I think he'll go to Chelsea. Zola and Sarri wants him there.
Nicolo Barella
- Thread starter RedNed77
- Start date
Guilty of being rich and flashy whilst black. Much like Sterling.
Does anyone think he could replace Matic as CDM/DLP?
I was thinking in a midfield three of:
Pogba Barella Fernandes/Tielemans
I was thinking in a midfield three of:
Pogba Barella Fernandes/Tielemans
Or Inter. Apparently he is a fan of them, and there are some background-ties to Inter.
Just what exactly is so good about Barella?
It's not goals & assists.
Is it interceptions & tackles? Is it his passing?
Even his highlights reel looks meh. Granted his team sucks, but I just don't see what his specialty is
It's not goals & assists.
Is it interceptions & tackles? Is it his passing?
Even his highlights reel looks meh. Granted his team sucks, but I just don't see what his specialty is
And Pogba to an extent
Sterling isn’t even flashy.
He wasn’t a bad boy so much as a Cantona type. More of a nutter
I mean the guy nearly set his house on fire with fireworks.I loved his persona whilst in the premier league though. I’d much rather someone like Balotelli personality wise than say Lingard. That’s what kinda endears me towards Bailly now - just needs to cut out the rashness.
This seems like total revisionism to me. He was at City for 3 seasons and started only 12, 14 and 7 games in the Premier league - so in total, he made 33 starts and 21 appearances as a sub in three seasons. That's failure in and of itself for a player that was as hyped as Baloteli was, even if he did have some injury issues he started 40% of his available games on the bench.
His goal scoring record wasn't bad but not close to elite but his all round play (only 1 assist and 6 big chances created for his teammates in three seasons!) and disciplinary issues (17 yellows and 3 reds!) made him a major liability. His time at City was completely forgettable. His spell at Liverpool, an absolute disaster.
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I haven't seen much of him either but looking at his stats I am struggling to see why people hype him up.
He isn't a great attacker/passer by any metric and while defensively he does win the ball a lot he also commits many fouls to do so. Bad fouls too judging by his high card accumulation (29 yellow cards, 4 red cards in 96 serie A appearances). He also loses the ball a lot with a high rate of getting dispossessed and poor touches.
I think he's supposed to be a jack of all trades midfielder who can do a bit of everything... but the problem is he doesn't do anything especially well and does several things badly.
Yes we lack creativity in our midfield so let's sign a midfielder who isn't that creative.
This is not revisionist at all. He went to a top club as a very young player. The fact that he didn’t start every week is irrelevant. You said ‘considering his reputation’ he was a flop but his scoring record was slightly more impressive at City. He scored 30 goals in 80 games for them, a fair portion of the games sub appearances too. How on earth can you call him a ‘flop’? Those are impressive stats for a 20 year old.
I think there was a quick realisation in this country that there was better value in analysing him as a court jester as opposed to a serious footballer. If a young English player was putting up his numbers, the narrative would be different. However, Balotelli made great content for the press so it was far more beneficial to talk about his ‘personality’. Hence the ‘why always me’?
Raheem Sterling has JUST this year won the battle to be spoken of as a footballer first. As a result, there has been a quite obvious backtracking and copious amounts of fluff pieces about him suddenly being a role model and such a ‘great guy’ in general. This is because he stood up to it and basically embarrassed the media by calling them out directly. Since then he’s been the good guy.
He's was a flop because he was no where near as good as he was supposed to be and his career since then has backed that up.
His goal scoring record at City was OK something like a goal every 135 minutes but he was a bench player so often because he offered so little in terms of all round game and because he was such a loose cannon on the pitch. Now he's in the prime of his career playing in Europe's 5th league for a side challenging for the Europa League. Regardless of how you think the press treated him the proof is the pudding at the end of the day when it comes to what he actually offers on the pitch.
He’s scored 146 goals in 360 club games. That’s the pudding I find the proof in. That has spanned from Italy to England and now France. He has scored goals at international level. He plays where is playing because he is, by a standard/definition of the white media - a ‘loose cannon’. His name is tarnished, but I repeat what I said initially, apart from a spell at Liverpool - he has scored goals throughout his career.
On a smaller scale, his career and stats, and even reputation to an extent are similar to Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Did most of his best work away from the top two leagues in England and Spain. Scored a lot of goals in Italy and France. Seen as ‘eccentric’, ‘maverick’, ‘arrogant’ etc. I suspect it’s just that Zlatan’s form of arrogance and character difficulties are more familiar looking and palatable to the masses.
Honestly, I think that's absolute rubbish.
This is football, it's as meritocratic as any industry out there. There would be a slew of top clubs that would be in to sign him if he offered what you imagine him to. Fact is that he's been dispensable to every club he's been at, even when he he's done relatively well. That tells you everything.
We'll have to agree to disagree here as we're derailing the Barella thread.
You are just overplaying race card here. Balotelli is playing where he is playing because his attitude sucks. Managers got fed up with him and Mancini who was close to Balotelli also gave up on him.
Apart from Inter fans in 2010, don't think any fans even cared that Balotelli was sold from their club.
Also his career is nowhere similar to Zlatan. He was seen as a leader, someone who was as professional as anyone can get.
What sort of midfielder is he?
Balotelli was spotted going out of striptease club the night before the game, rushed with crazy tackle into Clichy at training ground right after the latter returned from a bad injury which led to famous bust-up with Mancini, fell out with majority of teammates, got a pretty decent amount of unnecessary red cards, fire his own house and all together drove everyone in the club crazy.
He wasn't a flop, but there was a reason why media was on his back and it had nothing to do with his colour or colour of his hair. Absolute bellend.
He wasn't a flop, but there was a reason why media was on his back and it had nothing to do with his colour or colour of his hair. Absolute bellend.
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Or maybe we're buying a creative midfielder and a box to box/defensive midfielder.
Neither of us know who or what type of player we're signing, let's not lose our heads over mere speculation.
Bit of an all rounder with lots of energy, only seen him twice though.
True.....there were fireworks
This guy is top quality. Reminds me of Verratti but a bit more raw. A star of the future.
Oh the magic of stats, maybe try BT rather than Opta
Nah, BT stats are crap.
I watch a lot of football on BT. I'm just not a regular watcher of dross from the bottom half of serie A and I doubt many of the people who think we should sign him are either.
Looks pretty good all-round.
Does not take many minutes to evaluate whether a player will be an upgrade on our current options. Or evaluate a players technical and physical abilities (with some margin for error).
You are wrong I'm afraid, it takes an awful lot longer than watching a player for a matter of minutes to assess them. That's why footballers are usually scouted extensively before they are signed and clubs employ professional statisticians and pay for analytics software to analyse performance data over a long period of time.
It does not take many minutes to evaluate whether a player can handle the ball, if he can pass or his physical capabilities, but it takes far more time and resources to evaluate the other parts of the game.
Parts that are equally important, but a lot harder to evaluate: Is the system/formation/team the player is playing in make him seem better or worse than he actually is, how is his understanding of the game, his movement off and on the ball, handle different types of opposition/players and so on...
No problem, simply making the point stats can often be misleading negatively or positively, shouldnt judge whether somebody is any good you have never watched because of them
Saw Barella compared to Scholes the other day, but if anything - he’s slightly closer to Roy Keane. He’s a good all-rounder, but he looks to have real character and fight too. No shrinking violet. He’s not the only talented young Italian midfielder and there are others I’d probably be just as happy if we pursued, but it’s that character and fight that makes me think he’s the surest bet to be a PL success.
Sensi, Zaniolo, Tonali and Pellegrini are all top DM/CM/AM talents and the most any of them will likely cost us £50m-odd (Zaniolo being the priciest). Barella and Zaniolo look most PL-ready players to me. Sensi can scrap too, although is quite short.
Sensi, Zaniolo, Tonali and Pellegrini are all top DM/CM/AM talents and the most any of them will likely cost us £50m-odd (Zaniolo being the priciest). Barella and Zaniolo look most PL-ready players to me. Sensi can scrap too, although is quite short.
Stop this. You're trying to make it seem like fair criticism against a person who happens to be black isn't racist.
Sarcasm warning for anyone who has to wonder
The ‘fairness’ of this criticism is the topic of discussion here. Notably the labelling of a striker of 20 coming into the PL and scoring just under 1 in 2 at City as a ‘flop’. Given his goals record at Inter, City and AC Milan - to say he’s simply playing where he is because that’s his ‘level’ is highly debatable. There was rarely ever a conversation concerning Balotelli as an actual football player when he was at City. There was no adulation of a young man scoring regularly as his team won the PL. The only obsession was with the man. Who was no angel of course. But it’s how you report things. He was a young man who made mistakes, but there was little focus on his talent.
Tbh, I took more issue with how the media treated him at Liverpool. He was not scoring goals, but he was just being attacked personally more than anything else. There was a constant reference to him as ‘Liverpool bad boy’ although his crimes at the time were just a lack of goals. The press were only concerned with what he wore, drove and spent.
‘Why always me?’.
Looks very good technically, good energy, makes more passes than anyone else at Cagliari. At 22 he could be a player who's about to go up a level. Depends on the price obviously because we wouldn't be signing him as a definite starter you wouldn't think.
To a lesser extent, Neymar also receives similar treatment. You may argue that his numbers are good, but his talent is overshadowed by personal life antics.
Balotelli is indeed a very polemic individual who did his share of crazy stuff. He may claim to be a victim of too much midia focus on his personal life but the truth is he consciously drew this kind of attention to himself.
Of course he is targeted by racist people, but I'm against the labeling of any criticism of him, be it on a sports or personal level, as due to the fact that he is black.
If the debate is, as you put it, regarding the fairness of such criticism, it should be just that, without the need of throwing racism accusations around.
I liked your answer by the way.
If you pay 40 or 50m, i think you expect him to start. I dont think he would come here to sit on the bench and our midfield is garbage (with Herrera and Pogba probably leaving, the rest is nothing to write home about). He would be an immediate upgrade on Fred and a starter here. He starts for Italy with Jorginho and Verratti under Mancini, so i would expect him to start here as well, he is quality.
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Does Barella have composure on balls and difficult to dispossess? It is important for possession.
From what I've seen and heard, he could be a deep-lying playmaker. Has a bit of grit about him as well.