The Atalanta game got me thinking – once the team reaches a certain stratospheric level, often the gulf between the "core" players and the ones trying to break into the team becomes almost insurmountable. The small core of players get to start almost every game of importance, playing without rest, in multiple positions if necessary and showing almost superhuman abilities of recovery and endurance. The rest get to sit on the bench patiently and every time someone from outside the "core" is introduced, it visibly affects the cohesion of the whole system and if a few changes at the same time are made, the team becomes unrecognizable like it was for 60 minutes yesterday. A catch-22 situation develops – the fringe players can't build up confidence and trust of teammates without a run of games, but that run of games never ever comes. Fans clamour for fresh blood, but hurl abuse at any fringe player who comes in and performs below the stratospherically high standard (which is most of the time).
In Barca circa 2015, it was pretty much 11 outfield players who carried most of the burden:
Pique
Mascherano
Dani Alves
Sergi Roberto
Alba
Busquets
Rakitic
Iniesta
Messi
Suarez
Neymar
Each one got over 40 appearances and several played in 50+ games. No one else in the squad came close, except the CB/LB Jeremy Mathieu with 30+.
For us, discounting the long-term injury absentees, our core outfield 11 is:
Matip
Fabinho
Trent
Robbo
Gini
Hendo
Thiago (hopefully)
Salah
Mane
Firmino
Jota
In a positive development, it seems that Curtis Jones has managed to break into the rotation recently, the always reliable Milner can still plug holes and Keita gets his minutes when fit, but even with them it's pretty much 12-13 musicians in the "orchestra" who don't mess up the tune. It's really hard to play in 3-4 competitions this way, but there isn't much that can be done to change it – by now the system has grown to be so complex and sophisticated, it takes most newcomers months to learn the basics, the players of the required standard, compatible playing style and character aren't easy to purchase on the market and if the Academy can produce even 1 suitable young player every season, that already should be considered pretty good – Barca's problem in the last 5 years was that their Academy almost completely stopped contributing. Relying on a small core of the same players in most games results in a predictable style that that always makes fans fret that we're on the cusp of being "found out," but then for big games, that close-knit core is usually able to go up another few notches to produce scintillating performances before dropping down the levels dramatically for the opponents they don't respect as much.
Klopp will of course try all he can to maintain a consistent level, but this is probably not something any manager can fully control – unless you operate on a Man City-like budget where you can purchase multiple "clones" of the same player type and pay people millions to sit on the bench. So I guess my point is, given the financial realities and the inner logic of squad development, we should now expect a period of small, generally overworked, but sometimes still exhilarating core squad surrounded by fringe players who are all made to look even more inept by the lack of playing time. It can be irritating for fans to see those drastic fluctuations in quality, but then we do have to appreciate how historically good those 12-13 main players are and how hard it is for anybody else to even approach that standard.
For the reference, that 2015-16 Barca squad won the league by a point, won Copa del Rey and were eliminated in the CL quarters – by Atletico Madrid, of course.
In Barca circa 2015, it was pretty much 11 outfield players who carried most of the burden:
Pique
Mascherano
Dani Alves
Sergi Roberto
Alba
Busquets
Rakitic
Iniesta
Messi
Suarez
Neymar
Each one got over 40 appearances and several played in 50+ games. No one else in the squad came close, except the CB/LB Jeremy Mathieu with 30+.
For us, discounting the long-term injury absentees, our core outfield 11 is:
Matip
Fabinho
Trent
Robbo
Gini
Hendo
Thiago (hopefully)
Salah
Mane
Firmino
Jota
In a positive development, it seems that Curtis Jones has managed to break into the rotation recently, the always reliable Milner can still plug holes and Keita gets his minutes when fit, but even with them it's pretty much 12-13 musicians in the "orchestra" who don't mess up the tune. It's really hard to play in 3-4 competitions this way, but there isn't much that can be done to change it – by now the system has grown to be so complex and sophisticated, it takes most newcomers months to learn the basics, the players of the required standard, compatible playing style and character aren't easy to purchase on the market and if the Academy can produce even 1 suitable young player every season, that already should be considered pretty good – Barca's problem in the last 5 years was that their Academy almost completely stopped contributing. Relying on a small core of the same players in most games results in a predictable style that that always makes fans fret that we're on the cusp of being "found out," but then for big games, that close-knit core is usually able to go up another few notches to produce scintillating performances before dropping down the levels dramatically for the opponents they don't respect as much.
Klopp will of course try all he can to maintain a consistent level, but this is probably not something any manager can fully control – unless you operate on a Man City-like budget where you can purchase multiple "clones" of the same player type and pay people millions to sit on the bench. So I guess my point is, given the financial realities and the inner logic of squad development, we should now expect a period of small, generally overworked, but sometimes still exhilarating core squad surrounded by fringe players who are all made to look even more inept by the lack of playing time. It can be irritating for fans to see those drastic fluctuations in quality, but then we do have to appreciate how historically good those 12-13 main players are and how hard it is for anybody else to even approach that standard.
For the reference, that 2015-16 Barca squad won the league by a point, won Copa del Rey and were eliminated in the CL quarters – by Atletico Madrid, of course.
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