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2014-15 Performances


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5.6 Season Average Rating
Appearances
35
Clean sheets
12
Goals
0
Assists
5
Yellow cards
4

mu4c_20le

Full Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2013
Messages
44,051
I know he's out now but surely Rafael's defending cannot be much worse? he can be shaky at times but at least he is a proper RB
 

ZDwyr

Full Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2014
Messages
7,318
A shame Rafa is injured because he should have been getting a game now. Poor from Valencia today I thought. He just doesn't have the brain when the ball is not within 5m of him.
 

thejtrain

Full Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2013
Messages
1,894
Location
Cary, NC
He literally can't cross a ball to save his life, can he? I thought the stick he was getting on here lately was a bit unfair, but today he was dreadful bar maybe a few good runs in the 1st half.
 

Robbie Boy

Full Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
28,378
Location
Dublin
All players make mistakes. Ridiculous thinking otherwise. I remember Evra being blamed for a goal when there was a cross from Evra's side, Vidic cleared the ball and there was a goal from the rebound. Sometimes the Caf just needs scapegoats.

He was poor today, very poor in fact, but he's had a good season.
Nothing to do with scapegoats. Today, for me, changes nothing; we need an actual RB this summer or we will suffer. Valencia isn't the man for the job. He's done ok this season, but as I said, he clearly isn't a RB.
 

Rossa

Full Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2011
Messages
10,480
Location
Looking over my shoulder.
His form has been OK recently on the whole. But anyone who thinks the mistakes today are out of the blue is extremely naive. It's no coincidence there have been goals in recent weeks where we've seen a gaping gap down our right hand side (Monreal, Aguero, Hazard), and you can make arguments why other players also made mistakes too in these goals, but Valencia's positional mistakes and ball watching have been seen there, as well as another brainfart in the Welbeck goal.

The rest of his game is good, but he's just not a natural RB. He's very good 1 vs 1 when the play is in front of him, but as soon as the ball gets played behind him he struggles.
True enough - he's not a RB by trade, but he's done well. He plays RB but people criticize him for not being a winger in attack. He offers more in attack than most other RBs in the league, if not at the level we want him to. He held Hazard in his pocket for most of the match, and it was his speed that kept Aguero from being clean on goal. He's made mistakes that has cost us goals, but we have strikers that miss 100% chances that also do the same. Every player in the team has made mistakes that cost goals.
 

m1y2

New Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2014
Messages
5,226
Location
Prague
his defending was awful that's right but I'm still more pissed by his brainless contribution to attacking. This is ridiculous how he managed to stay in the team for his surprisingly solid defensive displays. Rafael is three times better defender, and better going forward too, it's really unfair he had to play so many games in reserves and unfortunately got kicked in the ribs. I wasn't convinced we needed a RB until today. Valencia looked solid and I was waiting for him to pick such game to van Gaal give a a chance to Rafael regain his position back, Valencia could be a good back up RB but right now. It's not going according to plan..

now we'll go full retard for clyne
 

Enigma_87

You know who
Joined
Aug 7, 2008
Messages
27,654
Safe to say at fault for every single one of the 3 goals today.

If there was a 1 as a rating he'd get one.
 

Isotope

Ten Years a Cafite
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
23,655
Offside, and why should he sprint like a maniac when McNair was much, much, much closer to the ball anyways?
Not offside. McNair was tracking an offside Lukaku, and Miralas was all Valencia's.
 

holyland red

"Holier-than-thou fundamentalist"
Joined
Oct 19, 2001
Messages
19,098
Location
Haifa, Israel
He is not a RB. A RB, any RB, would not have let Mirralas have that free run for the third.

Rafael's injury is far from being a disaster as he has no future at the club. In fact, if a couple of good performances from him now would have stopped us from signing a first choice RB in the summer then it would have been more damage done than playing a poor Valencia for th e remainder of the season.
 

caisenma

I ♥ Adnan
Joined
Dec 9, 2013
Messages
3,151
Location
planet telex
Directly responsible for all three goals. Provided literally nothing going forward, not that he has for two or three years now.

The only player more useless than Falcao on the pitch today.
 

NK86

Full Member
Joined
Sep 16, 2012
Messages
10,411
Yep. Its rash play taking himself out of the game again. And if you watch the replay, players like Blind are running back as fast as possible while once again Valencia casually walks back.

He has absolutely no regard for defensive responsibility. He plays like its someone else's job to defend

Rafael was absolutely roasted every time he was caught out with positioning or was over-aggressive and rash. Valencia is more guilty of those mistakes
The bit in bold irks me the most. Anyone can have a bad game but he does it so often. It's like he feels he cannot catch up with play then why bother running back.
 

mu4c_20le

Full Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2013
Messages
44,051
He is not a RB. A RB, any RB, would not have let Mirralas have that free run for the third.

Rafael's injury is far from being a disaster as he has no future at the club. In fact, if a couple of good performances from him now would have stopped us from signing a first choice RB in the summer then it would have been more damage done than playing a poor Valencia for th e remainder of the season.
if we can give Young and Fellaini time, two of the biggest scapegoats since early days Fletcher and Richardson, we can surely give another season to Rafael to regain his best form.
 

NK86

Full Member
Joined
Sep 16, 2012
Messages
10,411
Offside, and why should he sprint like a maniac when McNair was much, much, much closer to the ball anyways?
You are right. Why should he sprint? Should have just lay down on the pitch for a small nap I say.
 

Ekeke

Full Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2006
Messages
53,321
Location
Hope, We Lose
The bit in bold irks me the most. Anyone can have a bad game but he does it so often. It's like he feels he cannot catch up with play then why bother running back.
Its particularly annoying when we hear all the time about him being a hard worker. He's a hard worker when we have the ball, he's very lazy when we dont.
 

ottosec

Full Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2012
Messages
6,550
Managed to feck up for all 3 goals. That's impressive even for him. :lol:

A new RB should be our top priority for the summer.
 

Eugenius

Full Member
Joined
May 10, 2009
Messages
3,933
Location
Behind You
True enough - he's not a RB by trade, but he's done well. He plays RB but people criticize him for not being a winger in attack. He offers more in attack than most other RBs in the league, if not at the level we want him to. He held Hazard in his pocket for most of the match, and it was his speed that kept Aguero from being clean on goal. He's made mistakes that has cost us goals, but we have strikers that miss 100% chances that also do the same. Every player in the team has made mistakes that cost goals.
He's done well enough against the kick and run merchants and lesser teams, but has been found out a bit in recent weeks.

I would also disagree that he offers a lot in attack, for someone who was the one of the best wingers in the league once, he's been pretty average going forward. Shaw offered much more penetration vs Chelsea, Blind was better going forward when playing LB and Young outshone him from the LWB position in the 3-5-2. He has the tools to be doing a lot better than those three, but he's lost any balls/confidence he had 3 years ago.

On a final note, I would also say there is a handful of posters who insist there is an agenda against him (some unwarranted criticism, but no more than say Rooney gets regularly) and engage in blame game gymnastics whenever he does something wrong. I've seen posts calling him the best RB in the league for example. It's almost impossible to have an objective discussion about his merits as a RB with some of these posters.
 

holyland red

"Holier-than-thou fundamentalist"
Joined
Oct 19, 2001
Messages
19,098
Location
Haifa, Israel
if we can give Young and Fellaini time, two of the biggest scapegoats since early days Fletcher and Richardson, we can surely give another season to Rafael to regain his best form.
He's been here for ages. His fitness record has always been awful. We should have had a first choice RB long ago. A fit Rafael is not more realistic than a fit Anderson.
 

Red Shorts

Forrest Gimp
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Messages
12,424
Location
Location, Location
Thought he was ok attacking, saw some good crosses. Problem is that Everton were solid in defense today, where we couldn't get a single ball to our man unless they were in absolute acres of space.

In terms of being at fault for the goals, the level of blame on him starts low then ends high. Shame as I thought his previous performances prior to this showed some promise.
 

holyland red

"Holier-than-thou fundamentalist"
Joined
Oct 19, 2001
Messages
19,098
Location
Haifa, Israel
He's been played out of position for so long. We should keep him as back up for both a first choice RB and a RW.
 

berbatrick

Renaissance Man
Scout
Joined
Oct 22, 2010
Messages
21,735
A picture of Rafael losing a header to Carroll. That's me told.
Valencia would never have that leap. He lost to Stones today, nowhere near the same height. Besides, it's usually Rafael on post duty not marking targets, so maybe someone with some concentration and some fight would have marked Stones?

He has the pace and the power and the height but not the workrate, commitment, positioning, and on-the-ball skill.
When your positioning is much worse than Rafael, that's a warning sign.
 

Kakeru

New Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2013
Messages
5,229
Location
In the Box
He's been played out of position for so long. We should keep him as back up for both a first choice RB and a RW.
Even then, i wouldn't trust him for such duty, especially not as a backup RB.

To the same title as the other players who left us on the transfer deadline, I think it's time we cut our losses with him in the upcoming summer too.
 

Orton

Ati-virus, keeps missing the n button
Joined
Feb 24, 2006
Messages
18,981
Location
bonnie wee Scotland
He shouldn't get looked at as a winger again for us, if we plan on moving forward. A solid full back with nothing special about his ability. Something that should be rectified in the summer if Rafael is done here.