Arturo Vidal was leaving this season in his scoring facet. With his six goals, he was the most accomplished midfielder in the squad and the fourth player with the most goalscoring vocation, second only to attacking trident: Leo Messi (19), Luis Suárez (11) and Antoine Griezmann (8). However, this offensive drive has been frustrated since Quique Setién's arrival on the bench. In the ten games the Cantabrian coach has led, Vidal has been drier than the Mojama. Specifically, he has added 513 blank minutes, when with Valverde he accumulated an average of somewhat every 149 minutes.
That does not mean that the Chilean international has not contributed his bit in the offensive aspect -Siene has brought him closer than ever to the area-, since he has added two assists to Messi: Granada (1-0) and Eibar (5- 0). On the other hand, with Valverde he was more selfish in this facet, since in the 21 games he had played, he only gave one assist: Luis Suárez in the match against Inter Champions at the Camp Nou (2-1).
Vidal made his debut as a scorer in his first game of the year, Barcelona-Betis (5-2), taking advantage of the 16 minutes he played and initiating the win with the fifth goal. From here on, his offensive performance was unstoppable: he scored the second goal in the scoring before Sevilla (4-0), also the second in the victory against Valladolid (5-1) and the winning goal against Leganés (1- 2), to end up scoring the second against Alavés (4-1) and again the second in the derby (2-2).
With both Valverde and Setién, his record for consecutive games as a starter this year is three. With Txingurri, he was back on track against Valladolid, Leganés and Slavia from Prague, while with Setién he managed it against Eibar, Naples and Real Madrid.
Vidal still struggles to be bench meat, although he has improved with the arrival of the new coach: with Valverde he was a substitute in 14 of the 21 games he played (69%), while with Setién he has four out of ten games (40%) . Another thing is if we look at his balance complete matches: with Valverde he only played 90 minutes in 5 matches of 21 (24%) while with Setien he could only complete the one he played against Eibar at Camp Nou (10%). And it is that bad luck has also accompanied the Chilean, since an expulsion in the 89th minute against Napoli in the first leg of the knockout stage of the Champions League prevented his second game of the Setien era from ending.