ADegenerate
Well-Known Member
I think Pep is moulding Bernardo into a 8, it will take some time. Playing as a winger is miles easier in tactical sense as you're always shielded by the touchline and don't need to constantly assess the situation around. The ways of dismarking also differ a lot and are more difficult, require more awareness. In his first game as 8 Bernardo looked like a rabbit in the headlights and showed almost zero productivity, he still thinks like a counterattacking player, struggles to create space in the middle for himself and teammates. No surprise that all our possession play went tits up after Gundo's injury.
Think moulding into a perfect 8 could take a season, thankfully he's quite versatile - performing as an inside forward/winger will allow to get more minutes and ease the integration a bit.
I kind of struggled to see how he was going to fit into the squad on a regular basis going into the season because I don't see him playing wide in a front three like a lot of folks seemed to be slotting him into. I have a personal bias against slow creative players in that position and I was fairly sure that Pep didn't want him playing there regularly either. He's perfect playing wide in a traditional old school 4-4-2 / counter attacking system like you pointed out. I prefer direct, strong, pacey wingers and Pep does as well I think so if anything he's more of a fallback there. We already have enough finesse in the squad as. A front three of Raz/Aguero/Silva would have me pretty anxious tbh but different strokes for different folks I guess. I'm not saying he can't or wont play there but I don't see it as ideal for how we want to play.
He'll be perfectly fine in the long term and I'm not worried about him but I think he's kind of caught in no man's land for the time being.
So I think you're right about him being molded into an 8 and personally I'm ex-tactic about that.
Edit: Hey @Dax777 interested to get your take here. Don't/didn't you see him as a forward? Think I'm off base with this one?
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