2012-2013 : What is needed ?

[evilhita666]

Everyone forgot we need better home and away kits!

 

[tiki-taka]

1. Try to push Pep to renew his contract for two seasons, not just one. The whole frenzy around whether or not Pep is staying is getting very annoying and has to be a distraction for our camp. That way, its not too long of a contract which Pep understandably doesn't want but we don't have to constantly deal with the whole "Pep wore a blue and black stripped scarf, that means he must be going to Inter!" :stv171:

2. Buy Jordi Alba NOT Bale. Jordi Alba, IMO, is the perfect successor to the fantastic Abidal. He can be just as offensive as Dani Alves but more importantly, he is a better defender than Bale is. Plus we will have to splash at least somewhere in 45-50 million euro range for Bale while we can get Jordi Alba for probably half that. That will leave enough for us to bid for a CB which should complete our transfer needs for a while.

3. Buy a CB who will feature regularly but will be behind Pique and Puyol in the depth chart. As far as what CB, obviously I would love to have Thiago Silva, but that is a pipedream. Milan would be insane if they let him leave. I think the player we would have the best chance at getting and who will fit into the squad the best would be David Luiz (which we should have gotten sooner) but that will be difficult to negotiate and we might have to give up someone for that. That leaves Mr. Hummels in Dortmund, problem with him is that he will want a starting spot wherever he goes and that's something that I don't think he should have yet (Puyol still has a season or two left in him). Out of those three, I would prefer David Luiz because of his versatility and his fantastic control of the ball. Him and Pique at the heart of our defense in two years time sounds amazing.

4. Eliminate the Messi-Centrism of our team. I said this earlier and I will quote: "I said it earlier, this team has to stop becoming so Messi-centric. He has look tired as of late and we need to start conserving him a lot more when we get leads in less important games. I also think one of the greatest tactical adjustments that needs to be made is to move Messi back out to the RW and move Villa to the center striker role whenever we have Cesc in the side. I know the original reason Pep moved him into the middle was because Messi thinks it's easier for him to score from the middle, but for the sake of the rest of this team, this needs to happen in order for Cesc and Villa to be used to their full potential."

-Teams have figured out the way we are setup that if you shut down Messi, you shutdown how well our offense functions. That is because everything runs through Messi with him in that false 9 role. This season has shown that Messi cannot nor should he have to do everything, especially when we have players who can do the same thing that Messi can (ala Cesc and Villa) when they are put in the right position. Obviously Messi will still be our go-to man and will be our main attacking outlet, but this way by having Messi out on the RW when Villa plays, we have two very legitimate scoring threats, not just 1.5 like we did when Villa was on the LW. Also, Messi needs to stop taking all the FKs and PKs when Xavi and Villa can get the job done as well.

5. Start developing a relationship between Thiago and Cesc. They are the successors to Xavi and Iniesta and they need to play together a lot more so they can begin to develop some chemistry as the creators in chief.

6. Reinsert Villa as the center striker. Villa is far from done, but the reasons why he hasn't produced the same kind of results that we saw him do for Spain and Valencia in the past is because we are playing him out of position. He isn't a winger, he is a striker, a target man and I think if we get him back into his natural position, I can easily see him having a 30+ goal season next year and continue to be a great weapon for the next 2-3 years.

7. Pep needs to train us during the off-season so we have some tactical variety. There are other ways of playing tiki-taka, beautiful football than just 4-3-3s and 3-4-3s. I really want us to start experimenting with a 4-2-3-1, a formation that we can use to dominate possession and still have a lot of attacking options.

Tactically speaking I will post right after this some formations I drew up that I think we should consider for next season.

If you ask me David Luiz is the worse choice imo. We should get a world class defender and I believe if we can't get Thiago Silva then we should try to lure Vincent Kompany as he has still 2 years left on his contract and won't cost more than 30 million also he wouldn't ask a salary more than 150.000 as Man City are preparing to extend his contract and give him that aforementioned wage weekly. So I'd say get Kompany rather than Hummels.

 

[tiki-taka]

What is needed for Barca is a Plan 'B'. Every team that plays us KNOW we will have all the ball, so they will sit back and try to hit us on the break. Teams that play 4-4-2 and have the back 4 well-drilled and the midfield line close to them will be hard to break down. If they bring the back 4 in tight, then there is no space for the ball to go through the middle. They CAN keep a tight 4 because Barca will not get to the by-line and put in crosses for tall strikers to head in, because we dont have any!!. We dont score from headers, and we dont score from corners; this cuts down very much on scoring avenues for us.
We need a striker who is big and strong and good in the air so that we can use wide players and the pitch and stretch teams. I love the tiki taki, but it is expected and can be defended against. We had trouble all this season away from home against teams who parked the bus. If we dont play at out best/miss chances/Messi having an off game, teams can get at us.
I know Ibrahimovic was sposed to offer this to us, BUT he was never a Barca player. He is too much of a prima donna; he plays well in the first season for every team he plays for then tails off/ and doesnt score in the big games.
We need a quality CB, LB and Striker.

If you talk about the all package striker who can score both from feet or headers and is cheap (1 year left on the contract) then it's Huntelaar but if you talk about a clinical striker who's strenght is in finishing, technique and ball control and is cheap as well then it's obviously v.Persie. Two most high profile strikers in Europe that Barca should consider buying one of them.

 

[HerpDerp]

1. The first thing we need to do is to cover the left side in our defence (let's say Jordi Alba, but not necessarily) and play with 4 defenders. That was the main thing that killed us this season.

2. Then we need a world class striker indeed, a clinical one who can win us a match even if we have just one opportunity all the game.

3. Of course, a CB. NOT a "world class" one (like Thiago Silva, Kompany and so on), but a young one (Hummels, Subotic or any other like them). We already have 3 CBs (yes, I know Pique f'ed up everything this season and Puyol is not getting younger) and Pep will start using Muniesa anyway.

We simply can't afford buying 3 top class players. Although I'm not sure we can afford what I wrote above.

And we also need to sell Keita, Fontas, Afellay and JdS.

PS: Rest Messi, Xavi, Puyol or any other player that plays way too much.

 

[Gaines10]

What the hell are you talking about? Seriously Lavezzi/Hazard or Ribery?! Xavi and Cesc getting equal play time?! RFLMAO!!! Thank goodness you are not in charge of the team

Ermm.. Sorry brianiac but whats your contribution to this thread? Buy Neymar come off it! he has potential yes but hes playing in a terrible league tbf, the players I all mentioned would fit into our style straight away.

Xavi is getting old now whether you like it or not and we bought Cesc to take over from him so he needs playing time in this position to get used to it.

 

[IbraFTW]

0) Buy Ibra; offer Villa + 40 mil.
1) Pep can either go or stay, but if he stays, he should stop experimenting with so many things at the same time. It can't be good for the team if you:
a) switch to weird 3-4-3, after you've been playing (very successfully) with 4-3-3 for years.
b) play your best players out of position (squeeze Cesc in between Messi and Iniesta, putting them both slightly out of their preferred position, just to accommodate Cesc. You didn't want to that for Ibra, why would you do it for Cesc :'( )
c) you can't sell a player (Maxwell) and have a position without a proper backup, especially if it's a position in a 3 men defense.
d) you probably shouldn't play a youngster in every game
e) you definitely shouldn't do all of the above at the same time.

Finally, I don't really know what I'm talking about but that's what I think was wrong this season.

 

[AnfieldEd]

1. Hire Sam Allardyce

2. Replace Andres Iniesta with Kevin Nolan

3. Forget this tiki-taka nonsense and play long ball football.

4. Buy Neymar for £60m

6. Sell Villa to Aston Villa in exchange for Emile Heskey

Happy days.

 

[impeh]

Well, with Tito coming in.. im guessing there wont be many big changes..?

 

[Puyol the wall]

1. Hire Sam Allardyce

2. Replace Andres Iniesta with Kevin Nolan

3. Forget this tiki-taka nonsense and play long ball football.

4. Buy Neymar for £60m

6. Sell Villa to Aston Villa in exchange for Emile Heskey

Happy days.

I guess we'll become like Liverpool then.

 

[Flavia]

Well, with Tito coming in.. im guessing there wont be many big changes..?

That remains to be seen. I think he'll continue Pep's work, but he could also want to change some things.

 

[LaMessiah]

rest in the off season and time for these guys to refuel. they had a piss poor start this year and looked sluggish down the stretch.
get villa back in the team.
jordi alba, gareth bale, some type of left sided defender/winger.
promote mark bartra and montoya, maybe look for another cb like botia on the cheap
javi martinez would be a great signing, can play the cb and replace busi and we wouldn't lose much.
work on some type of rotation with messi. i love the little guy's want to play every minute of every game but he can't continue like this, he'll be done by 27.
continue working with formations and systems that can be implemented on the fly when teams are sitting deep. i'm probably in the minority but i thought the 3-4-3 gave us a lot of great options, they guys just couldn't capitalize.

 

[woobie]

A question: I saw somewhere that the transfer budget is estimated to be somewhere near 40 million. Is this accurate, more or less?

 

[Flavia]

A question: I saw somewhere that the transfer budget is estimated to be somewhere near 40 million. Is this accurate, more or less?

It's 50 million euros, plus some extra for any sales that may occur.

 

[woobie]

Thanks, Flavia. So....1 player, possibly 2, then?

 

[Flavia]

Thanks, Flavia. So....1 player, possibly 2, then?

Yes... A cb and lb probably.