19 | Julian Alvarez - 2023/24

[Txiki Txiki Bang Bang]

Jesus changed games for us

**no water into wine jokes please ;) **

That's all I'll say.

 

[Mr Partridge]

Stop it now Pep.

Please, just stop it.

 

[super_city_si]

So much to love about the lad but he is NOT a midfielder. We are so much poorer when he plays there.

 

[youngbob]

Not a midfielder. Needs to find a new role.

 

[Haaland94]

Not a midfielder, but he is our 2nd best goal-scorer, 1st chance-creator this season (close to 60 chances), 1st for pressing, and 1st for work rate. Julian, Kevin, and Phil were all asked to play weird roles tonight, and it nullified their best attributes. Nothing to see here, IMO. Still one of the most talented young players in Europe right now.

 

[nellyonthewing]

Another great talent shoehorned into the wrong position.

 

[Damanino]

I thought he is back to bench once KDB is back but Pep clearly tries to find him space in the line up quite often still. If he would be great in this specific role I wouldnt mind, but he aint that great.

our failure to properly replace Gundo is haunting us. we either play Kovacic who is nowhere near as attacking as Gundo and wont come up with clutch goals (or any goals) but my give us a bit better control of midfield, or we play Alvarez who loses the ball a lot, aint really feeling the play in his deeper role dont have a midfielder brain, but might add some goals due to his instincts.
now Gundo gave us best of both worlds and created/assisted some goals as well or won a few games for us on his own and helped us control the game, speed of the game etc.

not sure we get away with this tactically in a huge CL game or even in the league vs Pool, Arsenal.

 

[fuskarn]

he has incriminating evidence on pep, there is no other explanation for why he keeps playing in midfield

 

[Cobra]

Back up striker next season and that’s it. If that’s not enough for him then we sell him for 4x what we paid for him and either buy a replacement or let Delap do it.

 

[ninjamonkey]

This isn't on him. He's not asking pep to play him there but he just isn't a midfielder and doesn't offer us anything others cant do better. It's shoehorning him in for thr sake of it. He is a fantastic player that will play his part but in a side where haaland starts and kdb starts. He doesn't. Especially so when foden and doku also start.

He'd have made much more impact on the game today coming on for the last 20.

Not to blame but needs addressing.