Eric Garcia to Barcelona

[St.Pauli support]

I dont begrudge Garcia wanting to go to be honest and I'm not that bothered about it. He looks good on the ball but has lots to improve on yet. Good luck to him, we just need to make sure we get a fair fee

Perfectly realistic summary, without all those bad losers' comments on here.
Thanks.

Eric is a near perfect Pep defender with fantastic build-up skills, and that's exactly
where Pep's game starts.

Walker can't do it, Ota can't, Stones technically could but mentally can't.
All of them mostly are no problem vs lesser PL sides,
but vs high press or CL level the problems begin to unfold...

If Garcia was poor, Pep and the club bosses wouldn't go mad about his refusal and this thread wouldn't have been in meltdown for some time (in very very poor style - I thought we were much better).

Koulibaly would offer those build-up skills and also more height and physicality.
That's why we are in and our problems would be minimized on CB.
No surprise Garcia expects limited minutes. Fingers crossed for him
his plans work out somewhere else.

Until then he is a City player and I expect full commitment. Even for coming CL matches.

 

[Coatigan]

Before we get carried away yes he looks good but the again do did Jason Denayer, Matija Nastasic and Stefan Savic all are earning decent money but never made the elite level.

Savic was one of the best defenders in europe a few seasons ago, at Atl.Madrid. Nastasic and Denayer both did well for cgampions league level clubs.

 

[ctid1894]

Tbf, 'raw & inexperienced' is a perfectly reasonable excuse & would cover the other similar instances, where nobody was playing anyone onside but the same thing happened.

However, the problem which arises is that he has no other option. It's offside or bust. Even if he had the awareness to drop off, he still wouldn't be able to do anything.

See you mentioned this before and I disagreed back then as well. If Garcia's only method of defending was to try and play offside, I would understand your argument but that's clearly not the case. We've seen during games and it's on various highlight clips of him stepping in front of his man to win the ball, dropping off and playing offside. He's intelligent enough to make the right decision at the right time, mostly.

Will he make mistakes, yes of course, every defender in the world has made multiple mistakes and always will do but it's certainly not a trait in Garcia's game which stands out as a huge weakness in my opinion. Like I said I think a lot of people are using the 'raw, inexperienced mistakes' argument as a lazy stereotype, when it simply isn't backed up either during games or by his managers comments. If the mistakes were so frequent or blatant, he wouldn't be getting as much game time. Pep doesn't always pick Foden when a lot of us fans think his inclusion is warranted, players are picked on merit and Garcia earned his place by playing well.

The fact he's been a sneaky little **** (judging by Tolmie's posts yesterday) make it difficult for me to want to defend him but I just don't think the criticism of his 'mistakes' are justified.

 

[Neville Kneville]

There doesn’t seem to be any consistency. Sometimes wonder if the weight of Bluemoon opinion ends up swaying club decisions. Adarabioyo is already being written off on here, just like Denayer was, and I suspect he’ll not be given time and opportunity to learn and become a top player at the club.

He might not be anywhere near good enough. But the judgement on that should be based on what he actually does, rather than what he might do if we totally ignore him being basically shit at most aspects of being a cb.

If he gets a chance, then he needs to exhibit the basics of defending & learn quickly.

 

[Neville Kneville]

See you mentioned this before and I disagreed back then as well. If Garcia's only method of defending was to try and play offside, I would understand your argument but that's clearly not the case. We've seen during games and it's on various highlight clips of him stepping in front of his man to win the ball, dropping off and playing offside. He's intelligent enough to make the right decision at the right time, mostly.

Will he make mistakes, yes of course, every defender in the world has made multiple mistakes and always will do but it's certainly not a trait in Garcia's game which stands out as a huge weakness in my opinion. Like I said I think a lot of people are using the 'raw, inexperienced mistakes' argument as a lazy stereotype, when it simply isn't backed up either during games or by his managers comments. If the mistakes were so frequent or blatant, he wouldn't be getting as much game time. Pep doesn't always pick Foden when a lot of us fans think his inclusion is warranted, players are picked on merit and Garcia earned his place by playing well.

The fact he's been a sneaky little **** (judging by Tolmie's posts yesterday) make it difficult for me to want to defend him but I just don't think the criticism of his 'mistakes' are justified.

Of course he can step in front of his man & make (mostly) correct decisions in that regard.

What I'm saying is, that it's his only option, in a high line. He has to catch the player offside, or win the ball, there & then (or have Laporte come running over & win it for him) because once the ball passes him, he won't catch anybody.

Compare that with some highlights of Koulibaly or Ake, for example, they run with players & stop them.

He can't. It's offside, win the ball first, or dead.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Savic was one of the best defenders in europe a few seasons ago, at Atl.Madrid. Nastasic and Denayer both did well for cgampions league level clubs.

Savic plays for Atletico.

Even Garcia would be ok closing the doors on that bus.

 

[Rammyblues]

According to one tweet supposedly after 31m for him. Knowing Barca more like 5m with a couple of million add ons. If for some reason they were to cough up 31m that would indeed soften the blow.

 

[ctid1894]

Of course he can step in front of his man & make (mostly) correct decisions in that regard.

What I'm saying is, that it's his only option, in a high line. He has to catch the player offside, or win the ball, there & then (or have Laporte come running over & win it for him) because once the ball passes him, he won't catch anybody.

Compare that with some highlights of Koulibaly or Ake, for example, they run with players & stop them.

He can't. It's offside, win the ball first, or dead.

Horses for courses.

I prefer a defender to anticipate situations, position themselves well and make the best decisions. Give me Laporte over Micah Richards any day, he might not be as quick or strong but his intelligence will mean he doesn't have to use his physicality anywhere near as frequently. Garcia is similar, intelligence and quality over physicality (within reason obviously) for me.

I'm one of Micah's biggest fans, love the lads commitment and what he did for us, so that's no dig at him at all, he did everything and more than what anyone anyone could ever ask of a City player.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Horses for courses.

I prefer a defender to anticipate situations, position themselves well and make the best decisions. Give me Laporte over Micah Richards any day, he might not be as quick or strong but his intelligence will mean he doesn't have to use his physicality anywhere near as frequently. Garcia is similar, intelligence and quality over physicality (within reason obviously) for me.

I'm one of Micah's biggest fans, love the lads commitment and what he did for us, so that's no dig at him at all, he did everything and more than what anyone anyone could ever ask of a City player.

It's not actually possible to do that, 100%, especially in a team like City's though. And Garcia has made as many judgement & positional mistakes as anyone else in the squad.

We decided enough was enough, with Demichelis, who basically played the same way, mostly anticipating everything perfectly, then getting one horribly wrong.

 

[ctid1894]

It's not actually possible to do that, 100%, especially in a team like City's though. And Garcia has made as many judgement & positional mistakes as anyone else in the squad.

We decided enough was enough, with Demichelis, who basically played the same way, mostly anticipating everything perfectly, then getting one horribly wrong.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one because I'm not seeing these so called decision making and positional mistakes in the same frequency as yourself, neither seemingly does Pep.

“He’s so intelligent. He guides the line incredibly well. A guy who is beloved, I know from his career at Barcelona, every single season he was the captain, nominated by his team-mates. That shows his personality. He doesn’t make mistakes and whatever he has to do, he does it properly. He listens and wants to learn all the time and therefore deserves to play. He communicates with his team-mates and he’s so young, just 19!”