Arda Turan

Personally like Rakitic more but they should rotate. Rakitic gets the important games of course.

Rakitic over Arda for atleast this season for me. Rakitic for his Janitor role ofcourse as well as he tends to bring it on when it matters most or in crunch situations. Not seen enough of Arda to write him off tbh for all we know he may prove ti be the missing link of puzzle we were looking for after Xavi left.

too early to say but if tomorrow was a final i'd rather rakitic.

ivan has many underrated qualities such as knowing when to run wide to make space for messi or putting himself in areas where he can receive a good pass

turan adds more dribbling, better possession, but still looks very out of sync from the team (expected)

he in the espanyol game often didn't move away from his marker to make himself available when dani alves was getting pressured, which is a sin in barcelona, you cannot let the ball carrier have less passing options

Rakitic is so important for you, what with the right wing sometimes entirely vacated if Alves and Messi both go infield or get caught high up the pitch. Not sure if Arda can do the same job in a big game tbh.

Why not? Arda played as a wide midfielder for Simeone, he's actually more suited to that role than Rakitic who played as a #10 and had others doing the defensive work for him before he came to Barca.

Wide midfielder for Simeone where everything is compact and the whole team defends collectively is different from this, where you have to do two (sometimes three) jobs at once.

Yes Rakitic was also not suited to this job on paper but that's partly my point. I'm not sure you can get that lucky (if you want to call it that) twice.

free_cat wrote:Yeah, I can see them rotating. But starting in important games over Rakitic?

Important games I would start Rakatic over him, no doubt. Rakatic is now a year and a half in playing with us, and proven to be a big game player for us and understands the system and the players.
Arda has like what, 70 something minutes of playing time with us, and is only gonna play with us like for the next 4 months. Not only that I like what Rakatic brings as far as pace and explosiveness and long shot ability. Arda right now is just gonna be working on match fitness and getting familiar playing with us. In allot of ways I see Rakatic as being a superior midfielder to Arda; for what Arda cost us we could of gone out and got a different form of midfielder that could of offered something new to the team. Arda is like a beta Iniesta that's not that much younger. So it's not like we invested in a long term replacement. Now we can't even afford players for the B team without having to beg for a loan to buy option.

Arda Turan has given his first assist in the Liga since January 2015

Simeones negative approach was holding him back. I chukled when people were against the signing because of his statistical achievements.

windkick wrote:Important games I would start Rakatic over him, no doubt.

I would go with Arda if we were to play lets say Atletico in 2 days.

Rakitic is in awful shape. Dont know how he got in there but he needs to get out quickly.

So Arda is now Made man or he has to score a goal?

turan did have a good game today but so did rakitic
i'd still go with ivan if a final was tomorrow.

Have to say I have been impressed with the way he has played CM for us. Positionally disciplined, neat in possession, always available for a pass, plays the right pass and the simple pass rather than going for the Hollywood ball.
Didnt think he could play CM for us. Been impressed so far.
If not for the age and the price, he would be a very good signing.
At 29, 40 mil is a bit too much for him. Maybe 20 mil would have been a fair price.

Completely the opposite. He has unimpressed as CM IMO, though been better when played as winger. Dude is waaay too slow on the ball, ala Riquelme, and has a tendency to be invisble throughout the game. Substitution at half time was more than deserved and let's see if now he rides the bench hard or can bounce back...
Rafinha is definitely at his level. Unnecessary signing.

barca always have the ball so his dirty work is not needed atm.probably we will never see Turan of A.Madrid

So far his signing is not an improvement but only filling that empty void that Rafinha left.

Not bad on the ball but hes looking awful without it. Cant get it back without conceding a foul.

LE had to sub him at half time last time because that hot head would have gotten a second yellow surely it was only a matter of time and our mastermind seen it as well.

Good enough to help rest Iniesta and Rakitic though. Doesnt do any harm or errors but doesnt bring much over the average either.

All in all, his current role in the team could have been given to Kaptoum or some other youngling instead of splashing 40M for not really that good of a player to begin with.

Marcus Aurelius wrote:So far his signing is not an improvement but only filling that empty void that Rafinha left.

Not bad on the ball but hes looking awful without it. Cant get it back without conceding a foul.

LE had to sub him at half time last time because that hot head would have gotten a second yellow surely it was only a matter of time and our mastermind seen it as well.

Good enough to help rest Iniesta and Rakitic though. Doesnt do any harm or errors but doesnt bring much over the average either.

All in all, his current role in the team could have been given to Kaptoum or some other youngling instead of splashing 40M for not really that good of a player to begin with.

New name, new sense. Congrats.

Well, I dunnow about Kaptou, but at the begining of the season we didn't know Rafinha would get a season ending injury, so at that point it was a completely unnecessary signing. With Rafinha out of the table, we had Samper, Roberto and Kaptoum. I think they are enough, but a case could be made to get another player. In that case, I think it would have been smarter to get a 6 month loan or rebuy Denis Suarez than getting 35 milion Arda.

Well considering there aren't many much better viable options there, and the considering the dense schedule we have I don't see what is so bad about this signing. I also think he needs a bit more time to figure himself out in this team. You can see some really good flashes from him, some nice linkups with Messi. I am positive he will have a decent impact in our team. Don't forget Iniesta is getting older so he will need more rotations in future, so all in all I do not mind having Arda as a rotation guy. However, I am not sold on the fact that Rafinha is better than him. At the very best they appear equal, and Arda has something new to offer to the team - the aggressiveness which most barca players lack. Considering LE is not that anal about possession and tiki-taka, I think he already has a plan on how to use him in pragmatic way when needed. That being said, Rafinha has a potential to go up and surpass Arda. If that happens, well we win, if not, we have Arda.

eelir wrote:Well considering there aren't many much better viable options there, and the considering the dense schedule we have I don't see what is so bad about this signing. I also think he needs a bit more time to figure himself out in this team. You can see some really good flashes from him, some nice linkups with Messi. I am positive he will have a decent impact in our team. Don't forget Iniesta is getting older so he will need more rotations in future, so all in all I do not mind having Arda as a rotation guy. However, I am not sold on the fact that Rafinha is better than him. At the very best they appear equal, and Arda has something new to offer to the team - the aggressiveness which most barca players lack. Considering LE is not that anal about possession and tiki-taka, I think he already has a plan on how to use him in pragmatic way when needed. That being said, Rafinha has a potential to go up and surpass Arda. If that happens, well we win, if not, we have Arda.

I don't think anyone has said Rafinha is superior. But on a similar level. The problem with your last sentence is that having 35 milion Arda automatically makes it impossible for Rafinha to flourish and surpass him. Or Roberto/Samper/Kamptoum. Because the expensive signing will take their minutes. It's what happened to Bartra.

That might be true for Rafinha but I doubt it will affect Roberto that much. The guy is a jack of all trades so he will always find playing time. But, I also said that Iniesta will need more rest so that opens up a bit more space. Plus, next year we might still have a ton of games to play, so rotations are more then necessary.

Marcus Aurelius wrote:So far his signing is not an improvement but only filling that empty void that Rafinha left.

Not bad on the ball but hes looking awful without it. Cant get it back without conceding a foul.

LE had to sub him at half time last time because that hot head would have gotten a second yellow surely it was only a matter of time and our mastermind seen it as well.

Good enough to help rest Iniesta and Rakitic though. Doesnt do any harm or errors but doesnt bring much over the average either.

All in all, his current role in the team could have been given to Kaptoum or some other youngling instead of splashing 40M for not really that good of a player to begin with.

This is what I'm talking about. As said earlier, I didn't see the point of getting Turan. Would of made much more sense to hold on to that 35M or whatever it was and end Dennis Suarez loan. Dude's looked to have improved from last season and could of been a solid back up player for us ala Rafinha/Sergi have been for us this season.

Vidal, great role player signing.
Turan, not so much. And especially not for the cost (and gtfo out of here if anyone says "Name one player better for us cheaper than 40M")

Arda Turan suspended for 16 matches for pushing the referee (ntvspor.net)

That's half a goddam season

BarcaLearning wrote:Anyone got opinion why he didnt fit at Barca?

The guy had been living in Spain for 5 years and couldn't speak a word in Spanish. That's a start :lol

Biggest then and now is where do you place him? He just isn’t a fit?