SeloBarca
Senior Member
How about not get anyone at all (this summer) put our trust in Samper? I feel he could be a perfect CM/CDM. I say, just sell Arda, accept our losses now and sell him while he's still interesting to the big clubs and thus worth something. Sell him to the PL, if they can pay 40M for Batshuayi or Benteke, we can surely get at least 30M for Arda easy. In a perfect world, we get the whole paid sum for him right back. Anyway, let's say 30M for Arda, plus 10M for Vermaelen and 3-4M for Adriano and Douglas. That way we would have over a 100M transfer kitty. We could easily get Vietto and a full back (De Sciglio my personal favourite, or Azpi wouldn't be bad too) this summer. As for Arda, i wouldn't buy an immediate replacement right away. We already have that in Denis and Rafinha. That would also get Samper to stay. We could see if he can cut it here. If he does, it's like we get a proper new midfielder for free next summer, if not, we can always loan him out next summer and then buy a new CM.
Also, we would finally have some balance in the CM positions, with Roberto (when he's not playing RB, which he wouldn't have to so often anymore with the acquisiton of a full back) and Samper (when not playing alternative to Busquets) being Raki's alternatives (RCM), while Denis and Rafinha being Iniesta's (LCM) and possibly Neymar's (Denis) and Messi's (Rafinha). So all four CM alternatives would also have their 2nd position to play, so they would surely get enough minutes either way. Being linked right to this whole point, with this exact moves, we would have a little extra transfer money left (let's say 50 or 60M, since 40M (20+20) would go for Vietto and a full back this summer) for the future transfer windows if and when needed.
Samper is pretty much the only youngster i rate.
Denis and Rafinha are not are AMs, just like Roberto. We need CMs.
We missed the Gündogan train, and Pogba, while beeing a iniesta replacement (not nearly as good) is way to expensive.
Maybe better to wait one year although i dont like wasting a year on Messi and Iniesta becouse of a midfield with lack of passing creativity.