springfield
New member
It's normal you will always have older players, but they have been signing young players. That's the difference, their next generation is already sitting there and starting to integrate.
Ángel Di María
- Thread starter Evil
- Start date
It's normal you will always have older players, but they have been signing young players. That's the difference, their next generation is already sitting there and starting to integrate.
Messi983
Senior Member
Agree. Don't think everything is as bad as people think, especially IF we can get Coutinho.
- We have some young CBs already (Marlon, Bueno, Cuenca) and we'll get Mina next year so hopefully one of them can replace Pique down the road. We were also interested in young French CBs like Diop, Sarr,... so maybe Robert will sign one of them as well. At least we have chances to get them relatively cheap until they are still in smaller clubs. We already have Masche replacement in Umtiti so nothing to worry here.
- I believe Semedo will be a great signing for us. And then we have Palencia, Morer and Morey waiting. At least one of them should be good enough to eventually take over as his backup. If not, we can just buy someone for cheap.
- Hopefully Cucu will play some Copa and maybe league games this season and then be promoted next season and we'll sell Digne. Then he can take over for Alba in a few years. Though I'd prefer to sell Alba while we can still get something for him, make Cucu starter and keep Digne as his backup but that's not likely unless Cucu will unexpectedly get a lot of playing time (probably because of injuries to Alba and/or Digne) in first team this season and use those opportunities extremely well so we'd feel confident in making him our starter for next season.
- I think the best way to replace Busquets will be with a homegrown player since DM is usually one of the toughest positions to play in our system for outside players. Still think Samper (hopefully he'll play a lot this season in Las Palmas and come back next season) could be groomed as Busi replacement, if not, then maybe Oriol Busquets can do that. But with the right system and better players around him I believe Busi can still offer us 3-4 good years. So while it's time to start looking for his future replacement I don't think it's really that urgent.
- If we won't bring someone better in the next 4 days (which is unlikely) I would give Roberto a full season as a starting CM and see how he'll do. I believe in him but if he won't prove himself as good enough we can go for replacement next season. Alena (and maybe Vitinho) also deserve a chance in future.
- for Suarez's replacement I would go for Dolberg. He said yesterday that he'll stay in Ajax for at least another season so that's a good news. If we have some money left I'd pay Ajax some 10-20M (and maybe give them Munir if they still want him) to guarantee us his services for the future, then pay them another 40-50M next year or in 2019 to get him here. If Suarez will find his form again and if Paco will prove himself as a capable backup then we could leave Dolberg for another season at Ajax to play regularly. If signs of Suarez's decline will continue and/or Paco won't improve then we can sell Paco and bring Dolberg next summer so he could challenge for Suarez's spot in best XI when he'll adapt to the team.
- No player will ever be able to individually replace what Messi brings to this team so I think our best bet to be successfull after he'll decline and leave/retire is to make a strong team before his decline will start and then try to replace what he gives us with a strong unit rather than trying to sign his replacement. Of course one player will eventually take Messi's place in XI but even if he'll be very good he'll still be a few steps behind Messi.
We've signed younger players too in the last two years. 9 of 11 players bought since last summer were 23 or younger, only older were Cillessen (he's still not old for a GK and he's a backup anyway so I don't care about his age) and Paulinho (we know what was primary reason behind his signing). And we were also connected to mostly younger players as well. Cou and Seri are a bit older at 25-26 but still far from being old. So our philosophy has changed lately but of course people will still complain we are only signing old players from Arsenal.
Those young players are the reason Madrid is so good in the first place, even if those "grandpas" are the backbone of the team. Madrid's older players are not performing significantly different compared to the years 2010 to 2013. Guarentee if they did not have those young players, the gap between them and us would not be this big.
dostoevskij
New member
jesus this barca borderline fan syndrom... we are sometimes the definito0n of spoiled!
people talk as if madrid won 5 ligas in a row, with us beeing 3 or 4th. the gap is not that big. yes we got destroyed in the supercopa for the first time in 10 years in a clasico like these. but it was the first game of a new coach and with all the neymar saga...
they won last liga justin the last round. for the first time since 2011/212) yeah we fucked up the last two cl campaigns, while madrid has been consistent and lucky during that time. did they dominate europe gamewise like we did under pep? no way. their end results are immense true, they have a incredible midflied, a balanced system and a true comeback mentality. they have isco and asensio, players that we missed and that look very promising for present and the future.
am i pissed of to see c... like ramos or ronaldo lifting a lot of trophys? yes totally. am i fed up with the seeemingly chaos our board creates year after year? yes absolutely.
but some people talk as if we have no chance for years to win anything against Madrid witch is total bs.
Relax. I'm one of the fans that bitch about our players the least, at least on this board. We sort of agree with each other because my point is that the gap between our core players and madrid's core, older players are not that big if at all. Their ability to integrate younger players help mitigate this gap and we can do this too. Dembele and Semedo is a good step in this direction.
Força Barça
New member
what kinda herb are they smoking thinking this would be doable
springfield
New member
But too late and the wrong players, that's the problem. While Barcelona was dominating football, they didn't seem to pay attention to the long term. They were replacing players when it was truly needed, not before so they good get integrated in the team and you would know if they would fit before they would be crucial to the team. Iniesta is getting to old and no replacement yet, there should be someone in the squad already to replace him. Xavi, never replaced, they should have someone before he was going to retire, Busquets, no replacement yet. For suarez, they should get a young talent which can get more playing team every season so he can take Suarez spot in a couple of years etc..
FinBarcelonafan
Well-known member
The thing is, it's not easy to sign replacements and great young players, If you have Xavi/Iniesta/Messi/Neymar/Suarez playing front of you. Why would any great young player want to play behind them? They would get so small playing time. Most likely we would just have to sign these players and sent them on loans to somewhere else.
springfield
New member
Then why is Madrid able to get players like Asensio, Ceballos, Hernandez, Isco,...?
FC433
New member
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="fr" dir="ltr">[<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Transfert?src=hash">#Transfert</a>] Selon Le Parisien, Le PSG serait finalement prêt à vendre Di Maria au Barça <a href="https://t.co/Ezk6FzY02i">pic.twitter.com/Ezk6FzY02i</a></p>— Footballogue (@Footballogue) <a href="https://twitter.com/Footballogue/status/902799419132739584">August 30, 2017</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I can feel the deal getting done. We are wasting about 90m on Paulinho and Di Maria.
I can feel the deal getting done. We are wasting about 90m on Paulinho and Di Maria.
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