't believe he's the worse LB in the world.
I know he's had allot of injuries this season, and honestly I don't know if he ever actually hit 100% health again because we didn't have anyone to rotate him with thus he HAD to play every match (and we had a ton of matches back to back this season). I think if we were to get a solid LB to rotate him with (and possibly bench him), we would be set. We need someone to help keep him fresh, again I don't think he's the shit or anything but I don't think he's terrible. Just don't think it helps we have no one we trust to rotate with him (Mathieu is even worse and Lucho refuses to sell Adriano even though he's always injured so it's like he's not even on the squad)

But yea, he's been crap this season no denying it.

seems his job is only running. no creativity, bad dribbler, bad passer, average defender. he is there because he works hard. working hard is not a small thing. but i would prefer less hard working Marcelo