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Arturo Vidal, another 'Paulinho' case at Barcelona

The Chilean midfielder is being asked to stop opponents when that's not his actual quality

Toni Juanmartí

It happened in Tangier, Valladolid and now at Anoeta. With the scoreboard in Barca’s favour, Ernesto Valverde threw on Arturo Vidal for Ousmane Dembele to try and gain solidity and keep the result. However, even though Barca won in each game, the change didn’t have the desired effect. The opposite.

After the express comeback against Real Sociedad, Garitano’s men seemed without fuel and the game was up. However Barcelona lost control after sending on Vidal for Dembele. The locals began to set foot in Barca’s area again and had various counter-attacks to score.

 

The Chilean came on after 77 minutes, having only a quarter of an hour on the pitch, but in that time he showed he is no ‘stopper’. He didn’t recover a single ball. Instead he’s similar to Paulinho, who was also mislabelled. What he loves to do is break into the box. They are box-to-box men who can add goals from the second line. But he’s not the man to close out games like many, including Valverde think.