As JamDav says, Busquets and Pedro were BETTER than Toure and Henry. Hence, Pep logically put them in as starters. Also, Samper is younger than Bartra was when Pep left in 2012. Pep did not trust Bojan and bought in big names even though Bojan clearly had potential (just as Samper has potential right now). Pep is a great coach, but please keep your line of argument consistent.
You guys are missing my point. Again, as I said prior, I'm not saying Samper, Bartra, Sandro, anyone should be benching our starters. Bartra got his start under Pep in 2010 when he was 19, I wasn't talking about Bartra's situation when Pep left, but when Bartra first broke into the first team.
All I am saying is that before we splash cash on more players, particularly in regards to Gerson, we should decide who among our young players (Rafinha, Samper, Halilovic, Denis Suarez, Munir, Bartra, Sandro) has the potential to be a starter in two years time and for those who don't, we simply sell. Otherwise we are just setting up both the players we have signed in the past and the players we sign now up to fail. D. Suarez, Halilovic and Gerson are all vying for the same spot and have similar attributes, so without one leaving, having all of them together reduces their playing time, their chances to develop and makes them more likely to bust. Its just a waste of a transfer and money if you only half give him a chance to prove himself, and loaning players out and expecting them to be a Fabregas simply isn't realistic.
With Pep and Busquets and Pedro, Pep never would have been able to gauge whether or not they were truly better or not if he didn't take a risk in playing them to see how they react. And I'm not saying sporadic sub appearances every 6 games, like a continual sub for a first team player, starts in low risk games, that's how you determine how a player fits into the team or if he doesn't.
It just doesn't make sense to me in buying a promising young attacking midfielder when we already have bought a young promising attacking midfielder for the past two summer transfer windows now, particularly when they haven't had a chance to feature and show what they can do with our best players.
Like I don't mind the Abdennour move, he's no Mathieu and actually could be world class. But unless/until we loan/sell Bartra or Vermalen and make room for Abdennour, it doesn't make a lot of sense when we all know that Pique-Masch is the starting pairing, no questions asked.
I feel even more like this with Gerson, let alone all of the other young players he will limit time towards, why sign him when Rafinha is clearly showing that he's an option as an attacking midfielder.
Again, why sign a player when you have two or three like them in the team. Abdennour is a better player than Bartra at the moment but you can't say that with Gerson over either Rafinha, Denis Suarez or Halilovic.
