Barca-related Open Thread

[Barcaman]

Opened some old folders and there was a resume of 2010 2-2 draw against Arsenal.

Made me sad both to realize how much we've regressed and that's been already a decade.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Quick question, but anyone else don't like that idea of youth influx we are going to have next year.
I mean I want to get younger, but next season squad might have:
Araujo(21) Garcia (19)
Puig (21) Pedri (18) and even according to some rumores ِAlena (22)
Fati (18) and Trincao (21)
That is 7 players of our squad who are 22 or less, with almost no one with true full year in 1st division football.

 

[Andresito]

Quick question, but anyone else don't like that idea of youth influx we are going to have next year.
I mean I want to get younger, but next season squad might have:
Araujo(21) Garcia (19)
Puig (21) Pedri (18) and even according to some rumores ِAlena (22)
Fati (18) and Trincao (21)
That is 7 players of our squad who are 22 or less, with almost no one with true full year in 1st division football.

We have two age groups that aren't optimal to have in majority, those you mentioned and the veterans.

We have so few players in the gap inbetween those; players in their primes like Lenglet, Semedo, ter Stegen and Roberto. And those aren't exactly the biggest stars either except for ter Stegen. Griezmann as well.

 

[khaled_a_d]

We have two age groups that aren't optimal to have in majority, those you mentioned and the veterans.

We have so few players in the gap inbetween those; players in their primes like Lenglet, Semedo, ter Stegen and Roberto. And those aren't exactly the biggest stars either except for ter Stegen. Griezmann as well.

Exactly.
I won't count GKs in the age discussion as it is a different dynamics with them.
So our outfield players:
22 or younger: Araujo,Puig,Pedri,Alena,Fati,Trincao, and Garcia is heavily rumored to join us. There is also on loan Matheus Fernandes, Todibo who are unlikely to rejoin the team.
29 or older: Alba,Pique,Pjanic,Busquets,Vidal,Rakitic,Messi,Suarez, Griezmann,Braithwaite
23-28: Umtiti,Lenglet,Semedo,Firpo,FDJ,Roberto. With Coutinho & Rafinha unlikely to come back.

Out of the optimal age group 2 are injury prone (Dembele/Umtiti) and one has been a disappointment (Firpo)

We will obviously cut some players, but still can't see the team being balanced.

Also, the big amount of youth in 1st team squad will make it difficult for B team players to join 1st team, as they did this season. We have a couple of promising CB and Moriba who might benefit from experience joining first team for few matches.

 

[MTL_Barca]

Well that's what happens when most of your signings fail. The players that would close the age gap right now would be Gomes, Digne, Malcom, Paco, Denis, Rafinha who all just were around for a couple of seasons and left. The Arthur/Pjanic swap doesn't help the age structure either of course, just like Coutinho should be a fixture in the midfield at 28 instead of being loaned because he flopped. At CB it's Umtitis knee screwing things up, if he was healthy and in good form Pique/Umtiti/Lenglet + one young talent would be perfect.

Hard to fix this now because players in their mid 20s are usually either hella expensive or not good enough for a bigger role but at the same time replacing 30+ year olds with other old players also shouldn't be an option leaving us with a lot of very young guys.

I don't think we'll see Alena/Puig/Pedri all together in the squad for next season though and Roberto will probably play games in midfield as well so it's not that bad. Having two very young CBs isn't ideal but then again Umtiti is finished and there probably isn't enough for an actual great experienced CB so i guess i'd rather go with the kids as well in that case.

I think we just have to live with that imbalance for now because in order to fix it we'd probably need at least a striker, CM and CB at age 23-27 or so but if we aim for the highest quality that won't be easy and quite expensive. I don't have any hopes for this board to pull that off so let's give the young guys a chance next season.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Well that's what happens when most of you're signings fail. The players that would close the age gap right now would be Gomes, Digne, Malcom, Paco, Denis, Rafinha who all just were around for a couple of seasons and left. The Arthur/Pjanic swap doesn't help the age structure either of course, just like Coutinho should be a fixture in the midfield at 28 instead of being loaned because he flopped. At CB it's Umtitis knee screwing things up, if he was healthy and in good form Pique/Umtiti/Lenglet + one young talent would be perfect.

Hard to fix this now because players in their mid 20s are usually either hella expensive or not good enough for a bigger role but at the same time replacing 30+ year olds with other old players also shouldn't be an option leaving us with a lot of very young guys.

I don't think we'll see Alena/Puig/Pedri all together in the squad for next season though and Roberto will probably play games in midfield as well so it's not that bad. Having two very young CBs isn't ideal but then again Umtiti is finished and there probably isn't enough for an actual great experienced CB so i guess i'd rather go with the kids as well in that case.

I think we just have to live with that imbalance for now because in order to fix it we'd probably need at least a striker, CM and CB at age 23-27 or so but if we aim for the highest quality that won't be easy and quite expensive. I don't have any hopes for this board to pull that off so let's give the young guys a chance next season.

That is very true.
The thing is, I don't think it is wise to put all those young players all together at same time. Some players could benefit from a move to develop somewhere else.
I would like For Alena to be sold/loaned and Pedri to go to Bundesliga to develop. Give Puig more opportunities here and allow some Barca B player to fight for some minutes here and there.

 

[serghei]

Quick question, but anyone else don't like that idea of youth influx we are going to have next year.
I mean I want to get younger, but next season squad might have:
Araujo(21) Garcia (19)
Puig (21) Pedri (18) and even according to some rumores ِAlena (22)
Fati (18) and Trincao (21)
That is 7 players of our squad who are 22 or less, with almost no one with true full year in 1st division football.

Of course you'll have youth influx when your team is stacked with old players.

We need young players and we don't have money to sign (semi) established ones like Sancho, Haaland, even Lautaro. Best we can do is scout properly, get the players that fit our team, get them for fair, non-inflated prices, give them time. Oh, and stop making them scapegoats in less than a season for whatever team problems we will still have and they were unable to magically fix. That's a quick and easy way to ruin young players' confidence.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Of course you'll have youth influx when your team is stacked with old players.

We need young players and we don't have money to sign (semi) established ones like Sancho, Haaland, even Lautaro. Best we can do is scout properly, get the players that fit our team, get them for fair, non-inflated prices, give them time.

Young is relative here.
When you sign a 23 years old Lenglet who is starter at Seville, he is young.
When you sign 22 years old De Jong who has been starter for 2 years in Ajax, he is also young.
But making 1/3 of squad for players who have less than 1 years first team football that is 21 or younger isn't a youth influx, but more like an attempt to skew the age average.

 

[serghei]

Young is relative here.
When you sign a 23 years old Lenglet who is starter at Seville, he is young.
When you sign 22 years old De Jong who has been starter for 2 years in Ajax, he is also young.
But making 1/3 of squad for players who have less than 1 years first team football that is 21 or younger isn't a youth influx, but more like an attempt to skew the age average.

De Jong cost an arm and a leg. Out of the question now.

We buy what we can afford. First we used poor scouting because we splashed hundreds of millions thinking expensive players are sure quality and will fit right in, without us doing anything to make it work. Then we ran out of money, and the approach is the opposite, try to use scouting to the fullest, and hit some solid transfers with low sums (for Barcelona standards).

This is the story of this board. First extreme in one direction, then extreme in the other. Incompetents.

At least this approach keeps the money in the club for a better board to maybe take the right decisions and use the money well.

 

[serghei]

Anyway, Pjanic is enough for short term. So the first 11 gets even older, not younger, even with this influx you're talking about.

 

[Vilarrubi]

Quick question, but anyone else don't like that idea of youth influx we are going to have next year.
I mean I want to get younger, but next season squad might have:
Araujo(21) Garcia (19)
Puig (21) Pedri (18) and even according to some rumores ِAlena (22)
Fati (18) and Trincao (21)
That is 7 players of our squad who are 22 or less, with almost no one with true full year in 1st division football.

Yes because it probably means limited minutes for them and most minutes to the veterans as usual.

Can’t see them giving as many minutes as Puig and Fati to all of those mentioned. Let’s wait and see.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Anyway, Pjanic is enough for short term. So the first 11 gets even older, not younger, even with this influx you're talking about.

I think you are missing the point here.
I am talking about this influx actually being bad for long term development of our younger players.
Putting too many youngsters at same time rarely works in your favor. Usually having a 2-3 players it can work but 7 or more you might be hurting their development.
The idea of getting as much as young players and see them compete is very simplistic and not really right.

 

[serghei]

I think you are missing the point here.
I am talking about this influx actually being bad for long term development of our younger players.
Putting too many youngsters at same time rarely works in your favor. Usually having a 2-3 players it can work but 7 or more you might be hurting their development.
The idea of getting as much as young players and see them compete is very simplistic and not really right.

I understood your point. Most of those players will probably be loaned anyway.

Or maybe we plan to actually rest the veterans more, who knows. There's quite a good chunk of games in a season where you can get away with heavy rotations. You just have to be smart and know which are those games. And tell the veterans to sit out those times.

Or maybe they will keep the untouchables (Messi & Suarez really), and phase out the other veterans around them. Busi, Rakitic, Vidal, Umtiti. If Umtiti leaves, we have 2 CBs spots open. Araujo is one, Garcia (if he comes is 2). Every side has 4 valid CBs.

In midfield the competition will be hard. There's room for Puig + 1. We can loan players in the winter as well.

Trincao is the only one that should be 100% loaned. The offense is bad for young players. And we already have Fati there. But they think of it as Trincao for Braithwaite. Since they are looking to sell Baithwaite. But that's still too few minutes available for both Trincao and Fati. Plus that Suarez and Messi might be fit 100% next season, or suffer only minor injuries, unlike this last season.

 

[Andresito]

Trincao is the only one that should be 100% loaned. The offense is bad for young players. And we already have Fati there. But they think of it as Trincao for Braithwaite. Since they are looking to sell Baithwaite. But that's still too few minutes available for both Trincao and Fati. Plus that Suarez and Messi might be fit 100% next season, or suffer only minor injuries, unlike this last season.

Don't forget Dembouz. I think the safest way to approach next season is to go in with 6 attackers. We have too many unreliable players Suarez, Messi due to age and permanently injured Dembele.

Will be a tough split of the minutes if all are fit. But Setien has even benched Suarez this season so there are some minutes to be had there unlike last few seasons.
Even Messi can be rested, but we need a functioning midfield for that so we can just swap one attacker for another without our whole game plan falling apart.

 

[MTL_Barca]

For the midfield it should be enough to send Pedri on loan, that's probably the best for him no matter what happens with Raki/Vidal anyway. He would most likely just compete with Puig for minutes in any possible setup and who knows if Puig even stays a starter with Pjanic joining and Busi being untouchable.

CB is difficult, it seems like they are after Garcia but with Araujo that's not ideal. Still rather risk that setup than hoping some miracle happens to Umtitis knee and a proven high profile CB is probably out of the question for this summer for financial reasons. A bit risky but we could see how they do and then get a strong CB in 2021 to rotate out Pique.

For offense Trincao will suffer the fate of all the RW signings, in the end he'll end up having to compete on LW because Messi is the "RW". Makes things awkward of course but considering things were looking so bad that they had to buy Braithwaite in winter it might be better to have more options Speaking of Braithwaite, he seems unnecessary but who knows if he even can be sold this summer. Buying Griezmann and Braithwaite instead of players that actually fit/help fucked up any kind of structure there.

In theory Messi should get more rest but he'll probably continue to carry the team so that might not change. Let's just hope Trincaos minutes get better managed than with Malcom.