He's on the RW?
Lionel Messi | PSG Watch
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Not only RW but sticking to the line when we bought Hakimi ffs, this is borderline criminal.
I think he played well
He's not the player he was but it's obvious his season basically counts only 12-14 games at best now. 2 in cups + 7-8 in CL (if they reach finals in all 3) and maybe 3-4 away matches in Ligue 1. Didn't Neymar only played in 45-50% of all PSG games since he joined them? It's a comedy club, let's be honest here. And in the end Messi joining PSG will have absolutely zero impact for L1.
Neymar is also typically being played in the wrong position. It is a bit alarming TBH.
Messi's lust for goals would mean he will play more goals, he is not going to sit quietly if he doesn't win the Golden Shoe.
He had zero problems with his own teammate Suarez when he won it in 2016 as far as I can recall.
Feels like Pochettino should be using him as a false 9 the same way Liverpool use firmino. Messi should be center of their attack and mbappe and neymar as inverted forward until they get a proper no.9 to replace mbappe. Even though his stats has been more impressive as a rw for psg, I feel like he should be dictating the attacking play. But what do I know. It seems like psg is doing well, so maybe my input is wrong.
Dont think they are doing that well. They are still at least two levels below Barca 2010-2011 or other similar legendary clubs from the past, and i feel that with the names they have on that squad, they should absolutely be playing a football at least close as good enough as those clubs played.
They have everything to do it, especially a Messi that is still performing at around an 80-90% of his best self, surrounded by top talents of all time as well. They shouldnt be struggling that much TBH, and Messi should 100% be playing as a playmaker rather than a winger.
It is not about him wanting to score all the goals, but Messi is always a goal first, pass second type of player, kinda like how Pele or Zico were. So he will be playing every match and try to score in every game, he is not selfish, but he is very motivated for goals.
Xavi alone had more talent in his weak foot than Verrati+Herrera+Gueye+Wijjaldum combined, and Veratti is a great player himself.
And while Villa + Pedro might not seem as glamorous as Mbappe+Neymar, they were willing to run their bollocks off to bring the best out of Messi.
They should be doing better, but to suggest that the names they have is anywhere near that Barca 09-12 side or should perform at a similar level is nonsensical.
The fact that someone could suggest that you can play football close to what the Xavi/Inesta/Busquets Barcelona did with PSG's midfield is hilarious. They were in another galaxy, i would never dare to compare us with prime Barcelona.I don't think this is true at all. If that was the case, he wouldn't have dropped deeper and deeper every season.
Yeah that makes no sense tbh.
Him dropping deeper, never changed his approach to goal scoring, he despite dropping still had one of the highest shots per games.
Messi has a motivated approach about goals and golden shoes, saying it as it is, is nothing wrong or silly.
I said that with the players PSG has, they should be playing at least "close" to the level that some clubs from the past, including but not limited to Barcelona 2010. Thats where the bar is set in terms of football standards, but there are other teams like Barcelona 2014-2015, Guardiola's Bayern, Zidane's Madrid etc that fit that description of legendary teams from the past that this current PSG is light years away from reaching or even getting close to. They are two, or even three levels below those clubs.
Imagine if Guardiola became PSG's coach tomorrow. You dont think they could reach a similar level to those clubs? I dont think its nonsensical to expect a team that has by far the best front three in the world, who is also supported by a bunch of copa america/euros winners behind them, to play a football close to the level of those aforementioned teams.
Bit of a damp squib ending your sparkling career in a shitty league playing for an oil daddy and only having about 12 or so important games in a year,
You’d naturally lose that bit Of intensity about you also as your never really out of first gear,
I get it though, let’s be honest Messi had no other alternative unless he took a massive massive pay cut, he would have been nailed on to go to City if it weren’t for Jack bloody Grealish of all people to put a final nail in that coffin
You’d naturally lose that bit Of intensity about you also as your never really out of first gear,
I get it though, let’s be honest Messi had no other alternative unless he took a massive massive pay cut, he would have been nailed on to go to City if it weren’t for Jack bloody Grealish of all people to put a final nail in that coffin
Maybe we're talking about two different things. He has ambitions towards golden boots etc. and takes many shots but what we mean is that he's rarely taking them when there is a (slightly) better positioned player which is a habit of many successful goal scorers (Salah, Cristiano, Mbappe etc.). It's not his highest priority which also shows in his positioning and the way he contributes. I mean, I don't know if there is a pre assist statistic available but I'm sure he would be leading it over more or less any period >1y. It also is reflected in his xGBuildUp (xG involvement without own shots) which is among the best (higher than de Bruyne, Bruno, Sancho and Thomas Müller last season and on par with Neymar). He's at 0.6, Salah for instance was at 0.3.
If Guardiola took them over, he would probably cut away a few big names. Don't forget what he did with Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto'o. He needs hard working players, too, and wouldn't accept players not doimg what they're asked to. You can't create special roles with less defensive duties for three stars, you have to be realistic. Many players at Barca who were stars were "degraded" to complementary players, like David Silva, Henry, Fabregas Ibrahimovic or Sanchez.
It is definitely a valid question if Messi's choice of club was the well thought through if his priority is winning the CL one or two last times.
But do you think Guardiola could have PSG playing CL champions quality football? Like current Liverpool play right now, City, Mid 2010's Bayern etc.
I think for sure he would.
I don't know mate. If you look at the best teams in the world right now (IMO City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Bayern), you can see that even the star players (Salah, Lewandowski, de Bruyne, Gnabry, Müller, Bernardo Silva etc.) are working very hard against the ball. That's highly important for a team's stability. For all their brillance I believe it is just reasonable to accept that Messi's and Cristiano's insane individual stats were partly caused by them being complemented by many players that covered lower work rates for them. Things that aren't as obvious to the untrained eye as great dribbles or passes.
Of course they justified that with their performances but it will be a hard task for any coach to complent not one but three players of that kind - especially when Mbappe for instance has a similar defensive work rate as 36 year old Cristiano Ronaldo. I believe both are making 6 pressures per 90 right now, Messi and Neymar around 8-13 while Salah etc. are in the range of 15-20. That is a huge difference as transition and ball recoveries high up the pitch are essential to every attacking concept right now.
MSN e. g. was different. You had Suarez who pressed exceptionally well, Neymar in a clearly defined role on the left also putting in a shift and Messi, who walks during large parts of the game but also has phases of rather intense pressing. Now you have Neymar who especially in less important games is a bit lazy, Mbappe who is super lazy and a Messi who's not in his 20s anymore.
Part of the truth is, Messi and Ronaldo looked as good as they did because others did the leg work for them to be fresh in decisive moments. That's just the way it is. So two of Messi, Mbappe and Neymar need to be okay with playing second fiddle or all three of them have to step back a little to do more for the collective that won't show up in highlight reels. It is a question of balance. That in itself is a highly complicated affair since you're working with players who want to be seen as the best. But moreover, they won't look as good as we're used to if they put in more defensive effort that is less likely to be recognized than goals, assists and skills.
So I believe if Guardiola was to coach City, one of the three would probably leave and be replaced with someone working and pressing hard enough. I mean, in the end people always associate Guardiola with tiki taka but tiki taka is as much about the 6 second rule as it is about possession, right?
This is what I said back in August when the signing came through.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/lionel-messi-signs-for-psg.464567/page-21#post-27586953
The reasoning was what @Zehner already laid out above, but in addition to that, if you look at their actual quality on the ball, their midfield is stratospheres behind any of the great team of the past two decades. Milan? Utd 08? Chelsea 05 (and they hardly played pretty football), Barca I already mentioned, even for their 14/15 team they started Biscuits Iniesta Rakitic in midfield, Real (Casemiro-Kroos-Modric), Bayern 13 (Javier Martinez, Schweinsteinger, Kroos, Muller), so on and so forth, you get the idea.
And all those teams had great attacking players who worked like dogs for the team too, so you need both a blend of quality and work rate across your midfield and attack to play great football. Or in extreme case like Dortmund (even though they were no slouches themselves), you compensate for the relative lack of quality by even more work rate from everybody. PSG have attacking players that won’t work/run/press and midfield players who are mediocre on the ball bar one, so why exactly should they be playing champagne football?
If Pep can do anything for that team, it will be by instilling a system better suited to Messi and requiring the other forwards to do more off the ball, but there’s a limit to what he can do. Took him a season and a gazillion in transfer to get Man City to play to the standard he wanted.
Very true, the only team we could roughly be compared with is 14/15 Barcelona and still, Busquets, Iniesta and Rakitic were MILES better than Verratti (who is injured half the time) Gueye and Herrera. On top of that, they had prime Alba and Dani Alves (we have Hakimi but Nuno Mendes is still very far from Alba at that time).
People sometimes have a heart time understanding that midfielders are the heart of the team (even if you need good team performances).
Exactly. I mean, it is not impossible for them to win the CL since knockout tournaments have their own dynamics but I think this would be more of a fluke than by being the strongest team altogether. They already beat City and it had much to do with their unreal individual quality especially up front but in general, I believe they're a bit similar to United in that they rely primarily on strokes of genius. That's a strong contrast to Barcelona, Bayern, Real Madrid, Liverpool or City which were/are very cohesive units.
And to be honest, people criticizing Messi and Ronaldo for not working hard enough simply have a point. Of course they justified their special treatment with their performances but on the other hand lesser players like Salah, Mane, Robben, Griezmann, Benzema, Lewandowski, etc. would have had much better stats, too, if they were freed from defensive responsibilities to the same extent - even if they still wouldn't have performed to the same level.
It will be interesting to see if Mbappe and Neymar will understand and accept this. I believe in the last few seasons they already put in more effort in important CL ties so if they build on this attitude, it might be possible. But right now it rather looks like there's far too much narcism in the squad.
To be fair, on paper a midfield consisting of Verratti and Wijnaldum is pretty dope. Especially if you have in mind that they could be joined by Marquinhos as a DM if Kimpembe and Ramos are the CB pairing. The Hakimi-Messi combo on the right has also much potential as Messi loves to vacate the wing anyway while Hakimi is similar to Dani Alves in his positional orientation. Add to that a more defensive LB (Abidal) and the setup looks pretty similar. IMO it all stands and falls with the work rate of Neymar and Mbappe. I also think that playing Herrera and Gueye is a testament to that.
It wouldn't change the fact that Verratti (who's a very fragile player and misses a lot of games because of it, he's out for 1 month atm) would be the only creative player in the midfield. Marquinhos would be great defensively but when you play against high pressing teams that requires quality on the ball to get out of, you need players that will actually do something good when the receive a pass. Wijnaldum is limited, so are the others. My opinion would change a lot if we had at least ONE other good midfielder but we don't. We didn't need Messi, Ramos or Donnarumma, we needed a world class midfielder, so did United and we see what happened when you're under pressure with poor midfielders against a good team this very week end. Ours isn't ManUnited bad, but it still isn't up to the top teams.
You are trying to have perfection before you expect performance. There is no team that is perfect. That Liverpool side that conquered Europe played with Wijnaldum, Henderson and Fabinho for much of the campaign. City do not have an out and out striker but these teams function ever so well. With the level of talent in PSG you guys should be operating on a very high level.
This meme
These teams work well, because their players all work well. With a front 3 that thinks otherwise, any midfield in the world would struggle.
Defensively they would, the production on offense is a very different story. At the moment, PSG struggles defensively AND on offense. Gueye or Herrera loosing the ball under pressure is not because of the front 3 not working well, actually Neymar very often has to come low on the pitch to offer an alternative when he should not have to. It's FAR too easy to press high against PSG. Block Verratti, give little space to Hakimi and you're good, the team is stuck because there's no other quality option.
I really don't think this analysis is based on real world football. Henderson and Fabinho are really good players, far superior to Herrera/Gueye. They also played with TAA walking on water and a really good Robertson. City doesn't have a striker, yes, but they have enough quality to bring the ball close to the opponent's box so they find a solution eventually. I'm not trying to have perfection, I could accept one average full back like Bayern, or trading Messi against a player like Koman or Bernardo, but no-one can ever make me believe that you can be a consistant high level team with only half a Verratti in the midfield and a whole bunch of average players struggling on the ball. It just doesn't exist.
I really don't think people here realise how important it is to have quality midfielders. It's a ManUnited forum, they should.
I think it definitely has to do with the work rate of the front three. Liverpool for instance isn't easy to press. Stuff like counter pressing, fighting for the second ball etc. are decisive in such cases. It makes it easier to prolong possession phases, it makes it possible to clear a pass and still stay in possession, it leads to the opponent having to commit more players defensively, etc. It in general affects how you can position your players on the field and how the opponent can. For instance, if the front three press aggressively, the opponent usually has to commit more players to the build up, meaning that they have to cover larger distances to pressure the opponent midfield. And they have it more difficult to push high up the field and establish dominant possession phases that allow you to counter press etc.
You can't only beat pressing by good passing, agility, turns and dribbles etc. but also by stretching the play, forcing the opponent to defend on the back foot, etc.
Yeah, this is my point. First it was said no one could replicate the football of Xavi and Iniesta, and now the mighty midfield of Henderson and Fabinho is out of reach too?
You cant have the best in the world in every position, but PSG sure as hell comes close to it. Xavi and Iniesta werent what they were under Rijkaard, they became the greatest midfield of all time under Guardiola's coaching. Before that they were heavily criticized and Xavi was with one foot outside Barcelona one summer.
You have world class in every single position. Yes your midfield may be the weakest line, but it still has former starter midfielders for teams that won CL, EUROS and COPA AMERICA. When things get tight you can have the GOAT attacking midfielder come down to help with the build up as well.
Mbappe and Neymar being lazy isnt really an excuse either, thats a symptom, a symptom of bad coaching IMO. Especially with Mbappe who is the youngest one and should be able to apply high pressure with no problem.
I stand by my original comment that this PSG squad has the potential to be playing to a level just as good as any of the great clubs from the past few decades, except maybe Barcelona, which are on a league of their own.
Again, someone like Guardiola would come and the last thing on his mind would be "man, this team could really use Xavi and Iniesta". Hed be like a kid in a candy store, and as Zehner said, if some of the big names would need to come out for better balance, well so be it, but i cant grasp the thought of the coach not being able to tell Mbappe "run more".
I’d say that is true, the issue is that we have a very radical example of how a player motivated by scoring goals can look like as the first comparison to Messi on anything.
Messi is certainly motivated by goals and goes for a goal first — but in a much healthier way, he’s certainly not a Laudrup/Xavi-esque selfless creator that looks for a possibility of a pass before taking any shot at goal.
Playing deeper means that he has more time with the ball despite his declining mobility, which he loves and he’s more than willing to share if a partner is in a better situation. But if he can shoot with a decent chance of success, he’ll shoot — and rightly so. @Lord SInister compared him to Pelé and Zico who both have a couple of hundreds of assists each and were among the greatest creators in football’s history by the way, not with, I don’t know, Batistuta or Shearer.
He does play deeper but when the team is attacking he will participate in the build up, pass to someone and then sprint to the area. That way is easier for him to be unmarked but he also needs good teammates to be able to link up and receive a pass when he's in a good position.
So, where are the folks that predicted that he would score at least 25-30 goals in the Ligue alone?
I maintain my initial point that the PSG side is seriously underperforming when you look at the level of talent in it. If Poch gets hooked and another manager comes around and he gets Neymar and Mbappe at least to work a lot harder, he would get the benefits of having better work rate compared to the Poch era and results will likely be better. This PSG side that I have had the opportunity to watch even when Veratti plays lacks a team cohesion that would unlock the abilities and make the sum of the parts greater than the individual parts. Even if we assume that Hendo and Fabinho is a superior midfield to Herrera and Wijnadlum, let’s remember that the latter was a mainstay for Liverpool all through this time there. TAA become who he is through coaching and there is nothing stopping Hakimi to go on and do greater things. The example I gave about City just highlights my point that there is hardly a perfect team. If you can carry the ball to opposition goal but can hardly finish, you are on the same boat as the guy you can turn a half chance to gold even when the supply is limited. You have three of the worlds best
The issue with the team for me is too many egos in front and the manger’s profile not sufficient to get them to do exactly as he wants but this is not a problem of quality at all. The quality in that team is quite rich but unfortunately football is a team sport.
Only bloke I can see that would actually get Neymar and Mbappe to work harder is Conte. However, they would probably just down tools and throw him under the bus. PSG biggest problem isn't the manager but the culture which is that the star players run the dressing room.
I hate to say it but Messi looks absolutely washed at PSG.
I'm watching him against Lille and he hasn't done anything right at all.
He just looks slow and weak these days, sad to see.
I'm watching him against Lille and he hasn't done anything right at all.
He just looks slow and weak these days, sad to see.
@Adam-Utd
Yeah, I am one of his biggest fans but it's actually painful to watch how poor he is.
Strolls around the pitch, doesn't do any work off the ball, loses the ball and lets the guy walk past him like he doesn't even care few times already, if I was his teammate I'd be seriously pissed with that.
It will be interesting to hear the stories one day why wasn't he doing any running without the ball, I could understand it when he was a forward who was scoring for fun and doing lot of dribbling so he had to save energy for that, but these days there's really no point, it's like they are playing with 10 men, I am surprised he doesn't look embarassed in front of his teammates who are doing the running around him.
Yeah, I am one of his biggest fans but it's actually painful to watch how poor he is.
Strolls around the pitch, doesn't do any work off the ball, loses the ball and lets the guy walk past him like he doesn't even care few times already, if I was his teammate I'd be seriously pissed with that.
It will be interesting to hear the stories one day why wasn't he doing any running without the ball, I could understand it when he was a forward who was scoring for fun and doing lot of dribbling so he had to save energy for that, but these days there's really no point, it's like they are playing with 10 men, I am surprised he doesn't look embarassed in front of his teammates who are doing the running around him.
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Playing like he's being forced. Looks like a genius when he strolls around the pitch and becomes a demon on the ball. But when he plays like this it's just annoying and you can't take him off or heads will roll