Arthur Melo - Juventus's old number five

Attending Neymar's birthday party before Copa Clasico a mistake

Barcelona midfielder Arthur Melo has said he made a mistake by attending Neymar's birthday party in Paris 48 hours before last month's Copa del Rey first leg match against Real Madrid.

Arthur joined Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar as he celebrated his 27th birthday on Feb. 4. He returned to Spain for training the following day and started against Madrid at Camp Nou on Feb. 6, injuring his hamstring in a 1-1 draw.

The Brazil international said he had misjudged the situation and regretted his actions, which sparked a backlash from local media.

"I think I messed up going to Paris, to Neymar's party," Arthur told a news conference ahead of Barca's Champions League game against Lyon on Wednesday.

"Life has these moments. Sometimes you do the right thing, sometimes you make a mistake. I knew what I was doing. I was excited to go, but I am big enough to take responsibility for my actions.

"You learn from your mistakes. I apologised to the coach and my teammates. It was a difficult moment for me, but I am giving all I can. I know there are things to improve."

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/barc...-birthday-party-before-copa-clasico-a-mistake
 
The quality of midfielders Barcelona have had over the past decade, from Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets to Arthur and De Jong now, it really is unfair.
 
He's been brilliant when he's been played this season. A level above De Jong for me and should be first choice in mf.
 
AaronRedDevil said:
That's what you call a stable team with a plan.
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I wouldn’t say that. There are loads of stable teams in world football that haven’t even come close to the wealth of riches Barcelona have had in central midfield in the past decade.
 
paraguayo said:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RsM77Q4MKCwx8IRzuEXYDVyheAkTCCFs/view

Arthur (and Frankie) vs Getafe
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These two are making me enjoy our midfield again after years of mindlessly passing it around until Messi gets the ball.

If we eventually get an exciting manager instead of a speculative one like Valverde, they can light Europe up.

Cloud7 said:
I wouldn’t say that. There are loads of stable teams in world football that haven’t even come close to the wealth of riches Barcelona have had in central midfield in the past decade.
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Most stable teams will look at building balanced squads, adapting and making use of whatever top talen is available at any spot.

Midfield is supposed to be an even higher priority for us than for most other teams, if our DOF has to choose between Rodrygo, Vinicius or Arthur, they're supposed to go after Arthur, same for De Jong vs De ligt, or when Guardiola chose Busquets being a nobody over Yaya Toure.

We also spend years finding and nurturing players like Fabregas or Thiago, that's why we become so bitter against our board when they let them go.
 
Barca not even close to being ready for the season. The spaces between players are huge. Distance between defense and attack is too much. The triangle Arthur-De Jong-Busquets should be much smaller. Too many long balls. Too little passes/touches. Not linked yet.



Suarez is fat and slow. Ansu Fati is overhyped. Perez isn't good enough. Dembele is always injured. Messi being absent doesn't really help. etc etc.
 
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VorZakone said:
Has he really been that good in the minutes he got?
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Yep! A lot of people sleep on Arthur but he makes complex things look simple and is not far from someone like Verratti in the elite rungs at this moment in time. Perfect piggy-in-the-middle, and should star in the team for years to come with Frenkie. Too bad the current coach can't create the best environment for them, especially in terms of taking the midfield from a very good to dominant level and maximizing the vast potential these players have. Barcelona supporters must be itching for the removal of Valverde...followed by Bartomeu in the 2021 elections.
AaronRedDevil said:
That's what you call a stable team with a plan.
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To be fair, as well as Barcelona have done with the signing of De Jong and Arthur for only €100 million, they aren't exactly stable or good decision-makers or well coached these days — ultimately reflected in their inability to win the Champions League since 2014/15 (as well as the dismal nature of recent exits). The mismanagement is really quite profound, especially when you consider what they are getting in return for all the money their have funneled into their attack, and would be more evident if they didn't have the best player in the world to paper over some of the cracks or Ter Stegen performing heroics as the last line of defense.
 
If we strictly talking about the Midfield, our recruitment in that area was very poor for years now.

Wasn't that difficult to see how good De Jong is but with Arthur, that is one we got incredibly lucky with. We kept trying to sign #10s thinking they can be converted into the old Iniesta role or signing guys like Gomes thinking we hit the jackpot but they all ended up flopping for us.

Arthur? I give Robert Fernandez the credit for that one. He was our Sporting director before he got replaced by Abidal, He did a lot of working signing him and convincing the board to actually pull the trigger on that one.

I remember rumors even after we secured the buy option on Arthur that the likes of Pep Segura and some of the other board members had doubts about signing him because he wasn't tall nor some physical player and were looking at other players instead and thankfully that didn't happen and we signed Arthur.

He's the CM we needed for years now as his skill set is very similar to the likes of Xavi and Iniesta. And adding De Jong, I actually finally feel confident about our Midfield now after years of just buying players that didn't fit at all.
 
ZAKU-RED said:
If we strictly talking about the Midfield, our recruitment in that area was very poor for years now.

Wasn't that difficult to see how good De Jong is but with Arthur, that is one we got incredibly lucky with. We kept trying to sign #10s thinking they can be converted into the old Iniesta role or signing guys like Gomes thinking we hit the jackpot but they all ended up flopping for us.

Arthur? I give Robert Fernandez the credit for that one. He was our Sporting director before he got replaced by Abidal, He did a lot of working signing him and convincing the board to actually pull the trigger on that one.

I remember rumors even after we secured the buy option on Arthur that the likes of Pep Segura and some of the other board members had doubts about signing him because he wasn't tall nor some physical player and were looking at other players instead and thankfully that didn't happen and we signed Arthur.

He's the CM we needed for years now as his skill set is very similar to the likes of Xavi and Iniesta. And adding De Jong, I actually finally feel confident about our Midfield now after years of just buying players that didn't fit at all.
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I'm not so sure. I'm missing a player with attacking intentions. Who will make runs into the box and scores more than Arthur and De Jong. I like them both, but with Busquets they are lacking depth.
 
Sjaakmeoff said:
I'm not so sure. I'm missing a player with attacking intentions. Who will make runs into the box and scores more than Arthur and De Jong. I like them both, but with Busquets they are lacking depth.
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Who was that player in the Xavi/Iniesta/Busquets partnership? Or the Casemiro/Kroos/Modric one?
 
wr8_utd said:
Arthur has shown, when playing higher up than usual, he's capable of both the pre assist and the assist and this year he's also adding goals to his game.
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True. He did that in the first games. But i don't know if he's the right man for that role in the future. What i mean is that the midfield consists of too many of the same sort of players. In my opinion of course.
 
Sjaakmeoff said:
True. He did that in the first games. But i don't know if he's the right man for that role in the future. What i mean is that the midfield consists of too many of the same sort of players. In my opinion of course.
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I do think they're similar but if Arthur can consistently be a goal threat and create goals, it'll be of huge help. It depends on where and how Valverde decides to play him.
 
wr8_utd said:
I do think they're similar but if Arthur can consistently be a goal threat and create goals, it'll be of huge help. It depends on where and how Valverde decides to play him.
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Ok, lets go back to the Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta question. Who is who.

What i think:
Busquets = Busquets
Arthur = Xavi (with a touch of Iniesta)
De Jong = somewhere in between Xavi and Busquets

What i miss is a real Iniesta.

What would also help is if Valverde would play Messi as a false nine again to create a diamondshape in midfield and would play Griezman and Dembele higher up. Like it was back then..

cruijff-diamond.png
 
Sjaakmeoff said:
I'm not so sure. I'm missing a player with attacking intentions. Who will make runs into the box and scores more than Arthur and De Jong. I like them both, but with Busquets they are lacking depth.
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It's quite perplexing that they didn't make a determined approach for Bernardo Silva when he was at Monaco, reckon his Iniesta-lite characteristics and smooth dribbling would have been perfectly suited to Barcelona in a needle midfielder role. Probably too late now, City don't sell their best players, but a moving triangle of Arthur, Bernardo and Frenkie would be a sight to behold, particularly with better coaching and a renewed emphasis on making the midfield the epicenter of the entire team.
 
Invictus said:
It's quite perplexing that they didn't make a determined approach for Bernardo Silva when he was at Monaco, reckon his Iniesta-lite characteristics and smooth dribbling would have been perfectly suited to Barcelona in a needle midfielder role. Probably too late now, City don't sell their best players, but a moving triangle of Arthur, Bernardo and Frenkie would be a sight to behold, particularly with better coaching and a renewed emphasis on making the midfield the epicenter of the entire team.
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I was 100% sure that they were going to purchase both Fabinho and Bernardo, these two players totally fit them, they scouted them regularly and somehow let them go somewhere else. That's when I realized that something was wrong with them.
 
Invictus said:
It's quite perplexing that they didn't make a determined approach for Bernardo Silva when he was at Monaco, reckon his Iniesta-lite characteristics and smooth dribbling would have been perfectly suited to Barcelona in a needle midfielder role. Probably too late now, City don't sell their best players, but a moving triangle of Arthur, Bernardo and Frenkie would be a sight to behold, particularly with better coaching and a renewed emphasis on making the midfield the epicenter of the entire team.
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i agree 100%. But like you said. City isn't selling. Who to get now?

harms said:
He's not in any say similar to either of them.
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You don't think so? Curious to know why.
 
Sjaakmeoff said:
You don't think so? Curious to know why.
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He is an incredibly direct player whose best quality is bringing the ball forward — either through dribbling or passing. Busquets is the opposite of that, Xavi was all about control — if anything, De Jong is closest to Iniesta out of the three, despite playing significantly deeper.
 
Sjaakmeoff said:
Ok, lets go back to the Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta question. Who is who.

What i think:
Busquets = Busquets
Arthur = Xavi (with a touch of Iniesta)
De Jong = somewhere in between Xavi and Busquets

What i miss is a real Iniesta.

What would also help is if Valverde would play Messi as a false nine again to create a diamondshape in midfield and would play Griezman and Dembele higher up. Like it was back then..

cruijff-diamond.png
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Both Arthur and De Jong have some resemblances to Iniesta, even though they're far from playing like him, they could make our play as fluid as Xavi-Iniesta, they're great hybrids.

Xavi was nurtured into an archetypal Barcelona 4 (DM/Anchor) role to take over after Guardiola, he had some great moments with Antic playing almost as a 10, and got his best run as a defensive CM (6)
Iniesta played a lot as a winger (11) in his early days, until he claimed the 8 role with his improved central play, in his last seasons he wasn't as much as an advanced CM (8) but as an hybrid of an 8 and 4, what we'd call a 6 here in Spain.

But both De Jong and Arthur have a closer approach to modern day's midfield.

Arthur plays as an 8 with us, he has shades of a 6 like Xavi was, but definitely more inclined towards the modern 8 role of total midfielder.
De Jong was supposed to be a 4, shades of a 6 too, but his skillset and game awareness makes him look fit for the 8 role too, so far shining there.

They're both capable 8's for the modern 433 midfield, lack basic concepts to play as a winger like Iniesta or defensive awareness to work as a single anchor man like Xavi managed to pull 15+ years ago, but are well rounded to complement each other.

Now, it'd be fantastic if we could get a pure 4 like Busquets but that could function in a double DM setting and able to be a threat on attack too, I think Rakitic would be better suited for that role than Busquets right now but both are inferior versions of what we'll need in the future. Thomas Partey, maybe Saul or even Allan could be the last link our midfield needs in order to bring back some of that high pressing that suits our style better than absorbing counter attacks with our defense.
 
Infordin said:
Barca is not a stable team. The thing is, United is run so much worse that they make Barca look sane.
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We are as bad as each other imo, you just have Messi to bail you out. We are just 6 years out from our massive shift, your's is yet to come.
 
cyberman said:
We are as bad as each other imo, you just have Messi to bail you out. We are just 6 years out from our massive shift, your's is yet to come.
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The key of Barça's success is none other than being a (filthy rich) registered association, not a limited company; the board and president are elected; they have 4 years to reach greatness or feck off. That's why Barça was able to climb out of the 2000-2003 hole. If someone like Ed was president of Barça, he would have been kicked out by now. Also, FC Barcelona knows the importance of using ex-players for key roles (Director of Football, Manager, etc.). Piqué as president sounds slighty ridiculous, but Puyol as director of football and Xavi as manager sound as natural as tiki-taka for Barça.

Sadly, Man Utd currently means Glazzers + Woodward.
 
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So, has he fallen out with Valverde?

Dropped from the squad tonight, and was also dropped from the squad for their game against Vallodolid around a week ago, too.
 
Yagami said:
So, has he fallen out with Valverde?

Dropped from the squad tonight, and was also dropped from the squad for their game against Vallodolid around a week ago, too.
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You mean, there's a chance?
 
So, after coming back into the squad after being dropped completely for two games, he's been dropped completely again.

Whilst on international duty - facing Argentina - he seemed to exchange words with Messi after Messi got annoyed at him for asking the referee to book Rodrigo. I wonder if that played a part in the decision to omit him from the squad?
 
Put 40 million on the table and Barca would consider.
Rate him highly. Be perfect for us.
 
Fortitude said:
Goes to show that there is still talent out there that we really have no excuse not to be aiming for. It annoys me when these type of players 'suddenly' emerge and are so good because it begs the question of what the scouts are doing, or the those who make a decision off the back of what the scouts suggest, are doing that they are so often overlooked.
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I think there's nothing wrong with our scouts in Brazil.
-- Manchester United hire Brazil's former chief scout to identify new starlets from the South American country. (2017)
-- Paulo Henrique Xavier was fired by the Brazilian FA after the Under-20s failed to qualify for the World Cup

More likely United's management aren't interested in any Brazilian players. Too busy chasing Sean Longstaff.
 
Yagami said:
So, after coming back into the squad after being dropped completely for two games, he's been dropped completely again.

Whilst on international duty - facing Argentina - he seemed to exchange words with Messi after Messi got annoyed at him for asking the referee to book Rodrigo. I wonder if that played a part in the decision to omit him from the squad?
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If there’s any chance he may be available, which there may very well be if he’s fallen out with Messi, we need to go all out to get him.
 
Mark Pawelek said:
I think there's nothing wrong with our scouts in Brazil.
-- Manchester United hire Brazil's former chief scout to identify new starlets from the South American country. (2017)
-- Paulo Henrique Xavier was fired by the Brazilian FA after the Under-20s failed to qualify for the World Cup

More likely United's management aren't interested in any Brazilian players. Too busy chasing Sean Longstaff.
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This. There are no “hidden” players in world football anymore really. The difference between clubs I would say is if the clubs take the plunge on particular players or not.
 
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