24 - Eric García

Batistuta9

New member
The board have screwed us with the finances. We should have bought kounde before he went to Sevilla, but our board were too busy looking for the next Galactico. Upamecano for 40m is a good price, I believe fofana who went to Leicester for a similar price is a good buy. We spent a similar amount on lenglet.

It has more to do with our and peps philosophy imo. Pep has made horrendous buys for CB and they weren't cheap at the time, look at chygrinsky for us and stones at city for example. That's why I think we don't care if a defender is slow as long as he can pass and Bayern and liverpool will prioritise defensive attributes above technical ones.
 

Messi983

Senior Member
And I always hate the notion to look at other teams like Liverpool. Like "see, its easy, you just need an athletic pairing". Which is just ridiculous. What helps Liverpool more than anything is having van Dijk - thats it. There are no lessons to be learned there.

True, VVD is basically a Messi amongst the CBs. He makes everyone around himself look better. For all his offensive qualities TAA is still very suspectible defensively but they can get away with that with VVD covering for him. The same with Lovren/Gomez/whoever is playing besides VVD. Not to mention Klopp's system itself also makes all players look better as a unit. That doesn't mean Mane, Salah, Firmino,.. are not great players individually but I doubt they'd perform on the same level in other clubs under different systems. Don't need to look further than to see how Coutinho has struggled here after doing well for them. Klopp knew exactly what he was looking for when he brought most players to the club. And then it's also easier to get the best out of those players which he mostly did.
 

Messi983

Senior Member
The board have screwed us with the finances. We should have bought kounde before he went to Sevilla, but our board were too busy looking for the next Galactico. Upamecano for 40m is a good price, I believe fofana who went to Leicester for a similar price is a good buy. We spent a similar amount on lenglet.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Nobody knew Kounde would turn out so great. Some people were doubtful when Monchi spent 25m on a relatively unproven defender from Ligue 1. And 25m for a club like Sevilla was like 50-60m for us (in pre-corona times). What if we'd buy Kounde and he'd never get regular minutes behind Pique/Lenglet to show what he can do. He would never developed as much as he did in one year playing regularly for Sevilla and some fans would probably already call him another flop and be willing to give up on him. So things are not always as easy we could just say "oh, if we'd buy Kounde last year we'd be in a great positon now".

We were fairly criticised for ignoring a CB position from 2011-15 first hoping Puyol will suddenly come back from injuries and then by signing Song to turn him into a CB :lol: followed by Zubi buying injury prone Vermaelen and old Mathieu to save our problems (though tbf Mathieu did quite well). But I think we did better since 2016. Umtiti was a great signing before his injury and Lenglet also a pretty good imo. Remember he was brought to be Umtiti's backup but had to become a starter. So what really set us back was Umtiti's injury. If he would stay healthy and in his pre-injury form we would be in a much better position right now with Pique, Umtiti, Lenglet and Araujo.

We were also constantly looking for cheap "gambles" at the position both for the first team and Barca B with Marlon, Mina, Todibo, Araujo, Cuenca,... so it's not like we didn't try. Sure, they didn't make it and were sold for a profit althugh Araujo still has a chance to stay here longterm at least as a backup. But of course it would be better if instead of spending that Neymar money on 100m attacking players we'd buy VVD (and we probably wouldn't need to spend as much on him as L'pool did) and use the rest of money for Mane/Salah and a good midfielder or two. Fabian Ruiz was available for 15m first and 30m later for example. I don't know if he'd make it here but he'd certainly be worth a risk for either of those prices.

But again, it's easy to say what should've been done different now. At the time we've signed Dembele and Coutinho people thought while they were overpaid they will still turn out good (and if they would nobody would care about their price). Signing a young CB from Sevilla (where we always bought good players from) to be a 3rd CB was also a reasonable decision. While Lenglet is not world class we still got a durable (which is important given a lot of our other recent younger signings had injury/fitness concerns) and mostly dependable player for the last two years or we'd probably look even worse. Yeah, ideally he should be a 3rd CB which is what he was bought for initially but he's far from our biggest problem imo. We shold still look to upgrade him in future but for now our priority should be to find Pique's successor.
 

Batistuta9

New member
Hindsight is 20/20. Of course nobody knew kounde would turn out so good, but we don't give ourselves a chance as we only go for defenders that are super cheap or are super expensive. It's never mid range players with potential that can make the jump to world class.

I know the whole team has blame with the losses to Roma, LFC and Bayern but the defence has to be stronger. The pairing of pique and lenglet isn't good enough, there isn't any leadership since puyol and mascherano left. We have to make do now as we have no money and it's probably a matter of time before we get another beating with this defence.
 

behindbrowneyes

Well-known member
At this point Araujo should get a run of games with Pique or Lenglet. He complements both of them much better than they do with each other. Good that Pique is banned against Juve.

Koeman really should test what Araujo is capable of at a top-level.
 

Porque

Senior Member
Not the answer we need. But the answer we will get.

Let's see Araujo-Lenglet versus Juventus. Because right now it is clear that we need a strong fast CB.
 

Andresito

Senior Member
Staff member
Didn't watch the game yesterday. Seems to have had another OK game.

Marca: The youngster coped well alongside Martinez at the centre of defence. He dealt with the threat of Memphis Depay without too much trouble.

AS: Very good positionally for a young centre-back, also strong coming out with the ball. Impressive display from the Manchester City man. 7/10

Sportskeeda: Garcia defended well enough when he was called upon. In the second half though, Luuk de Jong won his fair share of aerial duels against the youngster.

90min: Rarely tested in the first half, just played out from the back very competently. Both he and Martinez were stretched in the second, with the Netherlands getting in behind too easily on a number of occasions. 6/10
 

vuji_31

Senior Member
He will be bullied against stronger players. Really don't see him as starter in Barca, he seems good on the ball but he is not strong,fast or tall to be dominant CB.
He could be decent 3rd option.
 

behindbrowneyes

Well-known member
He will be bullied against stronger players. Really don't see him as starter in Barca, he seems good on the ball but he is not strong,fast or tall to be dominant CB.
He could be decent 3rd option.

Barca already has 2 decent 3rd options as starters in the squad. No need for a 3rd one.
 

Jallo

Member
La Liga football will fit him much better, he is still young yet shows a great understanding of space. He will get stronger as he gets older, his leadership will be very good for a team like ours that has zero leadership across the board.
 

Mateka

New member
Barca main problem at CB is simply finance. A club with worldwide renown and respect is trying to find a CB for next to nothing.
 

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