Arda Turan

[Hamzah]

I thought this guy had swagger and charisma and was a vital part of the squad?

 

[God Serena]

You have trade-offs. With situation of our golden generation getting older, trade-off is either a) take maximum of out them and then have more difficult period later trying replace world-class players in entire lineup or b) bring in youth, try to merge with older guys, but with youth you will always have risks and you will usually end up being less successful.
What Lucho and board did and are still doing is more or less focusing on the first one. Buying people in their prime to give maximum support for Messi as long as he is still here. Not necessarily the right players, but logic is there. So it is really up to you if you prefer having 9 trophies in 3 years and 1 trophy in next 3, or getting 1-2 each year. The final result in trophy count may be the same, but the euphoria in treble never happens and in reality you always lose majority of competitions each year.
I think this comes down to personal opinion.

Lucho and the board didn't go the route of the latter at all, imo. For one, the only player we had who was world class before Lucho who's age has gotten him to the point where he needs replacing is Iniesta. Everything else has just been gof awful transfer strategy. Mathieu at 30 years old was never a good investment, nor was a 29 year old Vermaelen who could never stay fit for three weeks both before and after being signed. And Arda, while being a somewhat exciting transfer based on his time with Atletico, was never a much needed signing, especially at his age and price. We managed to squeeze out a great calendar year out of the squad that gave us trophies to mask just how poor we were for the majority of Lucho's time here by virtue of being dominant for half of two different seasons but it was clear as day even during our height of dominance that without the MSN curbstomping everyone our team didn't have much quality and wasn't making very good signings to improve that. In the meantime, decisions like sticking with Adriano and Mathieu at LB while allowing Grimaldo to leave without a first team chance and ignoring La Masia players almost completely even with ample opportunity to give them minutes (Unless you think we needed MSN and our strongest backup line of midfielders and defenders to beat 3rd division copa teams), except for Gumbau for a short time for some inexpiable reason. At this point it is clear they're very blatantly NOT trying to follow the first option you listed, as every player they're pursuing now and every player they've signed (with the exception of Paulinho who couldn't have possibly been signed purely for sporting reasons) has been on the right side of 30. I believe it could have been possible to have the success Lucho had while also building towards the future, as MSN is the primary piece responsible for our success during Lucho's time, while the majority of his signings ranged from either stupid (Rakitic instead of Kroos? Douglas instead of Asensio?) to poor (Arda Turan? Aleix Vidal?).

 

[hulinat]

gr8 businesss m8's

 

[Raketa10]

So is this done deal or not???

 

[ldsix]

No.

http://www.futbolarena.com/galatasaray/galatasaray-arda-turani-transfer-ediyor-mu-327178h/

 

[Raketa10]

So only RAC1 reporting it?

It seams he ain't going nowhere:

http://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/arda-turan-planta-niega-irse-del-barcelona-6272352

He will sit out the rest of his contract and he doesn't give a shit about that.

 

[kilian]

If Galatasaray would pay his wages, a loan would be a good option for us, to bring down our salary expenses. But to give them a player for free and pay his wages for 2 years would be beyond retarded.

 

[Raketa10]

If Galatasaray would pay his wages, a loan would be a good option for us, to bring down our salary expenses. But to give them a player for free and pay his wages for 2 years would be beyond retarded.

Of course we wouldn't pay his entire wage Galatasaray would pay it or part of it but the problem is he doesn't want to go. We can only put him on the stands and that's it. This lazy fucker will be here until 2020. Another brilliant deal by this board!

Paulinho will end in the same way, wait and see.

 

[Dado]

This is the solution:

Pay This Bench Money or It Will Poke You With Spikes
https://www.themarysue.com/spike-bench/

 

[Barcaman]

Zubi gift that keeps on giving

 

[DonAK]

Zubi gift that keeps on giving

Zubi didn't sign him. In fact we had no Sporting Director when he was signed during the elections. Bartomeu claimed the responsibility for it back then and said Lucho requested it.

 

[Horatio]

Must have been physically removed from the premises. All his recent tweets said he is not leaving Barca.

Didn't Douglas do something like that where he was squatting in the office and crying not wanting to leave.

 

[iniesta_8]

If he forces to stay, give him #0 please!

btw it must have been President Pique who invented the Galatasaray story

 

[LeeRomeno]

Lucho and the board didn't go the route of the latter at all, imo. For one, the only player we had who was world class before Lucho who's age has gotten him to the point where he needs replacing is Iniesta. Everything else has just been gof awful transfer strategy. Mathieu at 30 years old was never a good investment, nor was a 29 year old Vermaelen who could never stay fit for three weeks both before and after being signed. And Arda, while being a somewhat exciting transfer based on his time with Atletico, was never a much needed signing, especially at his age and price. We managed to squeeze out a great calendar year out of the squad that gave us trophies to mask just how poor we were for the majority of Lucho's time here by virtue of being dominant for half of two different seasons but it was clear as day even during our height of dominance that without the MSN curbstomping everyone our team didn't have much quality and wasn't making very good signings to improve that. In the meantime, decisions like sticking with Adriano and Mathieu at LB while allowing Grimaldo to leave without a first team chance and ignoring La Masia players almost completely even with ample opportunity to give them minutes (Unless you think we needed MSN and our strongest backup line of midfielders and defenders to beat 3rd division copa teams), except for Gumbau for a short time for some inexpiable reason. At this point it is clear they're very blatantly NOT trying to follow the first option you listed, as every player they're pursuing now and every player they've signed (with the exception of Paulinho who couldn't have possibly been signed purely for sporting reasons) has been on the right side of 30. I believe it could have been possible to have the success Lucho had while also building towards the future, as MSN is the primary piece responsible for our success during Lucho's time, while the majority of his signings ranged from either stupid (Rakitic instead of Kroos? Douglas instead of Asensio?) to poor (Arda Turan? Aleix Vidal?).

Say what? When Lucho joined, we made transfers for Suarez (then 27), Mathieu (30), Vermaelen (28), Rakitic (26) and Bravo (31) and then Douglas and Ter Stegen, who were young. All those big signings were more or less at their prime age, except for maybe Rakitic, who could be still considered younger player. This is clear strategy of making the current team stronger, not investing into youth. This strategy proved to be correct one. Suarez formed MSN, Bravo was excellent in his first year, Rakitic was perfect fit for midfield and well, Verminator was Verminator. We won treble.
Then we faced transfer ban, Turan was more or less only top player who accepted to sit half a year doing nothing (now we know why). Vidal was probably signed more or less for same reason. Lucho wanted someone with similar qualities to Alves to cover right side and thought Vidal could do the job, similarities were there (Sevilla, being played as WB) + he was ex La Masia. To compensate loss of Pedro, both Sandro and Munir were introduced from La Masia. Everything went well for half a year or so, but team dropped in form heavily and we only won 2 major trophies.
Still noticing that maybe there is an issue with motivation, we totally changed our transfer strategy, instead of buying experienced players like in previous years, we bought 6 22-23 year olds, to insert fresh blood who had not won everything over and over again. We all know how that experiment went.
So if u actually take time, you will realize that our transfer policy has always MADE SENSE. Issue here is that the people who we have picked have just not been the correct ones. What you are doing here is trying to be smart afterwards, as always. It is so easy to claim Turan was always going to be flop now. Just go read this topic when he was signed and before. Tone of voice apart from very few single posters is rather positive and many even claim he will be definitely a starter.
Also goddamn Grimaldo, dude is either on bench or injured most of his career. Has he lit the world on fire in Benfica? No. Has any La Masia player, who has left during last 4 years been a sensation anywhere? NO.
La Masia quality is totally different topic and serious issue, but just giving chances to players, because they are in La Masia is bullshit. Ever since we had that golden generation, there is a group of people on this forum and overall as well, who seem to think that La Masia is some kind of quality sign. IT IS NOT. Majority of the hyped players are just hyped, in reality they are just as average as the ones coming from other academies. Samper is good example of it. Alena is pretty much only player who i can see playing a role in first team at the moment. Munir? He is mid-table La Liga level, like Sandro, Grimaldo, barely even so.

And no, i am not arguing here that our transfers have been poor, yes they have, it is issue with both requests from coaches, also scouting department, maybe some other things as well. But majority of our transfers have actually made sense at the time if you only put little bit of thinking into. You will never get everything right, no teams never do, you will always have flops. You do not know the future. (and yes i do realize Douglas signing was as bizarre as it could get and something shady was going on in backround).

 

[mobster_1930]

Top post, agree with everything you said.