Barcelona v Mallorca

Alba is never going to be the defender Abidal is. I don't say that as a knock on Alba, or even as a bad thing, it's simply how Alba is, and how Abidal is. I mean how many times in a game did you see Abidal bursting up the sidelines making an overlapping run? And yet that is Alba's greatest attacking asset. That's not to say Alba CAN'T be more conservative and act a lot like a CB in a 3 man defense like Abidal, but it's not his suit, it's not his style and it's forcing a player into a position they're not the best in. He'll never act as "lateral" as Abidal did, and that's just the way he is.

And we've seen this before. Song, Busquets at defense both haven't really worked out, Cesc as a CM is not really his position either. Masch is the star example, and he continues to be an error-prone CB despite him playing there for quite a while now.

Do I think Alba can still be a good LB for us? I do, but it must signal a change in style and to some extent we have seen this. He also has a lot of things to work on, but that's besides the matter.

Since when are the fullbacks the problem? The fullbacks are fine, how could you dump all the blame on Alves and Alba and just say its because of the way Barcelona play? They track back enough to cover their position, neither of those players are inept at positioning themselves. Alves and Alba have been fantastic, just great in attack and defense, although Alves had a slow start to the season.

Lack of good recognized CBs is clearly the issue here, not Barcelonas style of play or Alves and Alba.

He's not really saying Alba's quality is the problem, just that he plays far too forward. Which I agree is not down to him and is a tactical decision. If Tito showed him a couple of Abidal videos and told him to play like that, Alba would play much more conservatively.

our defence is just in shits right now...
I never really liked the idea of two very attacking full backs, with abidal it evened out Alves attacking but now we depend on our CB's way too much and they get exposed from missing spaces and get stretched.
not only that but our CB's are not exactly world class, Pique has the potential but he needs a better partner.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:He's not really saying Alba's quality is the problem, just that he plays far too forward. Which I agree is not down to him and is a tactical decision. If Tito showed him a couple of Abidal videos and told him to play like that, Alba would play much more conservatively.

when does he get caught out though? I dont see how anyone can rate albas performances this season as anything other than great.

the myth that you cant attack and defend as a fullback has to stahp

Its not a myth, the question is how they attack. Abidal did attack, he didnt stand next to Pique and Puyol as a 3 man backline. However, he backed up the play in his zone, rather than go ahead of the winger. Thats a key difference.

If you go past the winger, when the ball is lost, your starting position is 40m further away than where Abidal was.

At leftback, Abidal did what Busquets does in the middle. You can always pass it back to him to restart the possession. With Alba, he is gone, he has made a run in which he is looking to penetrate, the pass you make to him will be in behind or it fails. If such a stat appeared, there is no question the % of passes which work to Alba is much much lower than the % of passes which go to Abidal.

And yes, this is important. When teams counter attack, Abidal was already in a position to slow down the counter. Usually not him directly, but because he is positioned where he is, he can get back to an area he can defend a counter from quicker and therefore the centerbacks have less space to cover. Thats all defending is, how much space you can cover.

I think its quite silly to claim that Alba has not been caught out, tons of times he has..just because it wasnt directly down his side, doesnt mean he didnt get caught out..him not being there gives the defenders more space to cover by themselves.

Don't really see how you fail to see that partly the issue is our style and our FBs...

Its simply a numbers game and its been easy to see on many times this year that when balls were played in behind we only had 2 (CBs) + Busquets behind the ball.

I think Sanchez's point is spot on, but also concede that our current CB situation is bad. We could definitely have better players there.

BarcaLearning wrote:
Yep it was Alves who put it on Pinto's arm actually.

Thanks for the reply. That makes it more interesting but fair as well.

The Franchise wrote:Last season you could of said that, not this one.

This season Adriano has turned that around and his best peformances came in that spell Dani Alves was injured if you recall.

To the extent that a good number of people were saying Alves didn't deserve his place back, you and me not included of course.

The Franchise wrote:Its not a myth, the question is how they attack. Abidal did attack, he didnt stand next to Pique and Puyol as a 3 man backline. However, he backed up the play in his zone, rather than go ahead of the winger. Thats a key difference.

If you go past the winger, when the ball is lost, your starting position is 40m further away than where Abidal was.

At leftback, Abidal did what Busquets does in the middle. You can always pass it back to him to restart the possession. With Alba, he is gone, he has made a run in which he is looking to penetrate, the pass you make to him will be in behind or it fails. If such a stat appeared, there is no question the % of passes which work to Alba is much much lower than the % of passes which go to Abidal.

And yes, this is important. When teams counter attack, Abidal was already in a position to slow down the counter. Usually not him directly, but because he is positioned where he is, he can get back to an area he can defend a counter from quicker and therefore the centerbacks have less space to cover. Thats all defending is, how much space you can cover.

I think its quite silly to claim that Alba has not been caught out, tons of times he has..just because it wasnt directly down his side, doesnt mean he didnt get caught out..him not being there gives the defenders more space to cover by themselves.

Excellent explanation.

The Franchise wrote:I think its quite silly to claim that Alba has not been caught out, tons of times he has..just because it wasnt directly down his side, doesnt mean he didnt get caught out..him not being there gives the defenders more space to cover by themselves.

Gotta love how Alba is being admonished here (sarcasm), he's hardly put two feet wrong all season, at least compared to the other 3 starting defenders. You guys are talking as if goals are raining from the rare occasions Albas position has to be covered for him, they are not. I mean if you bring up an occasion like Niang and blame him for not running 60km/h to stop him, when it was clearly a mistake losing the ball that deep, then its just blind hate

And now all of a sudden Alves cant defend either

Haven't seen a word of criticism here for Pique in... ever. On the contrary he is getting regularly praised.

Obsurd.

Just off the top of my head, Alba was nowhere to be seen on Celta Vigo's first goal..if I could be bothered going to look at the chances we concede....heck, just the goals we concede, I can only imagine how many times he has not been there.

Hardly put a foot wrong

Pique doesnt get ciritcism on here? You cant be serious? He is given tons of stick on here.