Arsenal - Barcelona. Player ratings thread.

[Captain]

Walcott had a "lack of effective contribution"?

**** me.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

I see this thread took a turn for the hilarious since last night. Walcott had a great moment last night, where he scored with a school boy finish and rode his luck to our advantage, and a couple of good moment where by Maxwell just couldn't get used to his pace. It was hardly anything to right home about.

I don't know what game you were watching, but Theo Walcott turned last night's match on its head. It's no coincidence that we suddenly looked 10 times better when he came on. He deserves every bit of praise he gets.

 

[IBL]

Was pleasantly surprised myself by Denilson's performance, was fully expecting him to be chasing shadows but he was quick, determined and composed - more of this please

 

[Captain]

Denilson only had one poor game in his last 4-5 outings and last night was a great performance. He was terrible for a while when he came back from his back injury but he played his way out of it.

 

[ibby]

Wow...

Just read that Denilson completed the most successful passes in our team yesterday despite only being on the pitch for 46 minutes.

 

[lagos]

This game was tailor made for Denilson. Throughout the all I kept thinking to myself was just how accurate the barca passes were and how bad ours were. Don't know if it was the nerves of our players getting the better of them but the accuracy of the barca passes and the lack thereof in ours made all the talk of us being great passers of the ball a distinct overhype yesterday!

 

[asajoseph]

I gave Denilson a 6, not a 4. That's a reasonable rating for a reasonable performance. If you want to see what a 'brilliant' midfield performance looks like, you'd do better to focus on what some of the Barca players were doing for the first hour or so of the game. Denilson did a reasonable job adding stability to a midfield that was letting attackers through too easily, and not showing for the ball when their colleagues were under pressure.

It never takes much to please a fanboy of any player, but to call that 'brilliant' is stretching it quite a bit. He was fine when he came on, improved us, and was better than some of his counterparts. Was he brilliant? Only by his low, low standards.

 

[otfgoon]

I gave Denilson a 6, not a 4. That's a reasonable rating for a reasonable performance. If you want to see what a 'brilliant' midfield performance looks like, you'd do better to focus on what some of the Barca players were doing for the first hour or so of the game. Denilson did a reasonable job adding stability to a midfield that was letting attackers through too easily, and not showing for the ball when their colleagues were under pressure.

It never takes much to please a fanboy of any player, but to call that 'brilliant' is stretching it quite a bit. He was fine when he came on, improved us, and was better than some of his counterparts. Was he brilliant? Only by his low, low standards.

Very harsh. I'm far from being a Denilson fan boy (see Bigmingham ratings thread) but he was excellent when he came on and did pretty much all you would want from your defensive midfielder. Especially when you consider he was playing alongside Diaby who wasn't helping at all, and Cesc who was essentially playing as a second striker/was injured and then consider how well he dealt with the Barca midfield that ran rings around our first choice midfield lineup.

 

[Timleaf]

It shows why these player ratings threads are a load of nonsense. It's a team game. Put Busquets in the anchor role in our midfield and he would have been in the same boat as our players-chasing shadows and hardly touching the ball. Denilson's performance was outstanding because he managed to do things nobody else on out team was capable of for most of the night-win the ball back and then keep it.

 

[asajoseph]

So what are we giving the Barca midfielders? 12s & 13s?

They were closing down like speed-fueled terriers last night, AND most of them were a lot more capable in posession than Denilson too. He was decent. Nothing more.

 

[Timleaf]

Why not just look at how both sides played as teams? I mean, Barcelona could only press the way they did because they were so organised and they closed us down in threes and fours, hunting in packs. Fabregas covered more ground than anyone else on the pitch, but he spent most of the game chasing shadows because, as a team, we were sat far too deep which made it impossible to press the ball effectively.

 

[asajoseph]

Sure, but this is a player ratings thread.

 

[CKD39]

he is a pathetic footballer. a real coward on the pitch, both on and off the ball.

(on Denilson)

How things change in the space of a few days.

 

[Timleaf]

Yeah, and I'm just highlighting the fundamental nonsense in rating individual players like this.

 

[lagos]

why participate in a nonsense thread?

 

[otfgoon]

So what are we giving the Barca midfielders? 12s & 13s?

They were closing down like speed-fueled terriers last night, AND most of them were a lot more capable in posession than Denilson too. He was decent. Nothing more.

Yes, but there were 3 of them plus others. I guarentee you if it was just Xavi closing down and the others doing nothing they would not have looked even half as good.

So what if they're better than him with the ball? Denilson is the reason for why a large number of our attacks started. He wasn't there to play Cesc like balls over the top, he was there to sweep up and get our moves ticking along and he did that very well.

And **** the Barca players anyway, who gives a **** how good Xavi was? You look at the contribution he made to OUR game and it was very significant.

 

[Timleaf]

Because I want to. What's the big deal? And I'm right anyway, and you know it.

 

[sabret00the]

Walcott had a "lack of effective contribution"?

f**k me.

four good runs in half an hour. I'm not disputing that he helped us in a huge way. I'm merely identifying the fact that he wasn't quite the best man on the pitch. Even after the goal and having the better of Maxwell he was still forced to whip balls from out wide rather than drive into the box. I'm not sure I fathom how you can call that effective contribution, given that the majority of those whipped balls resulting in them regaining possession and getting the ball out of their half.

 

[Armor for Sleep]

I'm not sure how you can't rate a goal and a cross leading to a goal as an effective contribution?

 

[sabret00the]

You're misreading me. I rate the goal, hence why I originally said "after the goal" (well it said "after the game", but I meant after the goal and corrected it). However, what Irate and maybe I'm just being harsh on Walcott due to lashing out at the tactics of our team, but I feel that when you think of someone effective, it's someone that gets to influence the game by their own design, with Walcott, he was literally, catching up to the ball and sticking a foot on it thus conceding possession. If there doesn't come the day that Walcott can get the ball, change the pace of the game, pick his cross in his own time or alternatively drive into the box. I'll feel he hasn't really done **** all with his career. What he does can work, but there's such a high level of hope in there that I can't feel comfortable with heralding it.