Barca Transfers and Rumors

[BarçaBarça]

I'd like to get either of them but if rumours about Chelsea offering 40M for Davinson are true I just don't think we'll pay that much.

While some other CBs linked to us are probably better players right now I still find Mere intriguing. He's only 20 and has already played 2 full seasons in La Liga. He's still considered as one of Spain's best CB talents and we've missed out on so much domestic talent over the years so I wouldn't mind spent around 10M on him and hope he's somewhere on Robert's CB shortlist. Then if our plan is to go with Pique-Umtiti-Masche-Marlon next season I'd loan him out to La Liga team (maybe someone like Villarreal - because they are an organized team and he could improve there better than in misorganized bottom table team like Gijon - who could look for a new CBs with Musacchio apparently already sold to Milan) for a year and bring him back next season when Masche leaves.

If he turns out good for us then great if not we can always sell him but at least we won't be sorry in the future that we've missed out on another good/potentially great spanish talent we could've have for relatively cheap.

That is kind of crazy if true, considering that they have Andreas Christensen coming back, who looks like at least as good a player and prospect right now. With Luiz and Zouma + maybe Davidson in front of him, we could also try to convince him to come here - if we fail, then no harm done - CB is not first priority anyway..

Your neat plan to get Mere sounds great, there is no loss in spending 8 M on a promising spanish youngster.

I don't really trust any rumours until Valverde is confirmed. From there and onwards, we might get an indication of his priorities and possible favourites in the marked. But even then, it is hard to say, because Robert seems to sign players very quickly at times.

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

Anyway, I can't believe that the stupid board and the coach thought he'd be a mid fielder though. That in itself has ruined the season big way. We can look no further than him ruining the classico and bringing a difference of 3 points which would have made the difference between us and Real for example

We messed up so many times this season, It's basically miracle we are still in the race. Arda's failure was just one of the problems.

I blame bad rotations by Lucho and him underestimating teams. Every time I thought it was going to be tough game, home or away, we see Lucho putting weak team and by surprise we lost points. It happened again and again. I know we don't have the best bench, but at least rest good players vs super weak teams, not vs good teams.

 

[Barcaman]

I don't think the creative midfielder is our no.1 priority. With Messi more and more moving centrally and creating and Valverde possibly playing that 4-2-3-1, I'd say we need a right winger more and if we really want to sign a midfielder, it'd have to be someone with great lungs and more of a defensive mold.

 

[Messi983]

I don't think the creative midfielder is our no.1 priority. With Messi more and more moving centrally and creating and Valverde possibly playing that 4-2-3-1, I'd say we need a right winger more and if we really want to sign a midfielder, it'd have to be someone with great lungs and more of a defensive mold.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind someone like N'Zonzi if we go that way. Or maybe even Seri that was rumoured to us. But people will probably be disappointed because they still think we need Xavi and Iniesta replacements.

 

[Espacio]

this is my team that i want to see next season
yes i know so difficult to built this team but why not

 

[Messi983]

Reply from Messi thread. I think it's better to post here...

He's already playing as an AM for large part of games this season.

That's true but problem is that on the paper he's still a RW and when he plays more central our right wing is dead, because we have no real RW and not even attacking RB like Alves who worked like RW most of the times. Lucho tried to compensate that with playing Rakitić/Gomes and Roberto as RM/RW but with that he lost stability in midfield because holes between Busi and our CMs were just too big that they could have any kind of midfield control against better teams whenever we played 4-3-3 (it's not a coincidence we played some of our best games with 3-4-3 when we had one midfielder more and they were positioned closer to each other). Even Busi and Iniesta as our best midfielders struggled with those tactics because they are used to have their closest pass option 5-10 m away and not 15-20 m. That's why I still believe that our midfielders in general are not as bad as they were made looked this season by Lucho's tactics. Hopefully Valverde will make them play closer together and more compact. Whether that's by keeping 4-3-3 formation or changing to his prefered 4-2-3-1 it's up to him to decide but I think we should at least try to see how 4-2-3-1 with Messi as AMC (this time on the paper as well) and with support of a good RB/RW combination (both those positions we'd need to still improve and that will take some time for both new players to adapt) would look like. That's why I'd go for Bernardo Silva. He could play as RW in 4-2-3-1 (Coutinho could possibly play there as well but he's much more used to play as LW and AMC where we already have Neymar and Messi) and maybe even work as CM (in current Iniesta role) if we play 4-3-3. If not before we'll most likely go back to 4-3-3 in 2-3 years when Xavi will take over as a manager. If Silva can adapt to also play as CM in our system then we can go for a true winger like Dembele in a year or two. I know some people already want him now but from what I've seeen while he's undoubtely very talented he's still pretty raw in some aspects of his game (and [MENTION=19371]Yannik[/MENTION] who has watched him a lot more than I did has also said that in Dembele thread) and could use another season of development in Dortmund.

It could take some time to get used to this but I think we could play 4-2-3-1 in most away games and at home against top teams while continue to play 4-3-3 at home versus bottom table teams that are expected to sit back more.

For away/tougher games something like this could work:

MATS/Cillessen
RB/Palencia--Pique (new CB or Marlon)--Umtiti (Masche)--Alba (Digne)
Busquets (Gomes)--Roberto (Rakitić/Iniesta*)
B.Silva (Vidal/Deulofeu**)--Messi (Rafinha***)--Neymar (D.Suarez)
Suarez (Paco)

* I just don't see a starting place for Iniesta in this system. Busquets is undisputed starter and from our current midfielders I prefer Roberto alongside him because he has more energy and fresher legs. Give Iniesta starts against teams that are expected to sit back where his creativity could be used and sub him on in 2nd half in closer games to bring more stability and control.

Of course if we'll have enough money to also get a mobile DM/CM like N'Zonzi or a few years younger Seri that could replace Roberto in my projected lineup then I'd be ok with that too but it's hard to believe. We probably won't get more than 30-40M for Arda and other rejects and I don't think we'll spend more than 100M net again.

** I think for 12M we have to bring Deulofeu back and see what he has to offer but there were reports lately we still have some doubts about that. Anyway, I think Vidal would be a very solid backup RW and that would also make a place in first team for Palencia as backup to newly signed RB.

*** If rumours about 25-30M bids for Rafinha are true I'd seriously consider selling (with injuries becoming the main concern about him) otherwise keep him as he could still be useful squad player.

So that's about 23-24 first team players.

We'd improve our weak spots (RB, RW) and further improve/rejuvenate CB and possibly backup positions for MSN. I know that's hardly a revolution of squad (especially midfield) that some people want but I don't believe we really need one if we'll change system to 4-2-3-1.

We'll have to invest around 30-40M for RB (just hope it's not Bellerin) based on the fact that a lot of top teams are also looking for a new RB and their prices will go up and 70-80M for Silva but if we'll get the right RB I believe those two players would really improve our team a lot and possible change of formation or at least better tactics that I expect from Valverde would also help. I'd like to also get young CB like D. Sanchez (sent Marlon on loan in that case) but I wouldn't pay more than what we did for Umtiti. If we can get him for 25M fine if not look for alternatives or even just use Marlon as 4th CB. I'd prefer him getting more minutes on loan than he'd possibly get in this role here but at the same time I'm also aware that he could get into similar situation than Samper did in Granada this season if we loan him so if we decide to do that we should really choose his club carefully.

If Barça B is promoted to Segunda I'd keep Alena there and let him train with first team and play in CDR/easier home league games. If he'll convince Valverde and we'll find a way to get him enough minutes he could get promoted during the season.

I'd let Samper and Munir do a preseason with the team and then decide about their future but for now it seems like they'll both go on another loan. Eusebio apparently wants Munir in Sociedad and IIRC he played good under him in B team so maybe that would be a good destination for him and they'll also play in Europa League so there will probably be enough minutes for him. Don't know about Samper but there are rumours Oscar Garcia might come to La Liga this season so I'd loan him to his team if that's true.

 

[Jombi]

I don't think the creative midfielder is our no.1 priority. With Messi more and more moving centrally and creating and Valverde possibly playing that 4-2-3-1, I'd say we need a right winger more and if we really want to sign a midfielder, it'd have to be someone with great lungs and more of a defensive mold.

I think we would get murdered defensively playing 4 attackers and only two midfielders. Especially if we play a classic "winger" on the right as well. We need men in the center to handle things defensively. Thats where the action is.

 

[SeloBarca]

Would be nice to have someone that can play AM and switch with Messi for RW back and forth, like Bernardo Silva.

Bernardo Silva and Dahoud would have been be realistic if we werent so slow, little bit of a gamble but realistic.

 

[Barcilliant]

I don't think the creative midfielder is our no.1 priority. With Messi more and more moving centrally and creating and Valverde possibly playing that 4-2-3-1, I'd say we need a right winger more and if we really want to sign a midfielder, it'd have to be someone with great lungs and more of a defensive mold.

Right wing Deulofeu? Dembele?

I doubt Valverde has the balls to field a new formation. He will stick with 4-3-3.

 

[Barcilliant]

Only the big name managers would be confident switching to a new formation.

 

[Zinedinho]

I don't think the creative midfielder is our no.1 priority. With Messi more and more moving centrally and creating and Valverde possibly playing that 4-2-3-1, I'd say we need a right winger more and if we really want to sign a midfielder, it'd have to be someone with great lungs and more of a defensive mold.

Messi lacks the work rate of a midfielder. Well, Messi lacks work rate, period. That means that, wherever he plays, you need extra effort from the players around him, covering the space he leaves behind with his movements. It worked with Rakitic for a while, but the whole system is not working anymore with the current players. Messi in the middle with Valverde's 4-2-3-1 would leave our midfield too unprotected. If we sign a RW with that idea in mind, it should be a very specific type of RW. No Deulofeu, that's for sure. It should be a midfielder-winger workhorse. Some sort of Vitolo, with more quality. Or: stick with Messi as a RW and let him do whatever he likes, which is what he's been doing under Luis Enrique. I don't see his current position as particularly problematic compared to the potential problems of him being part of a triangle midfield.

 

[JamDav1982]

Not a fan of Messi as an AM unless he changes his game in a few ways.

Needs to move off the ball more and needs to dictaate play more than does at moment to try and create more variety and give Barca more weapons to break teams down.

At moment Messi at AM tries to go at heart of defence a bit too much first thought is to try and dribble through them or make an unbelievable pass. There is no one better at that but needs to slow it down a bit at times, dictate tempo, try to open up pitch and when he does goe at defence it will be more effective.

Barcelona are very predictable against good teams with Messi in middle at moment unless they play as open as Real did in last classico.

Still think he is better from the right hand side.

 

[Zinedinho]

Not a fan of Messi as an AM unless he changes his game in a few ways.

Needs to move off the ball more and needs to dictaate play more than does at moment to try and create more variety and give Barca more weapons to break teams down.

At moment Messi at AM tries to go at heart of defence a bit too much first thought is to try and dribble through them or make an unbelievable pass. There is no one better at that but needs to slow it down a bit at times, dictate tempo, try to open up pitch and when he does goe at defence it will be more effective.

Barcelona are very predictable against good teams with Messi in middle at moment unless they play as open as Real did in last classico.

Still think he is better from the right hand side.

Agreed. And why would we want Messi to change and be a bit more like Xavi or Iniesta? We could use his verticality from time to time as an AM, but the whole idea seems tactically unstable in the long run.

And Messi plays with lots of freedom. That won't ever change. In modern football (and, particularly, Barça's), that means you need at least one player "entangled" with him (sorry for the QM reference). And it's safest to have a more defensively minded player to be aware of that. The further up the pitch Messi plays, the easiest it is to do that.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Messi lacks the work rate of a midfielder. Well, Messi lacks work rate, period. That means that, wherever he plays, you need extra effort from the players around him, covering the space he leaves behind with his movements. It worked with Rakitic for a while, but the whole system is not working anymore with the current players. Messi in the middle with Valverde's 4-2-3-1 would leave our midfield too unprotected. If we sign a RW with that idea in mind, it should be a very specific type of RW. No Deulofeu, that's for sure. It should be a midfielder-winger workhorse. Some sort of Vitolo, with more quality. Or: stick with Messi as a RW and let him do whatever he likes, which is what he's been doing under Luis Enrique. I don't see his current position as particularly problematic compared to the potential problems of him being part of a triangle midfield.

Messi lack of work rate is a problem.period. No matter how we go around it it
For sure it will require a work from midfielder if he is AM and will need a specific RW,but then again how is it working as pseudo-RW?
There have been many problems for our struggles since early 2016,but it was no coincidence it was with Messi moving to do whatever he wants with freedom,it destroyed both right side and midfield as Bojan said. no RB in the world right now will fix it. no CM will fix it either because no one can cover right side and control midfield at same time.
With Messi as AM you are just covering one player lack of work with no many tactical challenges on the whole team,with him as RW he is free but you are changing the dynamic of this team.
You can argue about Jamdav idea of him sticking to right side,but I am not sure that Messi himself is a fan of it,he basically played less than a season and half in past 7 years as RW,he always shifts to the central whenever he is free to do so,at the end of the day he is the best player in the world and he will always play on his strength and the team will have to adapt to that.

 

[Barcaman]

Reply from Messi thread. I think it's better to post here...



That's true but problem is that on the paper he's still a RW and when he plays more central our right wing is dead, because we have no real RW and not even attacking RB like Alves who worked like RW most of the times. Lucho tried to compensate that with playing Rakitić/Gomes and Roberto as RM/RW but with that he lost stability in midfield because holes between Busi and our CMs were just too big that they could have any kind of midfield control against better teams whenever we played 4-3-3 (it's not a coincidence we played some of our best games with 3-4-3 when we had one midfielder more and they were positioned closer to each other). Even Busi and Iniesta as our best midfielders struggled with those tactics because they are used to have their closest pass option 5-10 m away and not 15-20 m. That's why I still believe that our midfielders in general are not as bad as they were made looked this season by Lucho's tactics. Hopefully Valverde will make them play closer together and more compact. Whether that's by keeping 4-3-3 formation or changing to his prefered 4-2-3-1 it's up to him to decide but I think we should at least try to see how 4-2-3-1 with Messi as AMC (this time on the paper as well) and with support of a good RB/RW combination (both those positions we'd need to still improve and that will take some time for both new players to adapt) would look like. That's why I'd go for Bernardo Silva. He could play as RW in 4-2-3-1 (Coutinho could possibly play there as well but he's much more used to play as LW and AMC where we already have Neymar and Messi) and maybe even work as CM (in current Iniesta role) if we play 4-3-3. If not before we'll most likely go back to 4-3-3 in 2-3 years when Xavi will take over as a manager. If Silva can adapt to also play as CM in our system then we can go for a true winger like Dembele in a year or two. I know some people already want him now but from what I've seeen while he's undoubtely very talented he's still pretty raw in some aspects of his game (and [MENTION=19371]Yannik[/MENTION] who has watched him a lot more than I did has also said that in Dembele thread) and could use another season of development in Dortmund.

It could take some time to get used to this but I think we could play 4-2-3-1 in most away games and at home against top teams while continue to play 4-3-3 at home versus bottom table teams that are expected to sit back more.

For away/tougher games something like this could work:

MATS/Cillessen
RB/Palencia--Pique (new CB or Marlon)--Umtiti (Masche)--Alba (Digne)
Busquets (Gomes)--Roberto (Rakitić/Iniesta*)
B.Silva (Vidal/Deulofeu**)--Messi (Rafinha***)--Neymar (D.Suarez)
Suarez (Paco)

* I just don't see a starting place for Iniesta in this system. Busquets is undisputed starter and from our current midfielders I prefer Roberto alongside him because he has more energy and fresher legs. Give Iniesta starts against teams that are expected to sit back where his creativity could be used and sub him on in 2nd half in closer games to bring more stability and control.

Of course if we'll have enough money to also get a mobile DM/CM like N'Zonzi or a few years younger Seri that could replace Roberto in my projected lineup then I'd be ok with that too but it's hard to believe. We probably won't get more than 30-40M for Arda and other rejects and I don't think we'll spend more than 100M net again.

** I think for 12M we have to bring Deulofeu back and see what he has to offer but there were reports lately we still have some doubts about that. Anyway, I think Vidal would be a very solid backup RW and that would also make a place in first team for Palencia as backup to newly signed RB.

*** If rumours about 25-30M bids for Rafinha are true I'd seriously consider selling (with injuries becoming the main concern about him) otherwise keep him as he could still be useful squad player.

So that's about 23-24 first team players.

We'd improve our weak spots (RB, RW) and further improve/rejuvenate CB and possibly backup positions for MSN. I know that's hardly a revolution of squad (especially midfield) that some people want but I don't believe we really need one if we'll change system to 4-2-3-1.

We'll have to invest around 30-40M for RB (just hope it's not Bellerin) based on the fact that a lot of top teams are also looking for a new RB and their prices will go up and 70-80M for Silva but if we'll get the right RB I believe those two players would really improve our team a lot and possible change of formation or at least better tactics that I expect from Valverde would also help. I'd like to also get young CB like D. Sanchez (sent Marlon on loan in that case) but I wouldn't pay more than what we did for Umtiti. If we can get him for 25M fine if not look for alternatives or even just use Marlon as 4th CB. I'd prefer him getting more minutes on loan than he'd possibly get in this role here but at the same time I'm also aware that he could get into similar situation than Samper did in Granada this season if we loan him so if we decide to do that we should really choose his club carefully.

If Barça B is promoted to Segunda I'd keep Alena there and let him train with first team and play in CDR/easier home league games. If he'll convince Valverde and we'll find a way to get him enough minutes he could get promoted during the season.

I'd let Samper and Munir do a preseason with the team and then decide about their future but for now it seems like they'll both go on another loan. Eusebio apparently wants Munir in Sociedad and IIRC he played good under him in B team so maybe that would be a good destination for him and they'll also play in Europa League so there will probably be enough minutes for him. Don't know about Samper but there are rumours Oscar Garcia might come to La Liga this season so I'd loan him to his team if that's true.

Agreed with almost everything you wrote. Only, I'd go for a more athletic RW (Dembele) as to offset our overall lack of pace. Question also remains; which RB do we sign.