Transfer Rumours

Varane is just too good to drop, especially when he sees him up close.

I'm pretty sure we will see a more organised defensively Madrid next season.

Despite the retarded ones reputation Madrid have lacked organisation back there, and you can see it extends to set pieces.

carlo gave a substantial role to lucas too, when you are good, you are good. verratti would have played regardless of motta. people have hyped him so much based of few turns on youtube that we forget that he is still a kid coming from serie B. he was never going to start week in and week out

I think it was more an IQ issue Dani than anything else. Ramos and Pepe have the combined IQ of a field mouse.

In any case, back to Alba since this is the Barca section... as a neutral observer, i will say that i don't rate him at all. I never rated him at Valencia. He deceived me a little at the Euro... but he proved my initial impression this year. I'm old school: I like defenders who can play some defense

Mr Nick09 wrote:carlo gave a substantial role to lucas too, when you are good, you are good. verratti would have played regardless of motta. people have hyped him so much based of few turns on youtube that we forget that he is still a kid coming from serie B. he was never going to start week in and week out

Oh stop Nick. I know you're trying to convince yourself. Verratti would not have played. Menez got injured too and Lucas cost over 40 mil = he played because Leo asked and that's probably the problem right now: Leo interfered a bit with Carlo and Carlo wants to leave. Anyhow, let's take this to Madrid board if you want to talk further.

yeah but you are saying things like Varane will go to the bench etc..., i just dont buy it. except for the sakho issue which comes from Thiago Silva himself imo, he did ok with the young lads. anyway, not the thread for that.

the topic was motorbike alba vs old man tattoo lover alves

I agree current Alves is better then Alba, but for how long?? Alba still has time to improve where as Alves will probably start going downhill, if we can get a 30M+ offer I believe that is the smartest thing to do as a business.
30m off Alves could potentially give us the funds to get Thiago Silva or a player of that caliber.

Donuts wrote:I agree current Alves is better then Alba, but for how long?? Alba still has time to improve where as Alves will probably start going downhill, if we can get a 30M+ offer I believe that is the smartest thing to do as a business.
30m off Alves could potentially give us the funds to get Thiago Silva or a player of that caliber.

Why will Dani go downhill? After he recovered from injury issues he was the same Alves....and even if he does I am very sure he will still be

A. Better than anyone we could get.
B. Better than Alba

Selling him with he assumption he will decline sounds strange to me. Maybe we should do the same wih Iniesta? They are the same age after all
This idea we could sell him and use the money on Thiago Silva makes no sense....we have that money, we just waste it on crap we don't need...like Cesc and Song.

I also feel there is assumption Dani us about to fall apart as a player because he is Brazilian...tell that to the last physical freak rightback from Brazil.....Cafu.

One more thing...you know what will happen if we sold him today?

We would sign no rightback, start Adriano who will get injured and we will have Montoya as our starting rightback.

I'm sure that will go real well..

Like someone said before, Alves is our machine and his role requires a very physical player as he gets older he will get slower, and he will lose stamina Iniesta in the other hand doesn't *compared to Alves* run as much.
Injuries go away momentarily it gets worse as it goes on, wouldn't be surprising if he gets injured more oftenl next season.

I understand Alves is a great player but surely he isn't the best at everything? buying a more defensive RB wouldn't be a downgrade just a difference in how we play could have it's benefits.

This Dani Alves being Brazilian bit is being overplayed. Neither does he live Ronaldinho's lifestyle nor does he have Kaka's history of frequent injuries. So why assume that he will decline fast? As dani said a comparison with Cafu is more appropriate. Also let's not keep pointing out that Alves got injured this season. Has there ever been a footballer who never got injured? Hell recently even Javier Zanetti got injured!!! Remember the age at which Zanetti won the UCL with Inter and his go for gold performance neutralizing Messi. Why do we have to think that there's no chance in hell Alves can do something that outstanding in his later years?

In just my view Pep's great Barca has five key cornerstones who have been there from the start of the team's ascent to the start of it's decline and beyond and their contributions are immeasurable - Xavi, Puyol, Messi, Iniesta and Alves. I wouldn't sell any of these players and at the risk of being very impractical let me say for any price because each and every one of them should retire with us as Barcelona legends.

Players that rely on speed decline fast. Those that rely on technique are able to last longer. I'm assuming that players stay in good shape and don't party like idiots here

True and Alves has much more to his game than speed. For a full back he is unbelievably multifaceted.

Yeah but what is his the facet of his game that stands out... to me, it's Alves' recovery speed. His technique on defense is not that good. His tackling is not the best. Not sure about his tactical awareness. On the attack, he'll be fine. It's the defense where i'd be worried.

Donuts wrote:Like someone said before, Alves is our machine and his role requires a very physical player as he gets older he will get slower, and he will lose stamina Iniesta in the other hand doesn't *compared to Alves* run as much.
Injuries go away momentarily it gets worse as it goes on, wouldn't be surprising if he gets injured more oftenl next season.

I understand Alves is a great player but surely he isn't the best at everything? buying a more defensive RB wouldn't be a downgrade just a difference in how we play could have it's benefits.

This is not true though...he doesn't have a "role" which requires something.....he has abilities and his role is based of that. If he changes then so should his role.

A defensively rightback like who? And we will have Alba set free...He isn't Alves, all he is is an overlapper...doesn't have the various other skils Alves has. Not anyone with speed and a decent cross can do what Alves did or does....he plays series of 1-2s , he can play through passes like a midfielder, he can shoot on occassion, he can play deeper balls.. don't think these things can be replaced by some guy who is fast and has a decent cross...

Oh and for someone ready to fall apart I do wonder how Dani is still clearly our most most tenious player, our best pressing player and still recovers.

Selling someone anticipating they will decline is just stupid as hell in general, I don't see why we need to go more in depth about that.

I used that as a reasoning with selling him for 30m+ which would be a good investment in my opinion guess many disagree and i'm cool with that.

CBarca wrote:Selling someone anticipating they will decline is just stupid as hell in general, I don't see why we need to go more in depth about that.

It isn't, actually it's the opposite of stupid, it's genius. But it's difficult to get it right.

With Alves you can't really go very wrong though, if he hasn't declined already, he will in at most two seasons. There's no way he can own the right flank like he did with 32+, and take away his attacking ability and he is not extraordinary. As this season, which he has been bad in defence and very ordinary in attack.

Best thing would be to keep him one or two seasons more and sell him, but I don't think we could get money for him then.

free_cat wrote:

CBarca wrote:Selling someone anticipating they will decline is just stupid as hell in general, I don't see why we need to go more in depth about that.

It isn't, actually it's the opposite of stupid, it's genius. But it's difficult to get it right.

With Alves you can't really go very wrong though, if he hasn't declined already, he will in at most two seasons. There's no way he can own the right flank like he did with 32+, and take away his attacking ability and he is not extraordinary. As this season, which he has been bad in defence and very ordinary in attack.

Best thing would be to keep him one or two seasons more and sell him, but I don't think we could get money for him then.

Well yeah, that's what makes it stupid.

I don't think there is any way you could say Alves will decline in the next two seasons. There hasn't been any sign of it until now, I don't see any reason it will all of a sudden start showing up over the next couple seasons.

Paint me skeptical until I see him start declining first.

Which is something I don't see that you do, fair enough. We'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

sportsczy wrote:Yeah but what is his the facet of his game that stands out... to me, it's Alves' recovery speed. His technique on defense is not that good. His tackling is not the best. Not sure about his tactical awareness. On the attack, he'll be fine. It's the defense where i'd be worried.

Interesting. So you have no doubts about his attacking abilities and hence we need not discuss that. I have questioned Alves' tactical awareness in the past but it's not a major concern. I think people are forgetting one important point. There have been games in the past, at least five considering the last two years, where Alves was especially instructed to play a conservative defensive game and that's exactly what he did. The problem that people have with Alves' defending I think is mainly due to his overcommitment to attack and like you mentioned with his recovery speed falling he may become more defensively vulnerable due to that. It's an interesting problem to think about. I can think of two possible solutions. One is that in a big game when Adriano is fit play him instead of Alba. In big games we need defensive prowess more than attacking ability from our full backs. The other is that Alves can in specific games be instructed to play more conservatively which I think will work. If we get a left attacker like Neymar as I am hoping, with Iniesta behind him, we won't need that much attacking input from our left back. On the right we will need Alves to do more because we don't have any right sided midfielder and our right sided forward will be more of a workhorse than a creator. However if we were to buy a right sided forward instead of a left sided one then things can change and we will have to re-evaluate these dynamics.

In any case, there aren't obvious better alternatives than Alves out there. RB market is very thin. There are some really young ones coming up... they're not there yet. At the end ofthe day, yoru current Rb may decline; but you're not missing out on anything special by keeping him. Better to keep him imo.

CBarca wrote:

free_cat wrote:

CBarca wrote:Selling someone anticipating they will decline is just stupid as hell in general, I don't see why we need to go more in depth about that.

It isn't, actually it's the opposite of stupid, it's genius. But it's difficult to get it right.

With Alves you can't really go very wrong though, if he hasn't declined already, he will in at most two seasons. There's no way he can own the right flank like he did with 32+, and take away his attacking ability and he is not extraordinary. As this season, which he has been bad in defence and very ordinary in attack.

Best thing would be to keep him one or two seasons more and sell him, but I don't think we could get money for him then.

Well yeah, that's what makes it stupid.

I don't think there is any way you could say Alves will decline in the next two seasons. There hasn't been any sign of it until now, I don't see any reason it will all of a sudden start showing up over the next couple seasons.

Paint me skeptical until I see him start declining first.

Which is something I don't see that you do, fair enough. We'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

No sign of decline?
So this season Alves has played as well as past seasons?
He used to be a defensive machine and contribute to 20 goals in attack, now he barely contributed to 7 or 8 goals and was a hole in defence. He used to own Cristiano Ronaldo and now he's CR's bitch...

sportsczy wrote:In any case, there aren't obvious better alternatives than Alves out there. RB market is very thin. There are some really young ones coming up... they're not there yet. At the end ofthe day, yoru current Rb may decline; but you're not missing out on anything special by keeping him. Better to keep him imo.

Well said. I agree. There is a dearth of quality right backs in the market. As dani has pointed out an Alba type predominantly mechanical player will not be enough for us. If we lose Alves' creativity then we will have to rework how to make up for it.

One more point regarding Alves having not been as good defensively as before. Perhaps to some extent this is true but recall the biggest game of the season. First leg vs. Bayern. For most of the match Alves kept Ribery in check while Robben had a field day against Alba. That and his excellent assist in the PSG first leg suggest to me that crucially Alves can still very much be one of our men for the big occasion.

messixaviesta wrote:One more point regarding Alves having not been as good defensively as before. Perhaps to some extent this is true but recall the biggest game of the season. First leg vs. Bayern. For most of the match Alves kept Ribery in check while Robben had a field day against Alba. That and his excellent assist in the PSG first leg suggest to me that crucially Alves can still very much be one of our men for the big occasion.

Alba was terrible vs. Bayern but Robben only dribled Alba once in the game with the collaboration of Mueller and the ref that doesn't know blocks are not allowed in football. Anyway, I don't think Alves kept Ribery in his pocket either. It was a collective massacre and everyone was terrible, Alves too. Plus, he didn't attack.

In the second leg Ribery was great.

And vs. PSG Alves was completely unnefective in attack except for that great assist, which came in a play that it's not normal for a RB, a through ball from the midle. Not a play to consider.

free_cat wrote:

messixaviesta wrote:One more point regarding Alves having not been as good defensively as before. Perhaps to some extent this is true but recall the biggest game of the season. First leg vs. Bayern. For most of the match Alves kept Ribery in check while Robben had a field day against Alba. That and his excellent assist in the PSG first leg suggest to me that crucially Alves can still very much be one of our men for the big occasion.

Alba was terrible vs. Bayern but Robben only dribled Alba once in the game with the collaboration of Mueller and the ref that doesn't know blocks are not allowed in football. Anyway, I don't think Alves kept Ribery in his pocket either. It was a collective massacre and everyone was terrible, Alves too. Plus, he didn't attack.

In the second leg Ribery was great.

And vs. PSG Alves was completely unnefective in attack except for that great assist, which came in a play that it's not normal for a RB, a through ball from the midle. Not a play to consider.

What you are saying about the Bayern game may be true but what I said I remember quite distinctly especially about the first half i.e. Alves having handled Ribery much better than Alba having handled Robben.

As for the attacking play isn't that one of the things that makes Alves so unique for us in that he can do things not expected of a full back?