Ross Barkley

[Demitri_C]

13 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

He certainly hasn't done enough for Chelsea to demand big money. 

For the right price I'd still be interested. 

Yeah i would agree with that.

For mw the problem with barkley and it seems to be a ongking trend is consistency. He is never consistent.  I do wonder how effe tive he would be without grealish in the side too

[DCJonah]

Just now, Demitri_C said:

Yeah i would agree with that.

For mw the problem with barkley and it seems to be a ongking trend is consistency. He is never consistent.  I do wonder how effe tive he would be without grealish in the side too

In defence of him, he's joined after the season started, had an injury and has had little time between games to train properly. 

I wonder if a full pre season and back to full fitness wouldn't see him back to his best next season. Which is why for the right price I'd still be looking to bring him in. 

 

[Thug]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Yeah i would agree with that.

For mw the problem with barkley and it seems to be a ongking trend is consistency. He is never consistent.  I do wonder how effe tive he would be without grealish in the side too

You think he’d be more, or less effective?

[Demitri_C]

Just now, DCJonah said:

In defence of him, he's joined after the season started, had an injury and has had little time between games to train properly. 

I wonder if a full pre season and back to full fitness wouldn't see him back to his best next season. Which is why for the right price I'd still be looking to bring him in. 

 

Cant keep giving him a pss for thw injury though. It was 8 weeks not a huge amount. He has had a lot of games to improve and has  wen really poor the last two

[Demitri_C]

1 minute ago, Thug said:

You think he’d be more, or less effective?

Even less without grealish 

[Thug]

31 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

In defence of him, he's joined after the season started, had an injury and has had little time between games to train properly. 

I wonder if a full pre season and back to full fitness wouldn't see him back to his best next season. Which is why for the right price I'd still be looking to bring him in. 

 

My biggest criticism, believe it or not, is not of him, but of Smith for starting him.

He shouldn’t be starting, based on the stats above, and also by what is plain to see with the eye.

Now, the stats actually show that we do better without him, even before the injury - but My eye told me different.  We looked good then, but now is a completely different matter.

He absolutely should not be starting, for the good of the team, and for his own confidence.

We don’t need a number 10, and if we did, there many better (more consistent?) ones out there.  I am 100% convinced that our problems at the moment is that our midfield is getting over run - and my eyes tell me (even without stats) that one of our three midfielders just isn’t cut out for the job.

We have enough firepower in Watkins, Grealish, and Traore.  We don’t need a fourth.  We get enough shots (indeed MORE) without a fourth dedicated attacker.

shoe-horning him into the team makes us less able to get the ball up to the front, less able to keep the ball out of our third, and as a result we concede more shots (almost 40% more) and concede more than twice as many goals.

The problem isn’t necessarily Ross Barkley, the problem is that putting him in the team upsets the defence/attack balance - to a demonstrably  significant amount.

He just can’t provide the necessary help to our other 2 midfielders.  The answer is either to have a more dedicated defensive midfielder to make up for RBs lack of input, or to replace RB with a more defensive player.

The answer for me has to be the latter with our current personnel, and Sanson replacing him will improve us vastly in my opinion. The alternative is Jack back to the middle with AEG back on the left - but he has consistency issues of his own.

I think he can’t be part of a three man midfield, and possibly trying him out as part of the front three is an option worth considering before we tick this experiment off as a complete failure.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Thug

[villalad21]

8 minutes ago, Thug said:

My biggest criticism, believe it or not, is not of him, but of Smith for starting him.

I think Smith's personal pride is making him make a really bad decision here.

I get that he said and had high hopes of getting him into the Euro squad but it's just never gonna happen and he needs to realize that.

All he is doing with this persistence with Barkley is hurting the club and i can potentially see him lose some of his own players over this.

Barkley is playing like absolute dog**** and keeps getting picked. Sends such a bad message to the rest of the squad.

Edited February 15, 2021 by villalad21

[WooJung]

Do we actually know that these "must play if fit" clauses are actually a real thing? 

I'm honestly very skeptical about this, it seems like a terrible deal to get yourself into, they completely undermine a manager's authority.

What does "fit" even mean? Does it only mean not injured? What if a player is overweight? What if they are blowing after half an hour? What if the player trains hslf-arsedly? What if the manager is sacked and the new manager doesn't rate the player at all? What happens if they breach this alleged clause? 

Do we have any evidence of such clauses being used? Do they even have any legal validity?

I'm genuinely asking, I would love to know more about this. 

[Zhan_Zhuang]

42 minutes ago, WooJung said:

Do we actually know that these "must play if fit" clauses are actually a real thing? 

I'm honestly very skeptical about this, it seems like a terrible deal to get yourself into, they completely undermine a manager's authority.

What does "fit" even mean? Does it only mean not injured? What if a player is overweight? What if they are blowing after half an hour? What if the player trains hslf-arsedly? What if the manager is sacked and the new manager doesn't rate the player at all? What happens if they breach this alleged clause? 

Do we have any evidence of such clauses being used? Do they even have any legal validity?

I'm genuinely asking, I would love to know more about this. 

 

I've been thinking there is a clause for Barkley all along.

The fact he isn't getting dropped surely backs this up. Ramsey would offer us much more energy than Barkley.

[Villa 59]

17 hours ago, useless said:

I think people are going overboard with the criticism of Barkley, he's had a few bad games, but you'd think he'd been rubbish all season going by the reaction to yesterday, it's not as if he hasn't shown any good form for us, for the most part he's been pretty decent with moments of sheer poetry, and I don't think there's any reason to doubt that he won't get back to those levels,  a sort of progression to the mean.

People just low with him at the moment because of focusing too much on a few games after injury, rather than looking at his overall contribution to this wonderful season that we're having.

Non of this excuses his 'laziness' because there is NO excuse for laziness. He chooses to be lazy it's NOT 'forced' upon him!

[Thug]

In response to the play if fit clause:

Trevor Sinclair was on talksport talking about this in general.

 

He said that often parent clubs will insert a clause along the lines of ‘if he plays, we pay his wages, if he doesn’t - YOU pay his wages.’

He was talking about it in the context of when a young player is sent on loan, and how it can harm a dressing room if the player doesn’t pull his weight in training or on the pitch - yet starts ahead of those putting in the effort.

He spoke about how these clauses can be counter productive, and do nothing to encourage effort.

I’m not sure if this would be relevant in an established player - and I suspect it’s a managerial decision, maybe partly influenced by how much we are paying for the privilege of him being here, partly by blind faith in his ability to improve, and partly in the hope that we could entice him to stay permanently by making him feel a big part of what we’re doing.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Thug

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, Villa 59 said:

None of this excuses his 'laziness' because there is NO excuse for laziness. He chooses to be lazy it's NOT 'forced' upon him!

Well yes, but I also think tactically he's being played so far forward that he is being excused having to chase back midfielders - I think his position is adding to how unfused he appears. The problem is that I don't think he can play anywhere else. I think to get the best out of Barkley you'd need to not play with wingers - and I ain't sacrificing Jack for Ross.

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

To be honest I’m not concerned about him chasing back. My biggest problem is he looks so slow on and off the ball. There’s no acceleration or sharpness. Everything he seems to do is in slow motion and easy to deal with. It’s the not the player I remember. He’s a shadow of him. 

[cheltenham_villa]

8 hours ago, Thug said:

My biggest criticism, believe it or not, is not of him, but of Smith for starting him.

He shouldn’t be starting, based on the stats above, and also by what is plain to see with the eye.

Now, the stats actually show that we do better without him, even before the injury - but My eye told me different.  We looked good then, but now is a completely different matter.

He absolutely should not be starting, for the good of the team, and for his own confidence.

We don’t need a number 10, and if we did, there many better (more consistent?) ones out there.  I am 100% convinced that our problems at the moment is that our midfield is getting over run - and my eyes tell me (even without stats) that one of our three midfielders just isn’t cut out for the job.

We have enough firepower in Watkins, Grealish, and Traore.  We don’t need a fourth.  We get enough shots (indeed MORE) without a fourth dedicated attacker.

shoe-horning him into the team makes us less able to get the ball up to the front, less able to keep the ball out of our third, and as a result we concede more shots (almost 40% more) and concede more than twice as many goals.

The problem isn’t necessarily Ross Barkley, the problem is that putting him in the team upsets the defence/attack balance - to a demonstrably  significant amount.

He just can’t provide the necessary help to our other 2 midfielders.  The answer is either to have a more dedicated defensive midfielder to make up for RBs lack of input, or to replace RB with a more defensive player.

The answer for me has to be the latter with our current personnel, and Sanson replacing him will improve us vastly in my opinion. The alternative is Jack back to the middle with AEG back on the left - but he has consistency issues of his own.

I think he can’t be part of a three man midfield, and possibly trying him out as part of the front three is an option worth considering before we tick this experiment off as a complete failure.

 

 

 

 

 

Struggling to stack this up with recent results. Since our covid break weve kept about 4 clean sheets in 7 games I think. Weve scored about 7 goals during that time. This is with Barkley in the team.

This does suggest the balance between attack and defence isnt quite right but to me suggests we need to do more to support the front 4 not the defensive 7. I'd say defensively we have been strong and the stats support that. 

Weve not creating enough though, this is where Barkley needs to input more, I dont get the argument for him to support defensively.

 

[Thug]

37 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Well yes, but I also think tactically he's being played so far forward that he is being excused having to chase back midfielders - I think his position is adding to how unfused he appears. The problem is that I don't think he can play anywhere else. I think to get the best out of Barkley you'd need to not play with wingers - and I ain't sacrificing Jack for Ross.

 

When u see our centre forward chase their winger into our corner flag and tackle him, I have no doubt that RB not tracking is not an instruction from management.

[Thug]

1 minute ago, cheltenham_villa said:

Struggling to stack this up with recent results. Since our covid break weve kept about 4 clean sheets in 7 games I think. Weve scored about 7 goals during that time. This is with Barkley in the team.

This does suggest the balance between attack and defence isnt quite right but to me suggests we need to do more to support the front 4 not the defensive 7. I'd say defensively we have been strong and the stats support that. 

Weve not creating enough though, this is where Barkley needs to input more, I dont get the argument for him to support defensively.

 

Check the stats I posted earlier.

We get pushed further into our own half, we have less possession, we have less shots and we concede more shots, and we concede more than twice as many goals when he plays.

I don’t know why people think that if you’re not creating enough, you need to throw on more attackers.  You can have 6 of them on there, but if you can’t get the ball to them, it’s not going to help.

We had 4 shots against Brighton, they had 26. We didn’t need more attackers on the pitch, we needed more control of the game.  Defence isn’t the problem - they managed to keep a clean sheet by some miracle.  Our midfield was allowing them the space to work shooting opportunities.  There were 2 midfielders running around like blue arsed flies, and one that watched the game go by offering nothing at either end.

The balance is wrong, and should have been changed MUCH sooner than when it was.

[jimmygreaves]

13 minutes ago, Thug said:

The balance is wrong, and should have been changed MUCH sooner than when it was.

Yep..... It should have been changed about 15 mins into the second half at Burnley when it became clear Barkley doesn't really have the appetite to put in the graft.

[VillanousOne]

10 hours ago, Thug said:

My biggest criticism, believe it or not, is not of him, but of Smith for starting him.

He shouldn’t be starting, based on the stats above, and also by what is plain to see with the eye.

Now, the stats actually show that we do better without him, even before the injury - but My eye told me different.  We looked good then, but now is a completely different matter.

He absolutely should not be starting, for the good of the team, and for his own confidence.

We don’t need a number 10, and if we did, there many better (more consistent?) ones out there.  I am 100% convinced that our problems at the moment is that our midfield is getting over run - and my eyes tell me (even without stats) that one of our three midfielders just isn’t cut out for the job.

We have enough firepower in Watkins, Grealish, and Traore.  We don’t need a fourth.  We get enough shots (indeed MORE) without a fourth dedicated attacker.

shoe-horning him into the team makes us less able to get the ball up to the front, less able to keep the ball out of our third, and as a result we concede more shots (almost 40% more) and concede more than twice as many goals.

The problem isn’t necessarily Ross Barkley, the problem is that putting him in the team upsets the defence/attack balance - to a demonstrably  significant amount.

He just can’t provide the necessary help to our other 2 midfielders.  The answer is either to have a more dedicated defensive midfielder to make up for RBs lack of input, or to replace RB with a more defensive player.

The answer for me has to be the latter with our current personnel, and Sanson replacing him will improve us vastly in my opinion. The alternative is Jack back to the middle with AEG back on the left - but he has consistency issues of his own.

I think he can’t be part of a three man midfield, and possibly trying him out as part of the front three is an option worth considering before we tick this experiment off as a complete failure.

But you don't see the effort, the magic, the delicate skills he shows Dean in training alongside McGinn that none of us see, that justifies them both getting picked even when sh*t and unfit.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Well yes, but I also think tactically he's being played so far forward that he is being excused having to chase back midfielders - I think his position is adding to how unfused he appears. The problem is that I don't think he can play anywhere else. I think to get the best out of Barkley you'd need to not play with wingers - and I ain't sacrificing Jack for Ross.

 

Jack Grealish and Ollie Watkins would like to say hello, from inside our own box.

Edited February 15, 2021 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[Five Ken McNaughts]

Clearly not right in mind or body. Top speed down. Stamina down. Sweating buckets from the first whistle. Trying to paper over the absent basics with showboaty flicks and tricks. Enough. Who is this even benefiting? Ross? Villa? Deano? Chelsea? None of the above, as far as far as I can see. Just give the guy some time off and see if he comes back fitter and better.