Borja Valero

[JJM]

can we make a younger clone of him please?!

 

[ScottishInterista]

Yet you voted an 8 for him...

Like who didn't see a 32 year old coming here and declining? Oh wait the majority of FIF apparently who supported his signing...

And he was that good at the start and had been that good for the past couple seasons. I banked on him staying in form for at least a season and not have him go to shit. Sorry for not being like you and shitting on every player we sign from the very beginning.

Its always easy to criticise someones prediction when you dont give one yourself though nyall

 

[JJM]

he is a good player...just old...blivious:

 

[Nyall]

And he was that good at the start and had been that good for the past couple seasons. I banked on him staying in form for at least a season and not have him go to shit. Sorry for not being like you and shitting on every player we sign from the very beginning.

Its always easy to criticise someones prediction when you dont give one yourself though nyall

Borja for the most part hasn't done anything better or worse now than he did at the start of the season. We were simply winning before so what he did at the start was overlooked.


This signing was idiotic from the offset, and I have never changed my stance on it. We needed high quality and consistent play from that position, instead we opted for old and average, and now our fans are mad that Valero is delivering exactly what we paid for. We talked about challenging then signed a guy who wouldn't start on any of the teams we're challenging. It's not my fault that you and many others (especially in management) lack proper judgement or worse can't seem to make the correlation between bad signings and us being shitty on the pitch having bad seasons with failed objectives.

 

[surripere]

Filling he's position is a priority for next season.

 

[TGDella]

Meh, Borja was still very important to the winning run we notched up at the start of the season. Shouldn't be forgotten.

I'm hoping Rafinha continues to look good and reduces the need for an intelligent midfielder in Borja's place so we can gradually phase him out, because although they're positionally different their skillsets are similar and was very much a hole our midfield that needed filling. You can't just have Gaglia, Vecino and Brozo/JM in there, there'd be no craft. I think if that happens, and BV is just a squad player next season, it still won't have been an awful buy due to the points he helped us accumulate and the experience he'll still have to offer the squad going forward. Was pretty inexpensive.

 

[CafeCordoba]

Valero definitely needs to be replaced for next season, no matter how the rest of the season goes.

What I'm worried about is this season. How we gonna cope with our current midfielders if Valero starts to get exchausted already.

 

[Ronaldo]

People keep saying Valero is imoprtant but they fail to provide any proof of it.

Does he defend well? Attack? Shoot on goal? make key passes? Provide assists? What does he do that impresses you so much?! Or is it all in your imagination?


He doesn't contribute in defense, doesn't contribute in attack, he is useless.

Please prove me wrong. Anyone?

 

[CafeCordoba]

He controls the flow and tempo of our game. When the team has the ball, where are we going (left/right) and how fast. Players like Vecino, Gagliardini or Brozovic cannot do this.

The problem is Valero is so slow these days that he becomes a liability in our midfield. No agility to receive a bad pass without losing it and can't press opponents at all. This player type is something we've lacked since Cambiasso and it's very unfortunate we didn't get Valero earlier.

 

[TGDella]

People keep saying Valero is imoprtant but they fail to provide any proof of it.

Does he defend well? Attack? Shoot on goal? make key passes? Provide assists? What does he do that impresses you so much?! Or is it all in your imagination?


He doesn't contribute in defense, doesn't contribute in attack, he is useless.

Please prove me wrong. Anyone?

It's pretty hard to provide 'proof' of the efficiency of a deep-lying playmaker as neither goals and assists or defensive tackles/interceptions are really his job, but for the first half of the season when you watched him in our midfield the skill with which he manipulated space and picked out intelligent passes to put our players in better positions was quite plain to see.

Obviously not comparing them in terms of absolute quality but there were seasons in which Paul Scholes would score very few goals for United, often only 1 or 2. I don't have key pass/assist data to hand but reckon they often weren't through the roof either. His place in the team was never in doubt, though, because he could totally dictate play and very rarely lose the ball, and a player who does that in your midfield is very valuable. BV for the first half of this season did exactly the same thing. He's faded recently, but so has much of the team.

 

[Nyall]

Here we go again.. Overrating average players, because they play for Inter. The difference between our success in the start of the season and now is that back then Icardi, Perisic and Candreva were scoring and assisting goals and now they aren't. You're acting as if we were dominating these games and playing some great football, we weren't and were scraping by, much like we did today. Having players like Valero who are old as dirt and can't keep up with the game physically, is not helping.


Vale- I mean Paul Scholes dictating play in the first half today had us being dominated by Bologna at home. Rafinha came in and did what Valero was supposed to have been doing for us since he got here. His mobility, technique and creativity changed the game for us today, and we were much more dangerous as a result. Valero has never looked that good in our shirt and never moved the ball that well for us and is not even in the same stratosphere as Rafinha in terms of talent.


A midfield of three Rafinha level players gets us into the Champions League. A midfield of Valero level players gets us 8 matches in a row without a win and 6 years in a row without the Champions League. You would think that this would be common sense, but apparently not...


What's funny is that the same people running to his defense here are the ones cursing Spalletti for not benching him in match threads.

 

[junior55]

Actually he is still pretty good in the Deep lying playmaker position.

The problem is that spallo insists in pushim him forward to trequartista when he for some idiot reason wants to defend vs 10 man bologna with gaglia and vecino , and in the trequarti position borja sucks completely.

His only role should be to get the pass from the defenders and move it forward in more important spaces and he delivers that very well. It's not his fault if the off ball movement of the players around him in attack is comparable to mine in the coach while watching the match.

 

[surripere]

We'd sure be a lot worse without him. Gary Medel anyone? That said, the position needs to be filled for next season by a Badelj/Torreira etc.

 

[Ronaldo]

He controls the flow and tempo of our game. When the team has the ball, where are we going (left/right) and how fast. Players like Vecino, Gagliardini or Brozovic cannot do this.

The problem is Valero is so slow these days that he becomes a liability in our midfield. No agility to receive a bad pass without losing it and can't press opponents at all. This player type is something we've lacked since Cambiasso and it's very unfortunate we didn't get Valero earlier.

You just have this image of Valero controlling the flow and tempo of the game in your head and you are convinced that's what he does.

Well, he doesn't!

How does he exactly control the tempo when most of the time when he receives the ball either he loses it or make a short sideways pass? How does that control the flow and tempo and how can't other players do that?

If what he does is so important how come Fiorentina don't seem to be missing him?

Last year at Fiorentina he had 1 goal and 9 assists. So far this season, no assists!

Correct me if I'm wrong but if he actually does control the flow and tempo of our game, shouldn't pretty much most of the balls from the defense go though him? Shouldn't he be the one who decides from which side we attack? How does he do that when most of the balls out from our defense end up being long balls to the wingers or be given to the fullbacks?

I tell you what Valero does. When we have the ball in the center of the field, the opponent is sitting deep and we are just passing the ball around in a circle waiting for a gap tp open up, that's what Valero does. He is just there to make these short 1-2 meters passes back and forth in the midfield before the ball ends up passed to the FBs or the wingers.

Either that or he ends up losing the ball. He rarely does anything else and I think any other midfielder can do that.

Ok, I think that explains that he can't control the flow of the game. So how about the tempo? What does controlling the tempo mean? The way I understand it is that he is able to speed up or slow down our game depending on the situation, correct? How does he do that when most of the time he either ends up making short 1-2s with the nearest player or loses the ball?

He doesn't control the tempo either.

It's pretty hard to provide 'proof' of the efficiency of a deep-lying playmaker as neither goals and assists or defensive tackles/interceptions are really his job, but for the first half of the season when you watched him in our midfield the skill with which he manipulated space and picked out intelligent passes to put our players in better positions was quite plain to see.

Obviously not comparing them in terms of absolute quality but there were seasons in which Paul Scholes would score very few goals for United, often only 1 or 2. I don't have key pass/assist data to hand but reckon they often weren't through the roof either. His place in the team was never in doubt, though, because he could totally dictate play and very rarely lose the ball, and a player who does that in your midfield is very valuable. BV for the first half of this season did exactly the same thing. He's faded recently, but so has much of the team.

I haven't watched Scholes a lot to comment but I think you mean a player like Modric, right? A guy with a pass before the assists, that's what you mean, correct?

Well, I disagree compeletely. To be a deeplying playmaker he needs to be able to distribute the ball, provide key passes, dictate the flow and tempo (as Cafe said above). But I don't see him doing any of that.

To give him credit, I think our first goal today was generated by him. I think he crossed the ball to Karamoh, then Karamoh to Brozovic and then Eder.

Ok, but how many times does he do this in a game? In contrast, how many times he ends up losing the ball? He loses the ball way more often and these long passes are once every blue moon. Even Miranda and Skriniar sometimes do that, doesn't mean they can be deeplying playmakers. One successful long ball a game doesn't justify him starting.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

He has one successful long ball per game but on the other hand he is slow, can't run, can't shoot, can't defend and loses the ball too often. He is just a liability in the middle and I don't understand how is he a starter!

If he is such a fantastic player, how come we had zero competition for signing him? Every other club out there failed to see his quality but us?

The only reason we were doing well at the beginning of the season was because Candreva and Perisic were doing well. I'm one of Candreva's biggest critics but if you go to his thread you'll see a post of me praising him. Because he was actually playing well, making runs and distributing the ball.

Our gameplan was basically recover the ball and pass it to Candreva or pass it to DDA so he can pass it to Candreva. Candreva crosses and either Icardi or Perisic end up scoring.

Valero had nothing to do with our gameplan. He was busy in the middle making short 1-2s.

I hope soon see him benched for Rafinha. Then you guys will know what you are missing.

 

[Besnik]

Too bad Borja Valero's legs don't work as good as his brain.

 

[Batman]

Valero is a class player. People who dont notice that dont understand football because football isn't just about goals and assists. I'm not saying he is the best midfielder in the world, but people should notice how well he is on the ball and how he controls the tempo, he is the only reason we could maintain possession and able to move the ball from the defense to the offense, he is by far our best passer in the team excluding Rafinha. He has good vision, shame he is slow and not strong enough, and Vecino making headless chicken runs always leaves Valero exposed.

We can't move forward next season with this player as he is getting older and will surely get weaker, but I wouldnt mind him at all as a bench player.

 

[thatdude]

Filling he's position is a priority for next season.

1 Torreira please.

 

[CafeCordoba]

...

If you don't understand the position of regista, then I can't help you.

I surely remember the times we had Gargano and Melo playing in our midfield, "dictating" our play and Valero is miles ahead of them. No one is saying Valero is world class or anything, just that he's important in our midfield (Inter's midfield is not world class, surprise!)

 

[Demenza Senile]

I think his game will seem much better to everybody if he has Rafinha playing ahead of him in midfield.Cant wait to see both Rafinha and Valero starting a game and dictating play from the 1st minute.And Vecino does the donkey work ofcourse.

 

[Sqnalkel]

He controls the flow and tempo of our game. When the team has the ball, where are we going (left/right) and how fast. Players like Vecino, Gagliardini or Brozovic cannot do this.

The problem is Valero is so slow these days that he becomes a liability in our midfield. No agility to receive a bad pass without losing it and can't press opponents at all. This player type is something we've lacked since Cambiasso and it's very unfortunate we didn't get Valero earlier.

That's funny, because our midfield play is the worst, we get dominated even by super shitty teams.

So I don't see which flow and tempo is he controlling when we can't even outplay the worst teams in Serie A.