Valencia beating his man and putting a good cross in is a glitch in the matrix. Sidibe, Meunier, Fabinho, just get someone in!
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Valencia beating his man and putting a good cross in is a glitch in the matrix. Sidibe, Meunier, Fabinho, just get someone in!
Valencia playing 25-30 games a season might still be very good. Starting every game at 32, not so much.
He is on the decline that's for sure. Not sweeping up everything defensively either. Now even timing his run which is his best asset is terrible. Either going too early or just standing still expect the ball to the feet (does he think he is Martial who would be able to dribble past player from stand still position?). Let's not get to his crossing but the decision making. If he wants to pass back, then just pass it first time instead of halting thing to throw our runners off the pace as well as making it hard for the receiver of the back pass as they can no longer cross/pass with the runners being in offside positions.
To be fair that isnt a recent development. He's been turn back Tony for years.
Playing him on the right with Mata in front is basically accepting that nothing will happen down one side of the attack.
At least until this season, he was willing to make the kind of run that help stretching play. At least recently in this season, he just stations himself wide in easy position for opposition defender to recover and press him when he receives the ball, which means we can't even buy an inch to bring the ball further up the pitch now. Back pass or side pass from even less ideal situation than before.
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Hes so bad, its funny. Hes a great dancer, by the way.
So that's why he's mostly in stationary position when receiving the ball. Then wait until he's closed down, and attempt to outsprint their fullback, which he rarely win nowadays.
He has actually been better this season though. He had that nice floated cross against Crystal palace, was also a good goal throat (Stoke and Arsenal).
This was a new low for Valencia.
Over the last few years he has had runs where he has remembered he used to be a very good winger. But since 2012 he's been turn back Tony more than he hasn't.
Don't know about that. He has put in some good crosses, i think he got a decent amount of assists last season. But generally his crossing from RB has been poor since his switch there.
Hopefully we get new RB next season.
Yes his crossing has been poor since his switch, but this game was soooo bad. He made 3 crosses in that game which all failed. He took on his man once in the whole game which bounced off the players shin for a throw-in.
I lost count of how many times he got into a good position, stood still and then passed backwards. It got to a point where the players stopped passing to him.
He does this every game. It was more evident today but stupidly enough, we decided to focus our attacks from right side instead of flooding our left side as usual.
Yeah its soul destroying watching Valencia these days when you remember the winger he used to be. In hindsight i think Scholes retiring affected him greatly, Scholes used to be able to receive the ball anywhere and ping balls just over the left back for Tony to run onto. I don't think it's a coincidence Valencia's form went to shit in 2012 when Scholes didn't play much anymore.
He was absolutely terrible for at least two of his last years as a winger. Then he partly switched to RB and was terrible there until he (kind of) learned to play there. After some time he managed to have one, one and a half season of good football, and he is back to terrible again. Some average football in between all that. So, he's basically really poor to completely average for majority of last 6 or 7 years, and somehow this guy is our captain and a regular starter. Also avoids any level of criticism whatsoever, while other players who are much better than him are getting dogs abuse all the time. Absolutely pointless footballer these days and doesn't deserve to be anywhere close to our starting XI, he is basically representing everything that is wrong with our football: predictable, slow and uncreative football, lacking any intelligence in his play and lacking balls and any special skill to do anything positive with the ball, and terrible play in the final third to top it all.
But as long as he knows to shield the ball, and run fast.
/rant over
But as long as he knows to shield the ball, and run fast.
/rant over
Has no relation. He was still bumping forward and sprinting a lot last season and was considered one of our most consistent players. Nowadays his problem is he never runs. Receives the ball, dances over it a little bit, pass backward, receive the ball, dance, backpass, rinse, repeat. Never tries to challenge the defender for a run. Never forces himself to good position as he used to.
Ridiculous to watch.
As a defensive full back he probably is. If you had a proper right winger in front of him, you’d appreciate his strengths much more, but in an age where most forwards and attacking midifielders want to cut inside and stay narrow, he simply does not complement them.
He's got away with being a poor to average full back for so long simply because the alternatives have been garbage. But it's got to the point where we need to face facts and have a complete overhaul of his position. Our full backs offer next to nothing and it really isn't acceptable for it to continue in to next season.
Yep I agree. Valencia has transitioned to a different type of fullback.
Previously he would run past his man and smash a cross along the ground, or float a cross that is easily defended.
He has gone a step back, and has stopped trying to go past his man altogether. Maybe he is afraid that he cannot recover well enough and so takes the safe option?
He’s been absolutely rubbish for ages now. One of the first who needs replacing.
Valencia's ageing years are not the problem. Damn, for 32 he is in excellent shape.
The issue is that Valencia has virtually no attacking desire and 99/100, he will simply pass the ball back, rather than make an effort to advance forward with the ball. He has been massively overrated for years and a new right-back is essential for next season.
The issue is that Valencia has virtually no attacking desire and 99/100, he will simply pass the ball back, rather than make an effort to advance forward with the ball. He has been massively overrated for years and a new right-back is essential for next season.
Definitely overrated for a number of years. Poor offensively, you could argue that’s not his primary job as a Right Back, but he is also poor defensively. Often caught out of position, let’s players run off him and regularly plays the opposition onside.
Both full back positions would be my top priority in the transfer window. Amazes me, that some would rather see us purchase a CB in the summer & continue starting AV as first choice rb.
I disagree, and i was talking primarily about the stark difference in Valencia's form as a winger pre and post 2012 here. Not Valencia in the last few years as a RB, his form and ability to get past fullbacks basically fell off a cliff at the start of 12/13. A large part of his success on the wing in those early years came from balls pinged out wide by Scholes for him to latch onto. With his pace and strength there were very few left backs that could catch or stop him. We tried to recreate this with Rooney pinging balls out wide but Rooney while a very good passer was just never on Scholes level.
If you are talking about him during his days as a winger then I might agree. I always viewed him as a classical average winger that hugs the line and cross more than a modern winger tbh and thus yeah having a player to make long balls to him was helpful.
Problem is at these times Valencia always had pace to burn and was sprinting a lot. This current version looks like his legs have gone forever. He was still sprinting a lot last season and benefiting from some Pogba's long passing. This season he's just not running anymore.
Having him and Mata on one wing is a major handicap.
This is one of the things that has stood out a lot the last several games. We need much more quality at LB and RB. When the center is congested we don't have an outlet out wide. Young sometimes but Valencia has been so gash at it of late .
Sadly yes i agree, age has finally caught up to him. I don't he can't still offer something, i still think he could be decent on the overlap but he rarely gets the chance with Mata in front of him. Mata plays anywhere but the right wing, Valencia is basically expected to do the work of two men. He runs up the pitch receives the ball often being double marked looks ahead of him and no one is there so he just turns around and passes it back. Rinse repeat for 90 minutes and the the opposition left back could practically pull out a deck chair and a cigar.
Yep it's brutal to watch, it's been a big problem all season. It needs fixing in the summer, personally i think it should be our priority.
Agree on Mata. I was baffled as to how Mata managed to complete the 90 minutes today. The combination he does with Valencia is god awful.
Absolutely. Valencia was left 1v1 in the first half. If we had quality in fullback positions, teams would get punished for that sort of tactic.
When teams park the bus they can be sure that they are safe on their left side; because we barely attack from there. Teams shit themselves whenever Lukaku drifts to the right and starts running at them, we need someone like that in the team.
Naaa, best defensive full back, he has some of most comical positionings on offside traps.
I believe Pogba was ignoring him from about 20 minutes on no matter what position he was in. Can't really have that to be honest. The fullback outlet must be upgraded in the summer.
He hasn’t been overrated at all, this is ridiculous. He has been arguably the best right back in the league these past few season since playing there. He may not be grew going forward but he proved himself defensively. He is not even overrated now as everyone thinks he is shit. He is still ‘good’ but no where near the level we need at the moment.
Can't cross, can't use his left foot, can no longer beat his man. We would have easily won the game yesterday if we had fullback who can do all those stuff.
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TBF, this isn't really an achievement considering the competition on this title in other top clubs. Valencia is better than the likes of Moses and Bellerin, but that's not saying much. Only Walker is the good one around.
Yes, that is a weakness of his. As much as I’m getting on his case about being crap going forward when dominating posession, I still think he’s very good away from home or against other good sides.
The most fecking annoying thing with him is that he used to be such a dangerous winger pre and post leg break. He used to wreak havoc and was notorious for helping Rooney a lot of headers and goals in general during a stretch. Why the feck did he go from looking up and aiming at players when crossing to smashing it as hard as possible very low 
Something doesn't fecking compute and the worst is that no matter the manager, it seems like they're satisfied with this. It's crazy I mean the guy does everything to put himself in a good crossing situation to just feck it up with going on an automatic shin breaking mode.
Something doesn't fecking compute and the worst is that no matter the manager, it seems like they're satisfied with this. It's crazy I mean the guy does everything to put himself in a good crossing situation to just feck it up with going on an automatic shin breaking mode.
Seems like people are finally seeing his defiancies
I agree his pace an power in the RB position has been tremendous for us in defense. Ironically its his attacking play that has been largely abject bar the very rare game. Combine this with Mata ahead of him and the right side is an attscking dead end. This is why everybody thought Mou had a master plan to play Sanches there. There wasnt. Also no plan to buy Mahrez or anybody to improve the right side.
I just read that as ‘only wanker’, been a long day.
Not really. This thread is normally not busy because when he has a good game the people who are slating him know don't show up as opposed to when he is having average/poor games.
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