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Rodrigo Bentancur

braineclipse said:
Cheers for posting with such well reasoned arguments.

If Bentancur is that average on the ball how was he ever thought of as an option for a deep distributor at a big club like Juventus? From what I've seen/read he's a bit better as a passer than you make it sound. Not a deep playmaker, but someone well capable of good progressive passing?

As for the strategy, I agree with your overall point. Raising the floor will only get us so far, but as part of a strategy I think that's fine.

I think that's perhaps a bit harsh particularly on Kulusevski who is clearly talented and at 21 has quite a bit of room to grow.

I also think that the overall quality of a player is less important than how they fit into our style and approach. Round pegs and all that.

A player that on overall quality is not much more than a floor raiser can be much more if they fit what the team and manager needs.

But yeah, to really push on you probably need someone special. If that's not one of these lads let's hope we get someone like that in the summer.
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Re: being forced to play as more of a ball distributor for Juve, it's because of tactical necessity, basically. Both Sarri and Pirlo relied on having a deep-lying pivot in midfield who received the ball from the center-backs - in Sarri's system, that player would turn and move it on with a short pass in to an attacking player (like Winks - Jorginho, Sarri's ideal, is basically Winks on steroids, imo), and in Pirlo's system, that player was expected to turn and launch a long, accurate pass to set players away.

In eseence, Bentancur was crowbar'ed into that role for both managers, because the other midfield options (Rabiot, Ramsey et al) were spectacularly unreliable. Ramsey is a defensive deadweight even on the rare instances he isn't injured, and Rabiot is an utter headcase that would make Tanguy look like the epitome of hard work and reliability. Pjanic had declined considerably, and others like Arthur Melo and McKennie (last year) had off-field issues that made them unreliable.

Bentancur has 'grinta' - he scraps, fights, never gives up, has what the Italian media have stereotypically called an 'Uruguayan' street fighter's mentality.

So, he was the least awful of the options for that role - even as it became abundantly clear that he could not make passes to save his life at times, he at least offered a bit of a 6/10 in terms of defensive stability.

But he was never made for the deep-lying playmaker role. At Juve, Locatelli coming in has made a huge difference to their buildup play because he can play that role perfectly. Bentancur did start the season on his favoured role as a roaming destroyer next to him, but he has been supplanted by McKennie, who in addition to being a capable defender, is also a bit more technically gifted and able to attack.

I agree - we need a lot more to really move up in squad quality, and Conte has fallen far in terms of what he has available to him in midfield. But I suppose these signings are sort of 'the best we can do', and at least offer Conte warm bodies to finish the season that are marginally more useful than Alli, Ndombele, Lo Celso et al (who technically are leagues above Bentancur, but who, mentality wise, are leagues below). The thing you can say about Bentancur is that he's a fighter, a scrapper, a hard worker - ditto Kulusevski. Think Conte won't mind that, even if I suspect he wants much, much better than this.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Re: being forced to play as more of a ball distributor for Juve, it's because of tactical necessity, basically. Both Sarri and Pirlo relied on having a deep-lying pivot in midfield who received the ball from the center-backs - in Sarri's system, that player would turn and move it on with a short pass in to an attacking player (like Winks - Jorginho, Sarri's ideal, is basically Winks on steroids, imo), and in Pirlo's system, that player was expected to turn and launch a long, accurate pass to set players away.

In eseence, Bentancur was crowbar'ed into that role for both managers, because the other midfield options (Rabiot, Ramsey et al) were spectacularly unreliable. Ramsey is a defensive deadweight even on the rare instances he isn't injured, and Rabiot is an utter headcase that would make Tanguy look like the epitome of hard work and reliability. Pjanic had declined considerably, and others like Arthur Melo and McKennie (last year) had off-field issues that made them unreliable.

Bentancur has 'grinta' - he scraps, fights, never gives up, has what the Italian media have stereotypically called an 'Uruguayan' street fighter's mentality.

So, he was the least awful of the options for that role - even as it became abundantly clear that he could not make passes to save his life at times, he at least offered a bit of a 6/10 in terms of defensive stability.

But he was never made for the deep-lying playmaker role. At Juve, Locatelli coming in has made a huge difference to their buildup play because he can play that role perfectly. Bentancur did start the season on his favoured role as a roaming destroyer next to him, but he has been supplanted by McKennie, who in addition to being a capable defender, is also a bit more technically gifted and able to attack.

I agree - we need a lot more to really move up in squad quality, and Conte has fallen far in terms of what he has available to him in midfield. But I suppose these signings are sort of 'the best we can do', and at least offer Conte warm bodies to finish the season that are marginally more useful than Alli, Ndombele, Lo Celso et al (who technically are leagues above Bentancur, but who, mentality wise, are leagues below). The thing you can say about Bentancur is that he's a fighter, a scrapper, a hard worker - ditto Kulusevski. Think Conte won't mind that, even if I suspect he wants much, much better than this.
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We obviously see his ability on the ball a bit differently. I trust your opinion over mine as you've seen more of him in recent years and in general know what you're talking about.
 
braineclipse said:
We obviously see his ability on the ball a bit differently. I trust your opinion over mine as you've seen more of him in recent years and in general know what you're talking about.
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We do. To be fair, my view of him is colored by watching him struggle to play long passes a *lot* last season - as someone with no connection to Juve who only watches Serie A for fun, it was hilarious to watch some of the abysmal passes he made that flew into the stands while Pirlo groaned. :p

I actually believe his progressive passing stats are up this season, so who knows, he may surprise us all (although in my view, that's because he's making passes from higher up than he did last season - just a positioning thing). And in that case, your view would be fully justified.

Just don't expect miracles, would be my suggestion. ;) By recruiting Bentancur, I would suggest that we have already defined the single biggest recruitment need for the summer window - a deep-lying playmaker.

A Ruben Neves, a Brozovic, a Locatelli. A player who can play intricate, accurate, one-touch passes, long and short, while being able to sit deep and collect the ball from the CBs.

With Bentancur, Hojbjerg and Skipp, we have a stable of thoroughly workmanlike midfielders. We now will need a real creator come May to really push on, imo. Sarr will come in, but he's a raw kid. We need quality in that area, badly.
 
DubaiSpur said:
We do. To be fair, my view of him is colored by watching him struggle to play long passes a *lot* last season - as someone with no connection to Juve who only watches Serie A for fun, it was hilarious to watch some of the abysmal passes he made that flew into the stands while Pirlo groaned. :p

I actually believe his progressive passing stats are up this season, so who knows, he may surprise us all (although in my view, that's because he's making passes from higher up than he did last season - just a positioning thing). And in that case, your view would be fully justified.

Just don't expect miracles, would be my suggestion. ;) By recruiting Bentancur, I would suggest that we have already defined the single biggest recruitment need for the summer window - a deep-lying playmaker.

A Ruben Neves, a Brozovic, a Locatelli. A player who can play intricate, accurate, one-touch passes, long and short, while being able to sit deep and collect the ball from the CBs.

With Bentancur, Hojbjerg and Skipp, we have a stable of thoroughly workmanlike midfielders. We now will need a real creator come May to really push on, imo. Sarr will come in, but he's a raw kid. We need quality in that area, badly.
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Definitely not expecting miracles, or Pirlo reincarnated.

Those progressive passes though, slightly higher up the pitch, being able to play through lines while under a bit of pressure. I think that's really important under Conte. Doing that while being a really good ball winner. Seems like a good fit.

A quality deep playmaker would be great.
 
Crab.C.Nesbitt said:
Maybe he conte will look to utilise betancur in the same way chelbrick use kante
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That's exactly the comparison that a few folks in Serie A have made - he's a budget Kante, but even less skilled on the ball (Kante is surprisingly good at evading pressure).

Problem is, Kante plays next to deep-lying playmakers who can handle advancing the ball up the field. We don't have any - while we will have two 'Kantes', in essence, in Hojbjerg and Bentancur, who are functionally identical.

It's an imbalance that needs rectifying, whatever else we do. Ruben Neves in the summer is the dream, but it's unlikely we win that race now.
 
Neither this guy or Kulusevski sounds particularly mouth-watering, but you've got to assume that Conte knows a thing or two about building a team, and about which types he wants in his squad - so ... let's see how it goes. Trust the process and all that. :)
 
DubaiSpur said:
That's exactly the comparison that a few folks in Serie A have made - he's a budget Kante, but even less skilled on the ball (Kante is surprisingly good at evading pressure).

Problem is, Kante plays next to deep-lying playmakers who can handle advancing the ball up the field. We don't have any - while we will have two 'Kantes', in essence, in Hojbjerg and Bentancur, who are functionally identical.

It's an imbalance that needs rectifying, whatever else we do. Ruben Neves in the summer is the dream, but it's unlikely we win that race now.
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Bentancur can evade pressure pretty well and is good at moving forward with the ball. I don’t know why people listen to other peoples opinions and take it as fact, if you listen to a few on here you would think Dier and Sanchez have been falling over and scoring own goals every other game.
 
Daisuk said:
Neither this guy or Kulusevski sounds particularly mouth-watering, but you've got to assume that Conte knows a thing or two about building a team, and about which types he wants in his squad - so ... let's see how it goes. Trust the process and all that. :)
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We only have about 15-16 players who Conte seems to trust (at most) so adding a couple bodies to that it pretty helpful

There's a lot of inbalances still in the squad, and some glaring holes, but its some progress
 
I've watched a few you tubes of him and I noticed three things about him straightaway
First, he can use both feet so not another Lo Celso
Second, he's tough in melees so not another Lo Celso
Three, he can do stuff that HW can only dream about

So he may not be a Pirlo, Gasgoigne, Hoddle etc but he IS an improvement.
 
Darren Bent
David Bentley
Nabil Bentaleb

All we need to add to Bentacur is Benteke!

Footnote, none of our previous Bents have done very well for us....
 
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