Lionel Messi | PSG Watch

Beans said:
I'm not sold on Poch, one good run in Europe doesn't make you a top manager.
Click to expand...

I understand if you question Poch to bring a team to the top level. But I wouldn't belittle his achievement at Spurs just one good European run.
He did build a very solid team, a team with maybe one more top player aside of DESK may have won at least one of PL or CL.
 
The Corinthian said:
What’s an assist that ‘didn’t get in’?
Click to expand...

That's a term used by people who think the quality of a pass is independent of whether or not the recipient converts or misses the chances that emerged from it. Lunatics, I know.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Messi needs to use a pocket phrase book to talk to Mauricio Pochettino, Neymar, Sergio Ramos, Keylor Navas, Leandro Paredes, Mauro Icardi, Angel Di Maria, Rafinha, and Hakimi.
Click to expand...
Don't forget Mbappé, Bernat, Sergio Rico and Herrera. Hell, even Verratti, Donnarumma, Nuno Mendes, Marquinhos and Danilo...
 
RedDribble said:
I understand if you question Poch to bring a team to the top level. But I wouldn't belittle his achievement at Spurs just one good European run.
He did build a very solid team, a team with maybe one more top player aside of DESK may have won at least one of PL or CL.
Click to expand...
Perhaps I should say "elite" manager. I'm not trying to belittle him, just to say that I don't see him as being as effective as Tuchel, Klopp and others. I'm not sure United missed the boat by not signing him up.

Spurs were solid, but they never looked like really challenging. Poch now has all the top players he could ask for, so we'll certainly see if that was all that held him back. Let's not forget how bad Spurs were the season after their CL run. With Real and Barca rebuilding (read losing Ronaldo and Messi) the field is finally wide open again, City and Chelsea aren't nearly as good as those two used to be. Bayern should be favorites if Nags can get them humming, still, they're not a competitor for best ever team like those two were.
 
His PSG showing is not really new, we've already seen similar over the years with Argentina. At this point the evidence does point more strongly to him simply not being as comfortable outside the Barcelona setup he grew up under.

Under Argentina it was all blamed on his coaches and teammates, the same with Barcelona as they started to wane in Europe. And a similar thing seems to be happening already at PSG.
 
Brwned said:
He wasn’t happy to leave, he was forced out due to financial mismanagement. And he had to go to one of the few (potentially only) clubs that could afford him at the time. Most players who are forced to move to a club they don’t care much for do struggle to motivate themselves. We have experience with that too.
Click to expand...
You say he HAD to go to one of the few clubs that could afford him? He didn't. He could lower his wage demands and have a wider selection of clubs to choose from, or he could retire. Nobody had a gun to his head making him go to Paris, he went for the money and is sure as shit not earning it right now.
 
He'sRaldo said:
His PSG showing is not really new, we've already seen similar over the years with Argentina. At this point the evidence does point more strongly to him simply not being as comfortable outside the Barcelona setup he grew up under.

Under Argentina it was all blamed on his coaches and teammates, the same with Barcelona as they started to wane in Europe. And a similar thing seems to be happening already at PSG.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

People here a blaming things like PSG's ability to get the ball towards him from deep - this is just the kind of things he had in abundance of when at Barcelona compared to Argentina or PSG.

Just because Tiki Taka left Barcelona doesn't mean that the shape, the possesion, the type of player, the amount focused on passing and positioning ever left, it just became used less rightly when a manager like Koeman comes instead of Pep or Enrique.
 
Beans said:
Perhaps I should say "elite" manager. I'm not trying to belittle him, just to say that I don't see him as being as effective as Tuchel, Klopp and others. I'm not sure United missed the boat by not signing him up.

Spurs were solid, but they never looked like really challenging. Poch now has all the top players he could ask for, so we'll certainly see if that was all that held him back. Let's not forget how bad Spurs were the season after their CL run. With Real and Barca rebuilding (read losing Ronaldo and Messi) the field is finally wide open again, City and Chelsea aren't nearly as good as those two used to be. Bayern should be favorites if Nags can get them humming, still, they're not a competitor for best ever team like those two were.
Click to expand...

I see your point, but just to add something about the PSG team. I think the PSG team is really overrated and it is a playstation team. TBH I think even Pep, Klopp and even SAF will struggle with that squad. Maybe SAF would have not signed Messi or sent out at least Mbappe to a different team. A team is about balance in several aspects of the game (offense, defense...) and balance in ego (you need players like Park, Fletcher when you have a Ronaldo).

One reason that the MSN worked really well was because surprisingly Suarez really lowered his ego for Messi and did a lot of the busy work for him. MNM... non of them is willing to do the hard work.
 
Apologies for being lazy, but can someone give me a balanced view on how well Messi is doing at PSG?
 
It's probably not a good thing that PSG's forward line consists of one guy who doesn't want to be there and had to forcibly leave his previous team (Messi), another guy who doesn't want to be there and will probably sign a contract with RM in a month (Mbappe), and they're being managed by a guy who spent all summer trying to get hired elsewhere.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
Apologies for being lazy, but can someone give me a balanced view on how well Messi is doing at PSG?
Click to expand...

The true balanced view is short, isolated. Like all the other attackers regardless of who starts.
 
Pocho said:
Go and troll in the proper thread
Click to expand...
I'll troll wherever i damn well please, thank you very much

Also, tell me i'm wrong. Most of the people he works with speak spanish. A few who don't speak a language that's close enough they should be able to understand each other anyways. French itself shouldn't be too difficult a language to learn for him. He said himself his family has already adapted, too

So what exactly is the excuse? The problems are clearly not about his adaptation to a new country, or dressing room. It's a football issue
 
giorno said:
I'll troll wherever i damn well please, thank you very much

Also, tell me i'm wrong. Most of the people he works with speak spanish. A few who don't speak a language that's close enough they should be able to understand each other anyways. French itself shouldn't be too difficult a language to learn for him. He said himself his family has already adapted, too

So what exactly is the excuse? The problems are clearly not about his adaptation to a new country, or dressing room. It's a football issue
Click to expand...

We all know what the excuse is. The current Ballon d'Or finally joined a top league and can't do it in a dry night in Lens.
 
JPRouve said:
The true balanced view is short, isolated. Like all the other attackers regardless of who starts.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I've not seen any of them this season but I'd seen they were winning the league and Messi had scored or assisted every other game but had no other context to go on. So I guess from what you're saying PSG are struggling a bit despite their league position and he's not really managed to make an impact yet? And he's playing in the front-3? I'd half expected him to drop into a deeper role when he got older and become a Xavi/Iniesta hybrid. You'd think that'd work really well with Mbappe up top.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
Thanks, I've not seen any of them this season but I'd seen they were winning the league and Messi had scored or assisted every other game but had no other context to go on. So I guess from what you're saying PSG are struggling a bit despite their league position and he's not really managed to make an impact yet? And he's playing in the front-3? I'd half expected him to drop into a deeper role when he got older and become a Xavi/Iniesta hybrid. You'd think that'd work really well with Mbappe up top.
Click to expand...
Xavi and Iniesta were work horses in their prime when they did not had the ball, Messi matches their ball skills and vision, but he never had work rate and defensive work rate which those two had, they never stopped running.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
Thanks, I've not seen any of them this season but I'd seen they were winning the league and Messi had scored or assisted every other game but had no other context to go on.
Click to expand...

This is skewed because all of Messi's league assists were in 1 game.
 
Lord SInister said:
Xavi and Iniesta were work horses in their prime when they did not had the ball, Messi matches their ball skills and vision, but he never had work rate and defensive work rate which those two had, they never stopped running.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you could use Messi like a Riquelme but not below.
 
He'sRaldo said:
His PSG showing is not really new, we've already seen similar over the years with Argentina. At this point the evidence does point more strongly to him simply not being as comfortable outside the Barcelona setup he grew up under.

Under Argentina it was all blamed on his coaches and teammates, the same with Barcelona as they started to wane in Europe. And a similar thing seems to be happening already at PSG.
Click to expand...

Funny, same thing happened to Ronaldo as well. Look at how many managers were fired when Ronaldo was with them. A lot more than Messi.
 
giorno said:
I'll troll wherever i damn well please, thank you very much

Also, tell me i'm wrong. Most of the people he works with speak spanish. A few who don't speak a language that's close enough they should be able to understand each other anyways. French itself shouldn't be too difficult a language to learn for him. He said himself his family has already adapted, too

So what exactly is the excuse? The problems are clearly not about his adaptation to a new country, or dressing room. It's a football issue
Click to expand...

But if no one else on PSG is playing all that well (and yes Messi needs to play much better) it is far more of a coaching issue.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
Apologies for being lazy, but can someone give me a balanced view on how well Messi is doing at PSG?
Click to expand...

He is not doing terrible but... I mean it would be really delusional to say he is doing good at the team. If his contribution just lingers around what he has been doing until now we would have to agree that it is a failure.

We do see glimpse of his magic here and there but it needs to be more consistent and the team as a whole should perform better.
 
Messi is the greatest player I have ever seen (not old enough for Pele or Maradonna) so it will be a shame if this is his swan song.
He should be looking at Ronaldo, a player who is two years older than him and never had the natural abilities he had yet is still popping up with important goals for his team despite not being at the level he once was.
Age and decline wil effect him but he could and should be doing more.
That is of course if he hasn’t been playing with an injury. I have suspected as much and he did have a short spell out with a knock so perhaps that has slowed him down but he had a slow start last season so I’ll wait until February to decide if it looks like it will be a poor season or if he will suddenly pick up as he has done in the past.
 
Ladron de redcafe said:
I didn't bring anything to you :lol: You keep tagging me. Why do you care what I value more in terms of accomplishments?

Ronaldo will have his records and so will a lot of players. The major ones that matter most (down to votes or not) now belong to Messi, and he'll be happy with them.
Click to expand...
Ronaldo has just as many if not more major records.

CL all-time topscorer
CL all-time top assister
Most goals in international football history
Most goals in association football history

Just to name a few.
 
Daysleeper said:
But if no one else on PSG is playing all that well (and yes Messi needs to play much better) it is far more of a coaching issue.
Click to expand...
Of course it's a coaching issue right now. Individually Messi is one of the best players in the world still, no doubt about that.

Be interesting to see whether PSG can be better with him though, compared to the last couple seasons
 
Lord SInister said:
Xavi and Iniesta were work horses in their prime when they did not had the ball, Messi matches their ball skills and vision, but he never had work rate and defensive work rate which those two had, they never stopped running.
Click to expand...

I more meant in terms of their primary role in the team rather than what they were expected to do defensively in that Barca team. Xavi was their key playmaker in the middle of the park and Iniesta was almost as good a short passer but could also carry the ball up the pitch to link defence with attack. In a team which presumably dominates most games they play in Messi should fit in as a primary playmaker in the centre of the park. Plenty of teams have been successful playing a creative midfielder as the furthest forward in the 3 without expecting them to do a massive amount defensively - Pogba for France would be a good example. At the top level it's probably not a winning strategy unless you have Kante, but in the French league it should be feasible. If you have access to Messi surely the thing to do is to get him on the ball as much as possible.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
I more meant in terms of their primary role in the team rather than what they were expected to do defensively in that Barca team. Xavi was their key playmaker in the middle of the park and Iniesta was almost as good a short passer but could also carry the ball up the pitch to link defence with attack. In a team which presumably dominates most games they play in Messi should fit in as a primary playmaker in the centre of the park. Plenty of teams have been successful playing a creative midfielder as the furthest forward in the 3 without expecting them to do a massive amount defensively - Pogba for France would be a good example. At the top level it's probably not a winning strategy unless you have Kante, but in the French league it should be feasible. If you have access to Messi surely the thing to do is to get him on the ball as much as possible.
Click to expand...

Pogba wouldn't be a good example, he does a normal job defensively for France. And the french league isn't an amateur league, you have great athletes and lots of young talented players that will dominate your midfield physically and technically if you let them.
 
Pocho said:
Too diificult to understand.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a next straw clutching phrase Messi fanboys are going to use. ‘Assists that didn’t get in’ - :lol:
 
Last edited:
giorno said:
Of course it's a coaching issue right now. Individually Messi is one of the best players in the world still, no doubt about that.

Be interesting to see whether PSG can be better with him though, compared to the last couple seasons
Click to expand...

Agreed. Right now it feels like Messi was a luxury signing.
 
M
The Corinthian said:
Sounds like a next straw clutching Messi fanboys are going to use. ‘Assists that didn’t get in’ - :lol:
Click to expand...
Meaning key passes, something some of the cr7 50cents army will have no clue on. Should I use a smiley too?
 
JPRouve said:
Pogba wouldn't be a good example, he does a normal job defensively for France. And the french league isn't an amateur league, you have great athletes and lots of young talented players that will dominate your midfield physically and technically if you let them.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, happy to cede to those with more knowledge. Whenever I've seen Pogba for France he's done relatively little defensive work, especially compared to whoever he's been in there with, but it's a small sample size and I suppose I haven't regularly seen Messi over the last few years to say whether he's capable of that.

I don't mean to do down Ligue 1 either, so sorry if it came off that way, I just meant that PSG with their squad should be able to put together a team which can dominate most domestic games without needing three midfielders putting in a shift. I mean, by the sounds of it they haven't been clicking this season and they're still walking the league, so are we really saying that if they played Messi as the most advanced of a three, or a midfield two behind Messi as an ol' fashioned #10 they'd be getting picked apart every week? Surely he can still walk it's not they'd be playing with 10 men until they got the ball.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
Fair enough, happy to cede to those with more knowledge. Whenever I've seen Pogba for France he's done relatively little defensive work, especially compared to whoever he's been in there with, but it's a small sample size and I suppose I haven't regularly seen Messi over the last few years to say whether he's capable of that.

I don't mean to do down Ligue 1 either, so sorry if it came off that way, I just meant that PSG with their squad should be able to put together a team which can dominate most domestic games without needing three midfielders putting in a shift. I mean, by the sounds of it they haven't been clicking this season and they're still walking the league, so are we really saying that if they played Messi as the most advanced of a three, or a midfield two behind Messi as an ol' fashioned #10 they'd be getting picked apart every week? Surely he can still walk it's not they'd be playing with 10 men until they got the ball.
Click to expand...

You can play Messi as a 10 with two CMs/DMs that will put an emphasis on defending. But that's different from what we generally understand by a midfield 3, in that case the three midfielders are in charge of covering , you can't have a player that has no defensive awareness and doesn't have the athletic abilities to compensate for it in that kind of role. You mentioned Iniesta/Xavi as examples and both played their entire careers in those roles, they had the attitude, defensive awareness and positioning of center midfielders, Messi doesn't.

Anyway, at this point of his career I think that Messi is better used centrally and in the final third.
 
Messi still incapable of asserting his influence when his team doesn’t have 70% ball possession. Nothing new to see here. I can even go as far as saying even for Barca, his CL goals are scored at Camp Nou mostly. His memorable champions league nights away from Spain.
 
JPRouve said:
You can play Messi as a 10 with two CMs/DMs that will put an emphasis on defending. But that's different from what we generally understand by a midfield 3, in that case the three midfielders are in charge of covering , you can't have a player that has no defensive awareness and doesn't have the athletic abilities to compensate for it in that kind of role. You mentioned Iniesta/Xavi as examples and both played their entire careers in those roles, they had the attitude, defensive awareness and positioning of center midfielders, Messi doesn't.

Anyway, at this point of his career I think that Messi is better used centrally and in the final third.
Click to expand...

Yeah, again, I mentioned them in the context of their attributes on the ball and what they offered offensively. And I'd argue the difference between being the most advanced of a midfield three and being an attacking midfielder in front of a midfield two is largely semantic these days. What I mean is I'd have him centrally (but yes, further forward than the other midfielders) getting on the ball in the build-up, making forward passes and carrying the ball up the pitch rather than sitting out of the wing.
 
Lebo said:
Messi still incapable of asserting his influence when his team doesn’t have 70% ball possession. Nothing new to see here. I can even go as far as saying even for Barca, his CL goals are scored at Camp Nou mostly. His memorable champions league nights away from Spain.
Click to expand...

You could say that for 95% of players in CL including Ronaldo:

 
He'sRaldo said:
His PSG showing is not really new, we've already seen similar over the years with Argentina. At this point the evidence does point more strongly to him simply not being as comfortable outside the Barcelona setup he grew up under.

Under Argentina it was all blamed on his coaches and teammates, the same with Barcelona as they started to wane in Europe. And a similar thing seems to be happening already at PSG.
Click to expand...

Both are correct statement.

Last season in Jan of 2021 Barcelona in the league were 12-0-0, 6 clean sheets, 9 goals conceded in 12 games, without Pique, Koeman finally found a system, form + chemistry the second Pique came back they're record was 4-3-3 with 3 clean sheets 15 goals conceded in 10 games. In Pique last 7 games Barcelona posted 2-2-3 record, which saw them crash and burn. This was down to the manager, 100%.

Ronaldo we hear a lot from his fans his time in Juve was down to aging or poor players, poor coaches likewise United etc. or Portugal who may not even make the WC is down to Santos, but people act like when it comes to Messi it's his fault?

Ronaldo has been coached by Sir Alex, Mourinho, Ancelotti, Zidane and Allegri, while Messi? Pep, Rijkaard, Enrique, Tito, EV? Considering most believe Messi made Pep career, Messi has never been coached by a truly elite manager, yet look at what he achieved? Imagine him with a proper elite manager? Who improves the team around them gets the better of players and helps player adapt as Ronaldo has, are people going to act like Sir Alex, Mou, Ancelotti, Zidane didn't put Ronaldo in a good spot to succeed compared to Setien, Koeman, Tata, EV, etc for Messi :lol: Pep and Enrique are the only manager to put Messi in a good spot to succeed and we all saw what happen difference is Messi was on a handicap in terms of coaches compared to Ronaldo.

I'll end off with this Dias is one of the best CB in England and ESPNFC ranked him #1 out of a list of 100 defenders a few weeks back, with his performance the last year and a half, BSilva is considered one of the best players in the PL and is giving Salah a run for his money, while Cancelo is considered as the best FB in the PL and Europe, while he plays as a LB when he's a RB :lol: Why can't they seem to help Portugal? Because at club level there coached by Pep who helps them adapt while bring the best out of them, while international there coached by a dinosaur. No matter how good players are managers make a big difference also, even for players like Messi and Ronaldo.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.