Thiago ALCANTARA: 2021/22

Maybe talking about league games? :thinking:

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He us the new Gini.
Someone to have a go at when the downstairs toilet isnā€™t working properly

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So was I.

Edit; Even starts in the league was 20 for us. And 20 and 26 in his last two years in Germany.

They literally need 2 seconds on google to check the facts.

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Yeah it was league games.
Must be on average through his career?

It was Jamie Webster who said that, I think. I wonder if heā€™s getting confused about games completed or something.

Neil agreed with him though?

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Still not the correct info from what I can see.

Maybe a very unusual way of looking at minutes working out how many full 90 minutes heā€™s played per season? But he wasnā€™t a go to starter at Barca and not like he was under pressure to play every available minute in Germany with how much they dominated the league and how strong their squad was. They basically only played him when he was doing great and fit and firing. Wonder how many games Gerrard (for example) would have missed over the years for us if those had been the circumstances here?

Did he miss a season though a bad injury? Nothing like one bad number to screw up an average.

Also if youā€™re behind the pecking order of Xavi and Iniesta at Barcelona youā€™re games average isnā€™t going to be great. Bit like our Origi.

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OK so I ask TAW what the stats were.

Heā€™s done 30 to 42 all comps appearances in the last 6 seasons. They arenā€™t sure on League starts - which they said was the point.

Hope that clears it all up

Looks like 13/14 might have been a write off for him. Only made two league appearances.

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Mark Wahlberg Reaction GIF by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

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Some wild numbers here, takes only a few minutes of clean googling.

Letā€™s look at it from 11/12, when he had his first full proper season with Barca (we could look at Barca B as itā€™s senior football, but letā€™s keep it simple). Before that season, heā€™s had 3 seasons with 1, 2 and 17 games in all competitions. So an early intro of 20 games before he had his first full one.

Before we continue, I still donā€™t know why we have the constant need of separating and only focusing on league numbers. This player has played for Barcelona, Bayern and Liverpool. The league is the most important competition anywhere, but for those clubs, they (unfortunately not so much in our case compared to the other two) usually attack on all fronts.

Spain and Germany also have one domestic cup competition in comparison with England. Plus, in Germany you get 4 league games less with 18 clubs instead of 20. But anyway.

11/12 at Barca: 45 games in all comps; 27 in the league
12/13 at Barca: 36 games in all comps; 27 in the league
13/14 at Bayern: 25 games in all comps; 16 in the league
14/15 at Bayern: 13 games in all comps; 7 in the league
15/16 at Bayern: 42 games in all comps; 27 in the league
16/17 at Bayern: 41 games in all comps; 27 in the league
17/18 at Bayern: 32 games in all comps; 19 in the league
18/19 at Bayern: 42 games in all comps; 30 in the league
19/20 at Bayern: 40 games in all comps; 24 in the league
20/21 at Liverpool: 30 games in all comps; 24 in the league

So we can say in 10 full seasons heā€™s had with his clubs so far, not counting this season at itā€™s not even half completed, heā€™s averaging 34.6 games in all comps per season.

Injury history from transfermarkt (difficult area to get 100% correct, but to get an idea):

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They were saying we really need him to put a run together of 10 straight games for us but has he ever done that anywhere?

My opinion was that heā€™s a better player than the transfer deal he was.

Iā€™ll give another, opposite example, I thought at the moment of us signing him that Shaqiri was a better transfer deal than the player he was. Good deal initially, but we wanted a 4th attacker and I think he wasnā€™t good enough for that. Had a little period in autumn 2018, but it was too few for our needs. We still had to put massive hope in our front 3 and search for different options at different times.

Obviously if you have Thiago Alcantara at your football club, Iā€™d say pretty much regardless of your playing style, youā€™d be happy to have him as an important (though not ever present for 50 odd games) player.

I said when we were first linked with him that I donā€™t want it to happen at any cost; fee, wages, wage structure, length, etc. But that heā€™s a CM of the highest calibre. Of course, the Bundesliga is universally likeable and sometimes we forget that itā€™s of somewhat lesser quality than some other top leagues. Still, I didnā€™t think that was a problem for Thiago.

So far, Iā€™d say that yes, as a player and on the pitch, itā€™s been somewhat worse than I expected. I also think Klopp is using him in a different way than at Bayern. Playing a left sided double pivot in Bayernā€™s usual 4-2-3-1 is very different to playing the higher/right sided #8 in a 4-3-3 at Liverpool, needing to cover spaces between Trent and Salah, often needing to stretch on that side and almost make it a 4-4-2 at times. Thiago is not a runner and not such a dribbler. His technique is probably the highest at the club, but this is lazy use of a player like him. Heā€™s not best when heā€™s the most free of a midfield 3, heā€™s not best when heā€™s the deepest either. Heā€™s best exactly in the middle, and in this stage of his career, the more reserved of the two advanced #8ā€™s in our system.

Am I surprised heā€™s not fit for 45-55 games? No. I was aware weā€™re bringing a player for around 35-40 games max. And yes, I was hoping for better and more consistent stuff on the pitch. And that we would use him differently, have him more positional and having view of the rest of the pitch from LCM, where his right foot is more open towards the game, ordinating slightly more from deep than our RCM, who is a much more dynamic role, that of Henderson, and weā€™ll all agree that Thiago and Hendo are two very different players. Yes, Gini and Thiago are also two different players, but our hope was probably that we could do more (not in all games) with only one of Gini/Hendo ahead of a Fabinho, but incorporate more often a Thiago/Keita/Jones in that CM mix.

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We are 11 games into this season, itā€™s not unreasonable for him to have not done it this year.

He played our final ten games last season, 9 as a starter. Was instrumental in them and a shout for man of the match in nearly all of them. This is as clear as you could ever want an example of the media repeating something enough till people start believing it.

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I just can not believe I read all that, bravo ARD for being so meticulous.
I am so glad I donā€™t listen to crap on the internet!

You should email Jurgen and his team with this superior knowledge

What are you doing here then? :thinking:

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Reading! :innocent:
ā€¦ and making up my own stories. :rofl: