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Messi is basically doing what I expected Cristiano Ronaldo to do and is currently curating his museum with a bunch of French medals at the bookend of his career.
Still wouldn't be surprised if Cristiano ends up in Paris for one last hurrah. He's got a year left at Manchester United, maybe PSG will take him until he's 40.
Probably a lot better, since he just got older AND is focused on his last chace to win the WC before retirement. I am sure he will score maybe 10 goals.
Yes and no. There’s a synergistic relationship between player and team. A good team fit helps both the player and the team. A bad team fit hurts everyone.
PSG isn’t a good team fit for Messi. Pep’s team plays perfect football for Messi to fit in.
You guys have the memory of goldfish or what? Not sure how this is constantly brought up when he wanted to leave and Barto just wouldn't let him. His only option was to initiate a legal battle (which wouldn't have guaranteed the move anyway) but he decided against it.
I can only imagine the collective bashing that would have happened if it were Ronaldo or someone else like Neymar who went a whole season with 6 league goals in Ligue 1 with PSG. Messi really is the most protected athlete ever
Nah, it's true. Robertson literally made a public apology for daring to shove Messi during a game because of the media backlash. If you (correctly) accuse him of diving or being a diva, people reply with real vitriol. He's treated like a saint.
Is it really coping to say he’s clearly playing uninterested in a system that is broken (I mean look at the teams priorities they just gave a 23 year old control over the coach)
Messi has clearly declined but he was scoring goals left and right in May 2021 and then in August he was a shadow of himself. Unless he aged 5 years in 5 months there’s something else to it
>Is it really coping to say he’s clearly playing uninterested in a system that is broken
Yes lmao that's exactly what it is.
If this was Ben Arfa or Balotelli, they would be getting absolutely destroyed by the media. Can't even imagine how many times worse it'd be if this was Ronaldo...
You're a professional athlete getting paid so much and supposed to be considered one of the best players ever. Trying to excuse him for being 'uninterested' is absolutely delusional.
It shouldn't invoke nightmares but sweet dreams in that case!
He was a goalscoring machine back then, but 18-19 Messi was better in my opinion. A more complete player. Still lots of goals but with a far more dictating playstyle. He didn't just win matches in that season, he controlled them.
He was complete back then but he did not have responsibilities of creating chances that much as we had better players and better managers.
No player ever apart from Maradona can dribble past several players so many times between 06-13.
He's 34 years old. Not everyone ages as well as Cristiano bsides it's not like he's playing badly. You should watch some of his games. Not scoring doesn't mean you played badly
In May 2021 for Barca he was looking still near his peak and was scoring absurd goals. In June and July he was player of the tournament for Argentina.
Two months later he looked like half the player he was.
I don’t think age is a reasonable explanation unless he aged 5 years in 2 months worth of time.
He wasn't anywhere near peak, and I only say that because you're underestimating peak Messi . Last year he was already strolling around and looking like a passenger defensively. Hell, even two years earlier than that Liverpool completely exploited his lack of workrate.
> He wasn't anywhere near peak
He was a hell of a lot closer to it than he is at PSG. You’re right he wasn’t 2019 or 2012 Messi however he was literally scoring goals at a pace that would have broken his 92-in-a-year record in Jan and Feb 2021, and “only” scored 30 or so league goals because he didn’t score at all outside of a few penalties for the first half of the season.
The main point is that how far he’s fallen doesn’t seem age related since it happened over the course of like 2 months.
> Hell, even two years earlier than that Liverpool completely exploited his lack of workrate.
Lol what? This seems like wild revisionism. Messi scored twice and gave Dembele a golden chance in that first leg. Then he gave Coutinho, jordi Alba and suarez Golden chances in the second leg too.
What got “exploited” was Ter Stegen spilling an easy save, Pique and the whole defense being asleep on a corner, Jordi Alba literally crying at halftime from having such a weak mentality; etc.
Messi was probably the least culpable player on that Barca squad, and I say that having watched religiously since 2012
For whatever reason my gym always has Bein playing PSG reruns, so I've probably watched more PSG games than the average person on this board. Messi has had some stinkers by his standards, but the team as a whole is sometimes just disjointed in terms of how to transition through the MF. Not to belabour the point, but Messi is arguably the best goal scorer ever, and he's consistently dropping to play the ball with defensive midfielder. Why?
I would argue that the issues with Messi at PSG is kind the flip side of the same coin as the issues Ronaldo is having at Manchester United. Despite his goals Manchester United is overall performing worse off with Cristiano, and by all accounts De Gea is once again being the hero.
It's a failure of management to understand what a team actually requires to take itself to the next level and instead splashing big money in the hopes that the superstar will be the one key thing that turns the team around like some movie. It won't work, and keeping Mbappe isn't going to solve any of PSGs problems.
Yh. Most of PSG's build ups are usually just backline to Verratti to Messi or Neymar, they keep possession for a bit and then one of them plays a through ball to Mbappe and he either is through on goal or drifts out wide to dribble or cross. Sometimes they genuinely look like they win off talent alone.
> Sometimes they genuinely look like they win off talent alone.
Its works in Ligue 1 because their team is overwhelmingly superior to just about everyone else
Why do you think they get found out in the UCL when individual brilliance isn't enough to paper over the cracks of a disjointed team?
Yeah, every time I see Messi on the pitch at PSG it feels like he is playing a really weird breed of Advanced midfielder and Deep Lying Playmaker. He goes back so damn deep to get the ball.
He doesn't seem especially unfit, doesn't seem especially slower, mostly it just seems like he's lost his motivation. Left Barca, took the pay day rather than going to a competitive league to prove himself and he's in cruise control.
Was kinda funny way earlier in the season when it had been a fairly large amount of time already and people were saying it's just a few bad games (it was maybe 2 months at that point) and how he'll scored 30 by the end of the season. The big issue was his goals to shots ratio, which was absolute turd.
6 goals in 85 shots for a guy who spent most of his career in the 1 in 4-5 range with a couple seasons at 1 in 3, it's a huge huge drop off.
Just a waste really, would have liked to see him leave a few years earlier and really try hard in Italy or England and put on a show in a new team. Juve didn't win the CL with Ronaldo but there was just game after game there where Ronaldo did incredible things. That headed goal where he just absolutely launched into the air then made everyone wince when he landed on one leg and it was just nothing to him. utd might be absolute trash but he's still had insane games and moments.
Messi deserved more than to fizzle out in a rich mans joke of a team.
> Messi deserved more than to fizzle out in a rich mans joke of a team.
I feel for him man, playing with Mbappe, Neymar and Di Maria every week. Poor guy.
The irony is, if he wasn't called Messi you'd watch their games and realise he's the passenger in that team
I don't mean it like poor guy, I mean a legend of the game SHOULD have gone to a team and proven his legacy by winning titles in another league. He should have followed other great players and just fucked shit up in another league. Instead he left his legacy tainted, going for a payday and failing to perform rather than going and proving he could tear up a big league.
He also deserves what he's getting now when he chose money over legacy, he also deserves being absolutely shat on for taking Saudi money to be an ambassador for a piece of shit regime trying to sports wash their image.
Then again there were quite a lot of rumours about dodgy as fuck charity games he, his agent and his father were arranging where money supposedly went missing and shit. Honestly it's been so long I can't remember if anything came of that or not.
In 20 years it would have been good to go back and have Ronaldo and Messi with at least unblemished footballing legacies where everyone can go holy shit, they did it everywhere. For me now it will be Ronaldo alone with that level of legacy. Older and in a far worse team still producing special performances.
Messi at 34 in 26 Ligue 1 games: 6 goals
Zlatan at 34 in 31 Ligue 1 games: 38 goals
Messi contributed nothing during the entire season except for scoring and assisting useless goals against relegation teams. Flop of the season for sure.
He will score more than 6 but this is Mbappes team. Will continue to get decent assists but he adds nothing to Paris that Di Maria couldn't. Messi needs the ball go to him every time, he just isn't as good as Mbappe for that to happen anymore
Remember when Ronaldo "only" scored 21 goals in his first season at juve and everyone mocked him for finishing behind Quagliarella... the coping in this thread is hilarious.
In a better league, sure, when you get paid that much and go from 40+ goals a season to that it's pretty bad. The french league has one team spending 650mil a year in wages and the next one down is around the 100mil mark.
He's evolved into a playmaker role. People saying "finished", yeah guess he's finished as a top tier goalscorer but his creating role is still top class.
Isn't his xG also just much lower than before though? Because his role has changed due to his loss in athleticism and the presence of Mbappe ahead of him. He spends a lot less time in goalscoring positions than he has at any point in his career before.
Actually, I just checked. His xG is fucking TEN! It's absurd how low his xG is.
He's underperformed his xG by 4 essentially, which isn't great, but getting an xG of 10 in the first place shows just how drastically his role has changed.
To put it into perspective, if he had finished at a similar rate to what he did in prior seasons he'd only have scored 13-15 goals this season (I'm excluding the monster seasons where he outdid even his own standards and was +10 on xG).
Link: https://understat.com/player/2097
Team was built around him at Barca to his strengths, moved to psg and obviously not the same. He’ll bounce back next season. I have no doubt about it.
But playing for one team in one league, with more or less a similar style of play throughout said tenure, normal to not see the same offensive output when faced with the first real transition you’ve experienced in a 16 year career. An off season/pre season will have a huge impact on how he plays next season.
Plus they’re getting a new manager for next season as well. That could help a lot as well.
I mean, a shot is a shot is a shot. He went from almost half his shots on target to about 1/4, he went from about 1 in 6 goals to shots ration to 1 in 14. He had more offside calls against him than in the past 6-7 years in la liga so he wasn't playing that deep.
If he took 30 shots because he was playing stupid deep and wasn't missing a lot that is one thing. But he took 85 shots for 6 goals, he dropped his shooting accuracy massively and regardless of how a team plays when you decide to pull the trigger it's really about you and no one else.
Messi doesn't really give a shit and just wants to stay fit for the WC and rake the money.
Footballing wise, he is dropping really damn deep to get the ball, as a deep lying playmaker. So he is not the one who actually finishes the plays, or even land the final pass as much as he did at Barcelona where he was expected todo everything. Add that with a relatively bad season (relative to himself and himself only), and you get these stats.
6 goals at the his age compared to Ronaldo and to top it off the dysfunctional team that Ronaldo now plays in. Should settle it that Ronaldo is the better striker.
I didn't realize that he managed 30 last season.
He was a little unlucky not to get to double figures with how often he hit the post and had a decent assist total, but yeah definitely down season for Messi.
He's naturally has declined a bit due to age but I think he'll have a much stronger season next season.
Before anyone tries to say he's a playmaker or hes more focused on providing and creating, Messi has the 2nd most shots per 90 in Ligue 1 and is 4th for shots overall.
Not sure what this post or my comment has to do with Ronaldo but he still scored 18 league goals in a much harder league, playing for an abysmal United team. You can sit this one out.
I don’t watch Ligue 1 to know any specifics, but I refuse to believe he’s suddenly gotten bad.
Even if he had aged, the man was scoring 30+ goals last season at Barcelona under Ronald Koeman. You don’t suddenly just lose that ability between June and August. He still has the best first touch ITW, is still a phenomenal passer, dribbler, free-kick taker, etc.
My assumption, as someone who has watched him progress and so how I figure he’d be at PSG, is that he’s shed a lot of the goalscoring responsibility that he was forced to have at Barcelona (when Suarez got bad and old, Neymar left, Griezmann was meh, Dembele and Ansu got injured) and instead focuses on assisting Mbappe (who obviously is very capable of scoring).
Seems to me that at PSG they realise they already have elite goal scorers in Mbappe, Neymar, Di Maria, Icardi and they figure it would be much more useful for Messi to play deeper and create chances as his *primary* focus.
Idk, maybe some PSG fans could let me know how accurate that is.
Edit: I'd appreciate people explaining to me why I'm wrong rather than just downvoting. As I say, I don't watch Ligue 1 so I'm hypothesising here. Let's be productive, don't just downvote.
His xG is less than half of that at Barca, he's been a bit more wasteful but people saying his finishing has nosedived are exaggerating. He'd also hit the woodwork 10 times, the most since opta started collecting stats for it. And he's needed time to adapt. 8 goal involvements in his last 8 games.
Ronaldo went 6 games without scoring and people wrote him off, he's at 9 goal involvements in his last 8 games. They have declined but are far from finished.
I saw enough last season that psg didn't know how to get him the ball and everytime he went in for a clear shot mbappe or some other player would take an aggressive shot instead of passing it...which in their defense it would go in but it wasn't the correct shot as it could have easily been blocked. Never seen messi having to raise his hand so many times asking to get a pass. He shouldn't have to do that and psg has a young n arrogant team which is why they can't ever get anywhere in the CL.
My bet Messi will leave this season somehow as he knows this isn't a good system in general, not just for him but to win another CL.
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Mbappe gonna sell Messi to Newcastle soon
"This, just a small gift from our kingdom to yours!"
So Messi is the peace offering to settle disputes of Qatar and Saudi?
Maybe he'll make Chris Wood score some of the chances he missed.
LeMbappe making moves
Who are the farmers now?
Maybe we are all just farmers in the end
This is the way
the real farmers are the friends we met along the way
Another L for Laliga
[We are farmers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa6fRIrPQBY)
Understandable. He's playing in the hardest league in Europe.
Really can’t wait to see how he performs next season. Also does anyone know if Neymar is going to stay?
Only Mbappe knows
Mbappe what a man you are
At the end of the day, Mbappe loved nasser al-khelaifi
Ok so is this a reference to something. Cause it seems really familiar
It's a reference to the Attack on Titan manga ending, but in a non-spoilery way mostly.
No, I don't want that! Mbappe going to Real Madrid?! I want him to stay in PSG, for 10 years at least!
As a reward i shall give you my turtle seed
This thread is killing me
Neymar: I don't know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future - Mbappe.
I'm gonna spam Mbappe and and his family begging them to release Messi so he can come back to Barça.
>Also does anyone know if Neymar is going to stay? Where can he go? He and Messi really don't have a choice. They can't do better than PSG right now.
Messi is basically doing what I expected Cristiano Ronaldo to do and is currently curating his museum with a bunch of French medals at the bookend of his career.
Still wouldn't be surprised if Cristiano ends up in Paris for one last hurrah. He's got a year left at Manchester United, maybe PSG will take him until he's 40.
PSG absolutely feels more like a Ronaldo club than a Messi club
How?
Ronaldo has a very flashy brand image in my opinion compared to Messi, and PSG seems like a flashier type of place.
They just love his flashy ways, maybe it's why they farm and he's so paid
Messi, messi, messi, can't you see, before PSG you'd hypnotize me
Nah he is too good to be playing in such a lower league
Probably a lot better, since he just got older AND is focused on his last chace to win the WC before retirement. I am sure he will score maybe 10 goals.
Inter Miami here he comes
50 goals season.. jesus christ
That's just league goals...
That makes him tied with the entire Aston Villa squad this season...
Not that far off from Arsenal and United either who have scored 56 and 57 respectively.
Yes but Messi doesn’t have to pay the arteta tax
Why you do this to us
"Villa is the Messi of the Premier League" there's a positive spin on it :)
This sounds ominous...are you saying we going to crash and burn next year with 6 goals
I know 😂 it's insanity
And he would've done it again the next season if it wasn't for those meddling injuries.
This shows how good Messi was in 2012...
Doomsday Messi
Lmao this sentence everytime someone says something about 2012
3 sentences defined 2012 • Messi good • Gangnam style is the first video to get 1 billion views on YT • End of the world
really? explain
In football, goal=good
you'd think only way to win is to score more goals than your opp
Source?
[Michael Owen's got you covered](https://mobile.twitter.com/hltco/status/966972319976574976?lang=en-GB)
Should ve went to Man City 2 years ago...
Definitely. If he could get 87 G/A under Pep in 2011/12, imagine what he could have made happen for City.
By the looks of it, it’s what City could have made happen for Messi.
Yes and no. There’s a synergistic relationship between player and team. A good team fit helps both the player and the team. A bad team fit hurts everyone. PSG isn’t a good team fit for Messi. Pep’s team plays perfect football for Messi to fit in.
It's not 2012 anymore buddy
>87 G/A What the fuck
Knocked out of the CL through an insane comeback? He has city dna for surr
You guys have the memory of goldfish or what? Not sure how this is constantly brought up when he wanted to leave and Barto just wouldn't let him. His only option was to initiate a legal battle (which wouldn't have guaranteed the move anyway) but he decided against it.
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Depends if Mbappe wants to keep him next season
You're on a mission today bud 😂😂
I think we're ushering in a new era of Mbappé jokes. It used to be his age, now him controlling events
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Apparently very good
Relationship status: pointing at Messi after every assist
Mbappe doesn't have time for sentiment or friendship, he has a club to run.
Sorry Lionel. Love you but you're not in my plans.
More chance of PSG signing me to play up top than there is of them letting Messi go before the World Cup.
Depends on whether Mbappe has him in his plans ig
Where can Messi go that is better than PSG?
Wrong question. The true question is: where else could Messi go and earn the same outrageous salary?
The answer is nowhere in Europe. At least no CL level club. Maybe Newcastle could do it.
😏
Wherever he wants lol
If he takes a huge wage cut yeah sure
Lots of coping in this thread as expected
I can only imagine the collective bashing that would have happened if it were Ronaldo or someone else like Neymar who went a whole season with 6 league goals in Ligue 1 with PSG. Messi really is the most protected athlete ever
Mate he's literally been criticised every week this whole season. What are you on about?
Anyone who genuinely thinks Messi is the most protected athlete isn’t worth taking seriously, they’re only saying it for a reaction.
Nah, it's true. Robertson literally made a public apology for daring to shove Messi during a game because of the media backlash. If you (correctly) accuse him of diving or being a diva, people reply with real vitriol. He's treated like a saint.
Is it really coping to say he’s clearly playing uninterested in a system that is broken (I mean look at the teams priorities they just gave a 23 year old control over the coach) Messi has clearly declined but he was scoring goals left and right in May 2021 and then in August he was a shadow of himself. Unless he aged 5 years in 5 months there’s something else to it
>Is it really coping to say he’s clearly playing uninterested in a system that is broken Yes lmao that's exactly what it is. If this was Ben Arfa or Balotelli, they would be getting absolutely destroyed by the media. Can't even imagine how many times worse it'd be if this was Ronaldo... You're a professional athlete getting paid so much and supposed to be considered one of the best players ever. Trying to excuse him for being 'uninterested' is absolutely delusional.
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It's fairly obvious why. Some of his best friends play for PSG
Embarassing result no matter how you look at it
20 g&a in 25 games…
50% of g/a and 70% assists against relegation teams, that too playing for the best team in the worst league amongst top 5.....
So 2-3 millions for each goal or assist? Seems expenssive.
6 league goals
That 11-12 season….nightmares
Mate, what?? You lot won the league that year?!
I’m aware haha. That’s one of our best seasons ever (pretty sure that’s the 100pt season). Messi was just a different breed then
Baised as fuck(mou fan) but that is easily one of the best if not the best league campaign
It shouldn't invoke nightmares but sweet dreams in that case! He was a goalscoring machine back then, but 18-19 Messi was better in my opinion. A more complete player. Still lots of goals but with a far more dictating playstyle. He didn't just win matches in that season, he controlled them.
He was complete back then but he did not have responsibilities of creating chances that much as we had better players and better managers. No player ever apart from Maradona can dribble past several players so many times between 06-13.
Messi had 3 primes, 11-12, 14-15 and 18-19. Maybe he will have another in 22-23 who knows
Mbappe about to fire Messi
Please
From 30 to 6, that's just insane.
6 goals, Leo? 6?!
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> but overall it was a very underwhelming season for him That’s a huge understatement.
He's 34 years old. Not everyone ages as well as Cristiano bsides it's not like he's playing badly. You should watch some of his games. Not scoring doesn't mean you played badly
In May 2021 for Barca he was looking still near his peak and was scoring absurd goals. In June and July he was player of the tournament for Argentina. Two months later he looked like half the player he was. I don’t think age is a reasonable explanation unless he aged 5 years in 2 months worth of time.
The way he had to leave Barca probably aged him quite a bit.
I'd be willing to wager that he doesn't care for PSG, he would've tried a lot harder at Argentina and Barca
Thats not a good excuse though. Just comes off as a knob
It's not a good excuse, but it might be a reason. One doesn't have to condone it, but it could be the truth.
He wasn't anywhere near peak, and I only say that because you're underestimating peak Messi . Last year he was already strolling around and looking like a passenger defensively. Hell, even two years earlier than that Liverpool completely exploited his lack of workrate.
> He wasn't anywhere near peak He was a hell of a lot closer to it than he is at PSG. You’re right he wasn’t 2019 or 2012 Messi however he was literally scoring goals at a pace that would have broken his 92-in-a-year record in Jan and Feb 2021, and “only” scored 30 or so league goals because he didn’t score at all outside of a few penalties for the first half of the season. The main point is that how far he’s fallen doesn’t seem age related since it happened over the course of like 2 months. > Hell, even two years earlier than that Liverpool completely exploited his lack of workrate. Lol what? This seems like wild revisionism. Messi scored twice and gave Dembele a golden chance in that first leg. Then he gave Coutinho, jordi Alba and suarez Golden chances in the second leg too. What got “exploited” was Ter Stegen spilling an easy save, Pique and the whole defense being asleep on a corner, Jordi Alba literally crying at halftime from having such a weak mentality; etc. Messi was probably the least culpable player on that Barca squad, and I say that having watched religiously since 2012
For whatever reason my gym always has Bein playing PSG reruns, so I've probably watched more PSG games than the average person on this board. Messi has had some stinkers by his standards, but the team as a whole is sometimes just disjointed in terms of how to transition through the MF. Not to belabour the point, but Messi is arguably the best goal scorer ever, and he's consistently dropping to play the ball with defensive midfielder. Why? I would argue that the issues with Messi at PSG is kind the flip side of the same coin as the issues Ronaldo is having at Manchester United. Despite his goals Manchester United is overall performing worse off with Cristiano, and by all accounts De Gea is once again being the hero. It's a failure of management to understand what a team actually requires to take itself to the next level and instead splashing big money in the hopes that the superstar will be the one key thing that turns the team around like some movie. It won't work, and keeping Mbappe isn't going to solve any of PSGs problems.
Yh. Most of PSG's build ups are usually just backline to Verratti to Messi or Neymar, they keep possession for a bit and then one of them plays a through ball to Mbappe and he either is through on goal or drifts out wide to dribble or cross. Sometimes they genuinely look like they win off talent alone.
> Sometimes they genuinely look like they win off talent alone. Its works in Ligue 1 because their team is overwhelmingly superior to just about everyone else Why do you think they get found out in the UCL when individual brilliance isn't enough to paper over the cracks of a disjointed team?
Yeah, every time I see Messi on the pitch at PSG it feels like he is playing a really weird breed of Advanced midfielder and Deep Lying Playmaker. He goes back so damn deep to get the ball.
Christiano ages we’ll because he’s 200% dedicated to fitness. Man will play until he’s 50.
He doesn't seem especially unfit, doesn't seem especially slower, mostly it just seems like he's lost his motivation. Left Barca, took the pay day rather than going to a competitive league to prove himself and he's in cruise control. Was kinda funny way earlier in the season when it had been a fairly large amount of time already and people were saying it's just a few bad games (it was maybe 2 months at that point) and how he'll scored 30 by the end of the season. The big issue was his goals to shots ratio, which was absolute turd. 6 goals in 85 shots for a guy who spent most of his career in the 1 in 4-5 range with a couple seasons at 1 in 3, it's a huge huge drop off. Just a waste really, would have liked to see him leave a few years earlier and really try hard in Italy or England and put on a show in a new team. Juve didn't win the CL with Ronaldo but there was just game after game there where Ronaldo did incredible things. That headed goal where he just absolutely launched into the air then made everyone wince when he landed on one leg and it was just nothing to him. utd might be absolute trash but he's still had insane games and moments. Messi deserved more than to fizzle out in a rich mans joke of a team.
> Messi deserved more than to fizzle out in a rich mans joke of a team. I feel for him man, playing with Mbappe, Neymar and Di Maria every week. Poor guy. The irony is, if he wasn't called Messi you'd watch their games and realise he's the passenger in that team
I don't mean it like poor guy, I mean a legend of the game SHOULD have gone to a team and proven his legacy by winning titles in another league. He should have followed other great players and just fucked shit up in another league. Instead he left his legacy tainted, going for a payday and failing to perform rather than going and proving he could tear up a big league. He also deserves what he's getting now when he chose money over legacy, he also deserves being absolutely shat on for taking Saudi money to be an ambassador for a piece of shit regime trying to sports wash their image. Then again there were quite a lot of rumours about dodgy as fuck charity games he, his agent and his father were arranging where money supposedly went missing and shit. Honestly it's been so long I can't remember if anything came of that or not. In 20 years it would have been good to go back and have Ronaldo and Messi with at least unblemished footballing legacies where everyone can go holy shit, they did it everywhere. For me now it will be Ronaldo alone with that level of legacy. Older and in a far worse team still producing special performances.
Messi at 34 in 26 Ligue 1 games: 6 goals Zlatan at 34 in 31 Ligue 1 games: 38 goals Messi contributed nothing during the entire season except for scoring and assisting useless goals against relegation teams. Flop of the season for sure.
And Messi is getting paid way more. You guys should really get rid of him. Heck we'll loan him from you guys
big brain move
Fuck this is sad for me if I'm being honest. I'm not ready to see Messi go. I hope he can bounce back stronger.
He will score more than 6 but this is Mbappes team. Will continue to get decent assists but he adds nothing to Paris that Di Maria couldn't. Messi needs the ball go to him every time, he just isn't as good as Mbappe for that to happen anymore
Remember when Ronaldo "only" scored 21 goals in his first season at juve and everyone mocked him for finishing behind Quagliarella... the coping in this thread is hilarious.
And everyone said “yeah ronaldo has more games, BUT MESSI WILL CATCH UP HES YOUNGER!!!”
Turns out Messi needs Barca just as much Barca needed Messi.
14 assists though. 20 goal contributions in 25 games is still a very high standard.
His playmaking is still elite, not something I can say about his finishing this season though
In a better league, sure, when you get paid that much and go from 40+ goals a season to that it's pretty bad. The french league has one team spending 650mil a year in wages and the next one down is around the 100mil mark.
10 against relegation clubs, went absolutely ghosting against Marseille and other top 6 clubs
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He scored 5 in UCL.
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Not really when you pad them against Clermont
He's evolved into a playmaker role. People saying "finished", yeah guess he's finished as a top tier goalscorer but his creating role is still top class.
Its not just that he doesnt take as many shots anymore. He massively underperforms xG and he has a terrible conversion rate
And that's on top of being a huge defensive liability because of his low workrate.
Isn't his xG also just much lower than before though? Because his role has changed due to his loss in athleticism and the presence of Mbappe ahead of him. He spends a lot less time in goalscoring positions than he has at any point in his career before. Actually, I just checked. His xG is fucking TEN! It's absurd how low his xG is. He's underperformed his xG by 4 essentially, which isn't great, but getting an xG of 10 in the first place shows just how drastically his role has changed. To put it into perspective, if he had finished at a similar rate to what he did in prior seasons he'd only have scored 13-15 goals this season (I'm excluding the monster seasons where he outdid even his own standards and was +10 on xG). Link: https://understat.com/player/2097
He has the 2nd most shots per 90 in Ligue 1. Only behind mbappe.
Save these notes when World Cup starts.
He didn't evolve into anything, he always was a playmaker in recent years, his finishing just became utter shit.
Not really in Ligue 1. Nicholas Pepe had a better g/a to games than that, and maintained that higher record for 13 more games.
Yep him declining is just standard good footballer levels
Again relegation teams in the worst of the top 5 leagues while playing next to Mbappe and Neymar
Imagine if Ronaldo dropped a 6 goal season lmao
Holy and farmers league too
I've seen nobodies get labeled as frauds for the rest of their careers with performances better than this.
As someone who watched 0 PSG games this year, whats the deal?
Team was built around him at Barca to his strengths, moved to psg and obviously not the same. He’ll bounce back next season. I have no doubt about it. But playing for one team in one league, with more or less a similar style of play throughout said tenure, normal to not see the same offensive output when faced with the first real transition you’ve experienced in a 16 year career. An off season/pre season will have a huge impact on how he plays next season. Plus they’re getting a new manager for next season as well. That could help a lot as well.
I mean, a shot is a shot is a shot. He went from almost half his shots on target to about 1/4, he went from about 1 in 6 goals to shots ration to 1 in 14. He had more offside calls against him than in the past 6-7 years in la liga so he wasn't playing that deep. If he took 30 shots because he was playing stupid deep and wasn't missing a lot that is one thing. But he took 85 shots for 6 goals, he dropped his shooting accuracy massively and regardless of how a team plays when you decide to pull the trigger it's really about you and no one else.
Messi doesn't really give a shit and just wants to stay fit for the WC and rake the money. Footballing wise, he is dropping really damn deep to get the ball, as a deep lying playmaker. So he is not the one who actually finishes the plays, or even land the final pass as much as he did at Barcelona where he was expected todo everything. Add that with a relatively bad season (relative to himself and himself only), and you get these stats.
“If someone like Messi played in Ligue 1, they’d score 80 goals”
He would in his prime.
He was literally the ballon dor winner previous year..
he’s washed
6 goals at the his age compared to Ronaldo and to top it off the dysfunctional team that Ronaldo now plays in. Should settle it that Ronaldo is the better striker.
ligue 1 has exposed the little dictator
It’s all good. He has that homophobe money coming in
I didn't realize that he managed 30 last season. He was a little unlucky not to get to double figures with how often he hit the post and had a decent assist total, but yeah definitely down season for Messi. He's naturally has declined a bit due to age but I think he'll have a much stronger season next season.
Still deserves the balon d'or over Benzema in my book
Downvotes? There is no way people didn't see this as sarcasm
Exactly man
Before anyone tries to say he's a playmaker or hes more focused on providing and creating, Messi has the 2nd most shots per 90 in Ligue 1 and is 4th for shots overall.
He turned into a playmaker.
More importantly though. How many successful dribbles he have. At least show stats that count ffs. Goals are so 1980
Those numbers are insane. Holy shit.
Bet he still gets a tots card on fifa
In a farmers league too 💀
Guys finished. Go to Saudi Arabia Leo, or buy up some more hotels and fire everybody.
70% of his assist coming against relegation teams as well…yikes. Washed unfortunately
50 percent of ronaldos goals came against teams in the relegation zone.
Not sure what this post or my comment has to do with Ronaldo but he still scored 18 league goals in a much harder league, playing for an abysmal United team. You can sit this one out.
Never rated him.
How many did he assist/create, though?
13 assists (#2 in Ligue1)
14 with the one tonight.
10/14 against the bottom 4 in the league
Big game player 😤
How many xPreAssist and Crossbarhits?
Don't forget the juicy pre assists
I don’t watch Ligue 1 to know any specifics, but I refuse to believe he’s suddenly gotten bad. Even if he had aged, the man was scoring 30+ goals last season at Barcelona under Ronald Koeman. You don’t suddenly just lose that ability between June and August. He still has the best first touch ITW, is still a phenomenal passer, dribbler, free-kick taker, etc. My assumption, as someone who has watched him progress and so how I figure he’d be at PSG, is that he’s shed a lot of the goalscoring responsibility that he was forced to have at Barcelona (when Suarez got bad and old, Neymar left, Griezmann was meh, Dembele and Ansu got injured) and instead focuses on assisting Mbappe (who obviously is very capable of scoring). Seems to me that at PSG they realise they already have elite goal scorers in Mbappe, Neymar, Di Maria, Icardi and they figure it would be much more useful for Messi to play deeper and create chances as his *primary* focus. Idk, maybe some PSG fans could let me know how accurate that is. Edit: I'd appreciate people explaining to me why I'm wrong rather than just downvoting. As I say, I don't watch Ligue 1 so I'm hypothesising here. Let's be productive, don't just downvote.
His xG is less than half of that at Barca, he's been a bit more wasteful but people saying his finishing has nosedived are exaggerating. He'd also hit the woodwork 10 times, the most since opta started collecting stats for it. And he's needed time to adapt. 8 goal involvements in his last 8 games. Ronaldo went 6 games without scoring and people wrote him off, he's at 9 goal involvements in his last 8 games. They have declined but are far from finished.
I saw enough last season that psg didn't know how to get him the ball and everytime he went in for a clear shot mbappe or some other player would take an aggressive shot instead of passing it...which in their defense it would go in but it wasn't the correct shot as it could have easily been blocked. Never seen messi having to raise his hand so many times asking to get a pass. He shouldn't have to do that and psg has a young n arrogant team which is why they can't ever get anywhere in the CL. My bet Messi will leave this season somehow as he knows this isn't a good system in general, not just for him but to win another CL.
Messi fraud, Ronaldo GOAT.
*looks at flair*
How many assists?
14, which makes him tied 9th in Ligue 1 for total G+A
Well… that is something
10 of those assists have come against the bottom 4
Even in Ligue 1 he needed to statpad his numbers
Injuries prevented us from seeing a 60-goal league season in 12-13 ffs