I honestly don't blame Yaya for his shitty defense. This is a player that had the talent to score 20 goals a season and he was forced into playing DM.

Yaya has way more freedom at City and just doens't care about defending. It's way funnier to attack. At Barca he could play anywhere in the mid and even as CB. He was a beast but he would have never been as free as he is at City now.

It's fine if you're a striker and, to a lesser extent, a 10/AM in a 4231. But when you're one of the midfielders in a 2-man mid, then you have to play some defense. Big reason that City flop so hard in CL is that you can't get away with it AT ALL in that competition.

If it's ok, then City should just move Yaya on top + cover with 2 other mids that play some defense.

Nasri-Silva-Jovetic/Aguero-Dzeko... one of them needs to be sacrificed for a CM.

LOL, at the guy showing random clips to prove, well I don't know what it proved about Busquets.  

I'm sure a lot of those clips (Didn't bother watching as I watch the games) weren't when he was getting beaten (being nice here, more like skinned alive) for pace in the World cup or the last couple Champions Leagues.  Since Xavi/Iniesta/Puyol have gotten older and can't cover as much ground it has shown how limited Busquets' range truly is.  

Again, Busquets is only 26, when he was a youngster he was put in a position not many people will ever have the privilege to be in the history of the sport.  Since that situation has deteriorated so has he where he should be stepping into the prime of his career taking on more responsibility which he absolutely doesn't.

Here is a clip of an article that explains some of what I was saying,

"Muscle in the middle of the Park:  Selling Yaya Toure to Manchester City was a mistake. He added that extra dimension to the midfield, and could function much better as makeshift Centre back too than the current set of makeshift defenders. Though Sergio Busquets is a better distributor, he is not the shield for the defense."

This is a perfect example, we turned into a team of midgets and deployed as many midfielders as we could fit on the pitch.  We don't need the person who is the steel and spine of the team to be a 95% passer of the ball (BTW Yaya can get very close to that number and as far as long range passing goes Yaya is flat ouot better, yes Busquets is a better short passer) we have 50 other midfielders out there to do that especially when Cesc came into the team.

I mean we sold Yaya and then turned around to buy Masch to try and emulate what Yaya did.  People forget at that time Pep was tooling around with having an almost entire Spanish/Catalan side.  There were even people on this forum calling him a racist.   Since the sale, Pep has said it was one of the worst mistakes he's made as  a coach.

Yaya was a very different player than he is today, he could run all game long which he did.  Take a look at the CL final if you want, he could have been the MVP of the game as he was all over United that game in a totally non-offensive way, which again you don't see anymore.  Not to mention when we had Yaya in our team we were 100% better at defending Corner's / set pieces as well where Busquets rarely helps.

People talking about Busquets passing efficiency and completion percentage are probably the same people who sit around and talk about our possession number when we lose.  He passes the ball 5 yards or less most of the time, I would pray to god he in the 85-90% range.  Not to mention he makes a ton of harsh tackles which a lot of the time are goal saving tackles because he does have great positioning but there at midfield because he is SLOW and knows once the player gets by him it's over, there is no catching up.  

Yaya made up for the risks he took by being a great athlete which again Busquets is not.  Not to mention also around that time Barcelona were the best pressing team I have ever seen, Yaya was a huge part of that.  And none of this is even talking about how Yaya is 100% better on the offensive side of the game and can drive the ball right through the center of a parked bus and score or distribute where as Busquets helps the parked bus game plan by being completely useless on offense something Mou exploited perfectly at Inter and everyone copied the don't even mark Busquets and jam the middle of the field plan where the three best players in the world (Xavi, Messi, Iniesta) operate.

I mean people sit on this forum and say things like, you can tell who knows about football if they think Busquets is overrated.  Please, that is just lazy.  A lot of people could have stepped into that position in those teams and done what Busquets has done.  If you can't tell how far backwards he's fallen over the last 2 years than your biased or blind.

We sold Yaya Toure at a cut rate price IMO to keep Busquets, I don't really know how someone would consider that not being overrated, Pep does and he was the one who did it.

Dnmac

Issue with Yaya in the City lineup is last year was City played with no designated DM and 6 attacking players. Yaya and Fernandinho are too similar and neither is a sits in front of the back for, resulting in City getting beat on the counter attack too often. This was obvious In the beginning of last season. Against lower table PTB teams everyone was pushed up including both FBs Now that we have Fernando he bring more balance.

nasir6371 wrote:Dnmac

Issue with Yaya in the City lineup is last year was City played with no designated DM and 6 attacking players. Yaya and Fernandinho are too similar and neither is a sits in front of the back for, resulting in City getting beat on the counter attack too often. This was obvious In the beginning of last season. Against lower table PTB teams everyone was pushed up including both FBs Now that we have Fernando he bring more balance.

Totally agree what was funny is Mancini still kept Yaya on a leash and then when his boring/dull tactics had them in a dogfight when they should have been killing the other team he would basically tell Yaya, "OK go forward and win me the game".

Yaya was a different player at Barca and they asked him to do different things. At City when him and Fernando/Fernandinho are in the midfield together it does give Yaya much more freedom not to mention they are a nightmare for other EPL teams.

When City are in a very important game or cup final's you can see shades of Yaya turning back the clock and being the exceptional ball winner he was and a guy that is a total wrecking ball that players want no part of, he's just a big guy so he's not a running machine anymore like a lot of the littler DM's in Europe but his long range passing is unreal.

Pellegrini obviously knows this and as people will see this weekend versus Arsenal they will totally overrun there midfield.

He's just such a special player, he should have never been sold to keep such a one dimensional player.

Hapless_Hans wrote:tbh, the bar for "hype you never understood" is pretty high.

Most of the names thrown around here are knee-jerk, or counter-anti-hype, that is, reaction to a perceived hype, which itself may already be a reaction to something, etc, pp, youngster and proven stars all mixed up, Origi and Cristiano Ronaldo, lol.

Doesn't work that way.

We'd have to have some basic agreement about what constitutes 'hype'.
Then it would have to be a hype so disproportionate to a players performance that you not only don't agree with it, but don't understand it.
Most players I understand perfectly well why there were hyped to a certain extent at a certain point.

So no, Lahm doesn't qualify, Neuer doesn't qualify, CRonaldo doesn't qualify, etc. These are players who have won everything while being integral parts of their teams, over many years. Their contributions are undeniable.
You don't get to say "I don't understand the hype" in those cases, as it amounts to saying "my brain doesn't function".
Because hype is a dynamic that picks up on present movement, however small, and projects it amplified into the future. Doesn't make sense to talk of "hype" with seasoned acomplished players.

But then again just because a few people are very impressed with Origi's couple of WC games, while other said it was too early to judge, that doesn't mean the kid was "hyped". He wasn't. I'd need a little more widespread, accumulating enthusiasm to acknowledge a 'hype'.


That being said, I'm going to go with Oscar.

Where's that gif with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson clapping his ass off? Great post Hans

I mean people sit on this forum and say things like, you can tell who knows about football if they think Busquets is overrated.  Please, that is just lazy. A lot of people could have stepped into that position in those teams and done what Busquets has done.  If you can't tell how far backwards he's fallen over the last 2 years than your biased or blind.

We sold Yaya Toure at a cut rate price IMO to keep Busquets, I don't really know how someone would consider that not being overrated, Pep does and he was the one who did it

1. Not sure how selling Yaya to "keep Busquets" shows how Busquets is...overrated?

2. I'm sure Pep was thinking Busquets was overrated when Busquets was winning all those titles with him

Keep going though.

If you can't tell how far backwards he's fallen over the last 2 years than your biased or blind.

Can't say he's still at Pep level (then again, who in Barca is?), but I'd say he's probably been one of Barca's most consistent players since he came into the team until now.

Abel Hernandez, Emiliano Viviano, Mathieu Flamoney.

Biscuits overhyped

Stop the nonsense, please.

if only buscuit scored 30-40 yard goals every 10 games he would be so loved and desired