Barca Transfers and Rumors

[Joan]

If you exclude Hernandez and Lenglet, I'd say the 5 hottest prospects right now are Konaté, Upamecano, Kamara, Kimpembe and Kounde.

How do you rate Lenglet?

 

[Bulgroz]

How do you rate Lenglet?

Just to be clear: I excluded him because the question was "who are the 5 best prospects in this list, considering Lenglet and Hernandez are not prospects anymore?".
As for my opinion about him: he was seen as a very good young player in Nancy. Iirc, he was his team's captain at only 19, in a side that was fighting to stay in Ligue 1. Don't think many people saw him as a future GOAT, but there was a lot of potential nonetheless.

His move to Sevilla was a bit of a surprise, most pundits thought he could have tried a bigger French team than Nancy first (Lyon and Marseille were interested), but his success in Spain wasn't a huge surprise. He probably exceeded expectations in how fast he managed to step up though.

All in all, I rate him as a very good CB but I'm not sure he'll ever been one of the best. He still was a very good buy for Barca imho, especially with Umtiti's fucked up knee. Great squad player, with many qualities and a top notch mentality.

 

[raki]

Kamara, Kimpembe, Lucas Hernandez, Gnagnon, Pavard, Lenglet, Diallo, Zagadou, Diop, Upamecano, Sarr, Konaté, N'Dicka, Matsima, Todibo, Kouassi, Pembele, Niakhaté, Diakhaby, Koundé, Badiashile, Duverne, Gelin, Solet, Bianda, Doucouré, Niakaté, Saliba.

So could you rank the 5, maybe 10 biggest talents among these? Could exclude Lucas and Lenglet as they're already regulars at top teams.

How many world class centre backs are there in the world? 10-15? Most of these guys will probably end up as the next Sakho/Rami/Mangala, i.e not close to Barca level, so most of these are irrelevant to even mention.

Konaté
Pavard
Upamecano
Kimpembe
Diop
Diallo
Zagadou
Gnagnon
Kamara
Diakhaby
Koundé
Todibo
Badiashile

 

[FC433]

If we are going to sign a LB and possibly a striker this summer, that means De Ligt and another midfielder like Ndombele will be out of the question pretty much.

A LB and a striker alone will easily cost us 120m +.

Perhaps we can sign a CB in the January 2020 window.

Alba can still give us two more seasons. We should get Filipe Luís, his contract ends this summer. Loan Miranda and Cucu too.

 

[Jay Jay]

What about Icardi for a CF? WC, perfect ages aaand we can swap him for Rakitic

EDIT: Seroius one, Rakitic and Rafinha for Icardi, fair enough.

 

[soul24rage]

Alba can still give us two more seasons. We should get Filipe Luís, his contract ends this summer. Loan Miranda and Cucu too.

Filipe Luis would also be my #1 choice for LB back up. Alba will be a starter for at least the next 2 years and realistically, the LB back up will only play about 15 games max (unless there's an injury to Alba). That's too little game for an upcoming youngster to really develop. Luis has a lot of experience at the top level, knows La Liga very well, he's playing decently and he's a free agent this summer like you said so he ticks all the boxes as a LB backup for me.

It's been strongly rumoured lately that we want Ferland Mendy of Lyon. If we do buy him this summer, I would prefer to loan him to a Spanish club or keep him at Lyon for the next 2 years so that he would get a lot of play time. At the end of those 2 years, we can let go of Luis, bring Mendy and make him and Alba fight for the #1 spot. We'll also have to see the development of Cucurella and Miranda.

 

[FC433]

^
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="pl" dir="ltr">Mendy pierwszy na liście wzmocnień lewej obrony. Alternatywy to Junior Firpo i Filipe Luis. <a href="https://t.co/6yA8MjX6bY">pic.twitter.com/6yA8MjX6bY</a></p>— ■neurophate (@neurophate_) <a href="https://twitter.com/neurophate_/status/1094038651472887808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Says Mendy is our first option. Then we have Firpo and F. Luis.

 

[Zidane82]

If we are going to sign a LB and possibly a striker this summer, that means De Ligt and another midfielder like Ndombele will be out of the question pretty much.

A LB and a striker alone will easily cost us 120m +.

Perhaps we can sign a CB in the January 2020 window.

Sadly we have four maybe five weaknesses ... in every section .
Valverde
Attack Suarez
Midfield Rakitic
Defence Roberto and *Umtiti

 

[Messi983]

With Alba renewing I don't see us spending 50M on Mendy or Firpo and Filipe Luis is way past his prime and injury prone. Just bring back Cucu, he's good enough for those 10-15 games/season. Or go for someone like Alfonso Pedraza. His clause is around 20M and we could probably get him even cheaper if Villarreal will be relegated. He can be also used as left winger if needed (can't be worse there than Despacito Shaqiri). If Villarreal goes down Jaume Costa could also be an option.

 

[Joan]

I'm not the biggest fan of bringing back Cucurella as our LB solution. He's playing as a LM/LW. If we rely on him, I think we'll face similar problems next winter.

 

[FC433]

^
I agree. Cucu can actually improve a little bit more and getting him back would hurt his development. I am sure we can find someone decent for 10m to 20m. Keep Cucu at Eibar and loan Miranda for two seasons and let us see how they develop. Alba is good enough.

 

[serghei]

Neither Cucurella nor Miranda are actually good. I think we'd do better if we bring an older experienced player as a back-up for Alba than some young player who's a defensive liability, Barca B player or not.

 

[khaled_a_d]

I'm not the biggest fan of bringing back Cucurella as our LB solution. He's playing as a LM/LW. If we rely on him, I think we'll face similar problems next winter.

Never mind it will probably hinder his development as a player.

 

[DonAK]

With Alba renewing I don't see us spending 50M on Mendy or Firpo and Filipe Luis is way past his prime and injury prone. Just bring back Cucu, he's good enough for those 10-15 games/season. Or go for someone like Alfonso Pedraza. His clause is around 20M and we could probably get him even cheaper if Villarreal will be relegated. He can be also used as left winger if needed (can't be worse there than Despacito Shaqiri). If Villarreal goes down Jaume Costa could also be an option.

Alba turns 30 this year and FBs usually start declining around this age. Dani Alves, Maicon, Ashley Cole, Filipe Luis(never been the same since he returned), Roberto Carlos, Evra, Marcelo right now.

All of them hitting a steep decline from 30 and onwards.

Alba in particular is very reliant on his pace too. If we can get Ferland Mendy or Firpo for a price that's fair I think we should go for it. You never know how the market for FBs is in two years. It's been really bad for a few years now and both Mendy and Firpo are pretty good players with potential to be starters.

 

[Riordon]

If Rodrygo turns out to be as talented like Vinicius, Real got very lucky. Then they dont even need Hazard and will save even more money.

Read we were in for Vincius but didn't work out.

Its good we are scouting the south american market heavily. We got Arthur for a good price and Real looks like to have a diamond in Vinicius for a good deal as well.

Now even Ajax, Dortmund and Monaco will ask 100+ for their quality youngsters.