I agree with you Jombi, we should reinforce the midfield with some young quality players, preferably cheap. I think there are lots of options right now. My personal favourites are Frenkie De Jong and Houssem Aouar. I think these two will make it big.
Also Lucas Torreira, Fabian Ruiz(just got linked to him, 12m clause), Tousart and so on.
Busquest, Iniesta, Coutinho, Paulinho, Roberto, Frenkie De Jong and Houssem Aouar
Come on Barto, finish the job!
Would you buy De Jong and Aouar to strengthen our midfield in the next 1-2 seasons or to be good players for Barca (starters or squad players) in let's say 4-5-6 years?
Because De Jong with 12 senior matches for Ajax and Aouar with 24 senior matches for Lyon, surely won't be at a top team level for the next 2-3 years at least.
So, if you buy them, you still won't solve the problem of our ageing midfield, because these youngsters surely won't play an important role in the next 2 years at least.
That means that you need players for right now like Coutinho.
And then, if you have 7-8 older midfielders, plus De Jong, Aouar and Alena, how will you give a playing time to these youngsters and turn them into a good players in 3-4 years?
That is a problem with Barca compared to Ajax, Porto, Lyon and similar.
Barca has Messi and 150 Millions players like Coutinho and Dembele.
Barca doesn't have time to give 10-20 matches per season to Alena, Aouar, De Jong because we have to win in every match.
If we don't win La liga, a lot of players will get sold, a coach will get sacked, Barto will be in problems.
So, when you sum it all, do you think that our coach and president care more about results or about developing some kid from Ajax who played 12 senior matches and who's chances to turn into a big team player one day are probably 1:10 in this moment?
If we were Dortmund or Benfica, then it would be wise to sell all Messis and Coutinhos and just buy 10-15 Arthurs, De Jongs, Aouars and similar.
And then play all these guys, give them 30-40 matches per season, without too much pressure and see how will they develop.
And then re-sell 2-3 of them to big clubs for 50-100 Millions.
But Barca can't do that.
We don't have time to develop youngsters. Or we have very little time to develop youngsters and youngsters will get 5-10 cup matches per season and if they don't shine right away, we can't give them more chances.
Too many people here are expecting trebles and CL titles, and yet in the same time, plenty of room for developing Alena and lots of other kids.
People will also say: but Pep did that...
Well, yes, he had +15 and +20 points advantage in most seasons, so there was room for experimenting, plus he knew his kids from Barca B.
Pep hasn't actually bought his versions of De Jong and Aouar and developed them, right?
People may say also: we have a huge advantage now, we should give minutes to Alena and other kids.
But then:
1. what with Dembele? He can't develop a chemistry with our first 11 if we will play with Alena, Oriol and Arnaiz in La Liga. How will Dembele then create a chemistry with Messi, Iniesta, Rakitic?
2. what about Coutinho? He just came here and he needs time to click with a system to be ready for the next season.
Will he click more easily if he will play alongside Paulinho and Rakitic to get them know better for the future, or he will click better if he will play alongside Alena, Oriol, Arnaiz and another newcomer Dembele?
How will Coutinho and Dembele learn our system if they will play with other kids: who don't know our system either?
3. what about Rafinha? He hasn't played for 1 year. If you give chances to Alena and Oriol, then what about Cou, Dembele, Rafinha?
4. what about Gomes and Denis? Have we decided that we are done with them? So what, Gomes and Denis suck and we won't play them anymore, but let's test guys who have even less chances to make it, like Alena and Oriol?
And this season we have +15 points advantage over Real.
Imagine if we had +1 point over Real in this moment.
There would have been zero chances to even try Alena, Oriol, Arnaiz (De Jong) and others then.
It is just impossible to have both:
1. a team fighting for a CL
2. having squad players like Paulinho, Gomes, Denis, Arda who need to get some minutes to stay on form and to be somewhat happy
3. develop too many youngsters and giving them too many chances in the same time
The only way to give chances to Alena, De Jong and similar is: say goodbye to Rafinha, Denis, Gomes, Arda, Rakitic etc.
But imo, that is too romantic and dreamy. And you guys too easily expect that these kids with 20 senior matches will turn into better players than NT players like Gomes, Rakitic, Arda and similar.
So, how would some of you actually develop Alena, De Jong, Aouar and similar?
They won't get a playing time here.
And people on this forum don't like loans.
What to do then?