La Liga 2014/15 Discussion

Been thinking this for a long time and matches like this reinforce it. I've never seen a player with such a large disparity between how many goals they score and how clinical they are. Just another regular game where leo missed 4 tap ins and still scored. How is he breaking records? it's insane

DuringTheWar wrote:Been thinking this for a long time and matches like this reinforce it. I've never seen a player with such a large disparity between how many goals they score and how clinical they are. Just another regular game where leo missed 4 tap ins and still scored. How is he breaking records? it's insane

Care to validate your opinion?

Here's the highlights:


Just so we're on the same page, i think we all agree with a tap-in being a play where the finisher has minimal to no involvement in the build-up bar tapping in the ball into the net from close range.

What I see is Leo involved in every chance Barca created bar two, with the first shot, trying to nutmeg the goalie, arguably a  tap-in if he shoots with the first touch.

What you see is four tap-in misses.

And regularly too. Highlights from all the matches cand be found on the YT channel, but I doubt anyone wants to waste that much time.

DuringTheWar wrote:Been thinking this for a long time and matches like this reinforce it. I've never seen a player with such a large disparity between how many goals they score and how clinical they are. Just another regular game where leo missed 4 tap ins and still scored. How is he breaking records? it's insane

It must be awful to play alongside him.

DuringTheWar wrote:Been thinking this for a long time and matches like this reinforce it. I've never seen a player with such a large disparity between how many goals they score and how clinical they are. Just another regular game where leo missed 4 tap ins and still scored. How is he breaking records? it's insane

Only 9 players have a higher shot accuracy than Messi:

Spoiler:

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

Zealous wrote:Maybe we are just that good?

When Levante is concerned I'd say no as Barca beat them 6-0.

They really are just that bad, I won't comment on the other teams mentioned though.

Did you watch the game? Our overall performance was better than Barca's if you're going to compare. The football are playing in the last three games is unmatched by anyone in world football. To quote Xabi it's the football equivalent to Rock and Roll.

Having said that I'd like to see how we do against Pool and Barca, that will better gauge how good we are (or not) and this could just be a Carlo league flop fake form

Nope and I didn't watch the Barca game against them either.

Just saying they are very bad, a team doesn't lose by 5 or 6 if it isn't I don't care how good the opposition is.

I have no idea how good you or Barca are but it's quite clear that Levante are very very bad.

That doesn't mean that we are not very good tho lol

V wrote:

DuringTheWar wrote:Been thinking this for a long time and matches like this reinforce it. I've never seen a player with such a large disparity between how many goals they score and how clinical they are. Just another regular game where leo missed 4 tap ins and still scored. How is he breaking records? it's insane

Care to validate your opinion?

Here's the highlights:


Just so we're on the same page, i think we all agree with a tap-in being a play where the finisher has minimal to no involvement in the build-up bar tapping in the ball into the net from close range.

What I see is Leo involved in every chance Barca created bar two, with the first shot, trying to nutmeg the goalie, arguably a  tap-in if he shoots with the first touch.

What you see is four tap-in misses.

And regularly too. Highlights from all the matches cand be found on the YT channel, but I doubt anyone wants to waste that much time.

Semantics. Whatever your definition of tap in is I think you can agree there were 4 chances he should have scored. The one on one, two free headers, and another occasion when he seemed to miskick the ball. What would you call a chance that a player should score? I will call it that instead of a tap in. There were at least 5 such occasions in the last game against rayo vallecano as well which I watched, but he still scored in that game too.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

DuringTheWar wrote:Been thinking this for a long time and matches like this reinforce it. I've never seen a player with such a large disparity between how many goals they score and how clinical they are. Just another regular game where leo missed 4 tap ins and still scored. How is he breaking records? it's insane

Only 9 players have a higher shot accuracy than Messi:

Spoiler:

Are you very impressed with his shooting accuracy when you watch him play? Seems to me that he misses more chances he should score than anyone else. In that graph he ranks as one the highest in terms of shot per game and I bet he has loads more shots in good positions than anyone else.

That's not typical for him though. In fact it's very untypical. 2 seasons ago before his first big injury in recent times he scored 46 from 161 shots, which means he was scoring about 1 in 3 shots, which means it was almost perfection considering no one scores every 2nd shot, let alone every shot. But it's okay, Tata did a good job destroying the team last season. Playing Messi on the wing because Tata wasn't "interested in Messi participating much". Nerman right wing. Iniesta left wing. Busquets 1 man defense with no pressing. Takes a while to recover everyone's form and Messi's getting visibly better, mainly with his movement and general activity. Braces and hattricks will come later.

yeah.

Maybe he might've missed a few 'tap ins' recently, but I think his immense shot accuracy (on top of everything else of course) always kind of struck me as one of his most astonishing feats.
Don't know the numbers of course but I always felt no other player managed to make almost every shot, after a dribble/after a quick combination/in full speed etc, as dangerous and targeted like Messi.

DuringTheWar wrote:Are you very impressed with his shooting accuracy when you watch him play? Seems to me that he misses more chances he should score than anyone else. In that graph he ranks as one the highest in terms of shot per game and I bet he has loads more shots in good positions than anyone else.

Have you always felt this way? Because if so then I completely disagree with you. If you're only talking about the past 8 games or so, well, there's strong evidence that he'll bounce back.

Deportivo beat Valencia 3-0 earlier. Completely deserved win after the performance they put in.

Sevilla beat Elche 2-0. Goals from Bacca and Gameiro. Sevilla now up to 2nd.

Fußball wrote:That's not typical for him though. In fact it's very untypical. 2 seasons ago before his first big injury in recent times he scored 46 from 161 shots,

How long before it's "typical"? The best part of two years is not enough? Again let's say someone has 161 one on one's and scores 46, is that clinical for you? And no of course I'm not saying every 161 one shots was a one on one, but it is why I don't look at shot to goal ratios as the definitive measuring stick how clinical a player is. He also scores a few from outside the box because he has good technique but that doesn't say much about how clinical he is. Look at ronaldo, I think he is lethal given a chance but damages his own conversion stats with countless pot shots from distance. For me messi has always tread a fine line between success and failure, he often goes for the audacious shot, gentle placement, and there is a very thin line between that working and failing, and he has always had to have a lot of attempts for it to be successful. In the world cups for example he hasn't got so many good opportunities to score, played 6 knockouts rounds, scored 0.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:If you're only talking about the past 8 games or so, well, there's strong evidence that he'll bounce back.

If you think he has not been like this longer than 8 games, then yes I also completely disagree with you as well.

Didn't think Depor had that in them. Saw the game, they totally deserved their win.

Yep, can't even remember Valencia registering a single shot on target. Lucky goals but deserved win

DuringTheWar wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:If you're only talking about the past 8 games or so, well, there's strong evidence that he'll bounce back.

If you think he has not been like this longer than 8 games, then yes I also completely disagree with you as well.

While I agree that converted shots is not the perfect stat when talking about finishing quality, don't you think if his finishing were as bad as you say over the past 2 years then that would be reflected in that stat? It might be lower in 12-14 than it was in 10-12, but if so I doubt the difference is significant.

Converted shots might be deceiving when someone takes a lot of shots like Ronaldo. It obviously doesn't mean that Ronaldo isn't a clinical finisher when inside the box. The other way around I don't see how it can be deceiving. When you finish "1 in 3" you finish "1 in 3". Unlike "taking overconfident and silly shots from outside" there is no effect that can pimp your conversion rate in the positive direction. Well, except when you are a box poacher like Gomez, Higuain and prime Pedro, only getting at the end of chances 6 yards infront of goal, but I think we can all agree that Messi ain't this type of player.

Points in the last 22 rounds of La Liga:

1. Sevilla - 50
2. Barcelona - 49
3. Atletio - 47
4. Real Madrid - 45

Yet Emery still doesn't entirely convince me.

League flop Carlo

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

DuringTheWar wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:If you're only talking about the past 8 games or so, well, there's strong evidence that he'll bounce back.

If you think he has not been like this longer than 8 games, then yes I also completely disagree with you as well.

While I agree that converted shots is not the perfect stat when talking about finishing quality, don't you think if his finishing were as bad as you say over the past 2 years then that would be reflected in that stat? It might be lower in 12-14 than it was in 10-12, but if so I doubt the difference is significant.

A quick look at his whoscored profile shows last season he scored 28 league goals from 5.2 shots per game, in 11 12 scored 50 from 5.5. That seems significantly lower to me, he started more games in 11 12, but it's still a big difference.

Fußball wrote:Well, except when you are a box poacher like Gomez, Higuain and prime Pedro, only getting at the end of chances 6 yards infront of goal, but I think we can all agree that Messi ain't this type of player.

Surely we can all agree if we had a map of his shot locations we'd see much more from "prime" locations than any other player. That's my impression from watching him play.

Totally knew the Depor Valencia game would have been the round of the weekend. Did not disappoint one bit. Unless you're a Los Che then it definitely wasn't good viewing at all...

Madrid media

TV3 (catalan) version: http://www.tv3.cat/3alacarta/#/videos/5293611

la sexta (madrid) version: http://www.lasexta.com//videos-online/noticias/deportes/messi-nego-ser-cambiado-eibar_2014101900028.html