Barça's Transfers and Rumors

[khaled_a_d]

Your tireless defense of every decision any Barca management does is well known but this one really is something else. We bought Marquez, Ronaldinho, Yaya, and Abidal from the French league. Then we stopped. It is literally absurd to portray our deals in the French league as not important or bad for our results and a good thing that we stopped buying from the league. And its not like we buy players younger than 25 from La Liga either! The only La Liga player younger than 25 we have bought in the last 8 years is Jordi Alba 4 years ago!

The point is that we have such aversion for players 25 or younger who are great in their respective leagues, full stop, no matter if its La Liga, French league, Argentina or other leagues. The examples I gave of past transfers from the French league and current potential options was just to illustrate that we ignore the French league and other leagues at our peril. There are lots of good players out there who dominate in other leagues and are 25 or younger.

But sure, lets continue chasing those 29 year olds with no sell-on value or trying to sign a young player only once a rich club has already bought him. We always used to buy players 25 years and younger in the past.

I've criticized the club board plenty of times .I had tons of discussions with guy like BBz about important of youth more than anyone here
Hell I was actually criticized the board in my 1st post you quoted when I said I don't think that not going for youth isn't duo to Lucho .
But YOUR OBSESSION WITH LIGUE 1 is also well documented .yes we had gr8 signings b4 .but we also had gr8 signings since the Pep era when we started to drop interest in players from France. and this was by far the best era we had .
I loved Rijkaard days ,in fact 2005/06 still my all time favorite Barca season .But I am objective person .and that team is no match for the current era where teams are really super stacked .You can't get way with players like Belletti/Oleguer/Giuly/MVB/Edmilson in your starting lineup and win Liga/CL
And french teams now aren't selling with same prices they used to be . In summer of 2003 we bought R10 for 46% of the price of the most expensive player in the world at that time .R10 who was 23 ,proven .star player in a World Cup winning team .
Martial was sold for practically 80M (more than 80% of the current most expensive player) when he was unproven 19 years old player .
Yes France has talents ,but the bargains are few ,and rare if you compare it to the Rijkaard days .just because you like them and you think we should sign them doesn't mean they are actually good enough or affordable
The club paid huge money for young player when he was worth it in Neymar . We can't spend like Manu or City or even PSG to pay huge sums for many young players .and the club has La Masia that they need to keep making it a priority and can't afford to go the Chelsea way and keep signing 100 prospects and loan them .
And again .the real top clubs puts more effort in getting players from their own country/League . they are usually more affordable unless you are in England duo to the long term interests between the clubs and players preferring to stay in same country . and they have bigger chance to succeed and fit in the team .
Denis Suarez is starter at Villarreal btw .and he is really doing well there and while I don't like him personally he is proving me wrong big time lately .Halilovic has been gr8 most of the year .yes he was relegated to the bench lately but that is partially duo to Sporting having a defensive minded coach .nevermind he is 19 .he is a long term prospect who might take couple of more years to develop for us .just like players like Pedro/S.Roberto and plenty of others wasn't gr8 since they were 19 but were so freakin gr8 players for Barca

 

[Messi983]

The reason we need a centre back is we signed two short term fixes in Mathieu and Vermalen and for the same combined money we could have got a Laporte or Marquinhos for. Why sign another short term fix? We can't keep putting off the problem and you end up spending more in the long run putting a plaster over it.

Relax, we won't buy Miranda.

Not sure if theirs any weight to this Rumor.

But according to ESPN Italia we are still following Marcos Alonso as a LB option for the Summer window.

SPORT's write up.

http://www.sport-english.com/en/not...uing-follow-fiorentinas-marcos-alonso-5014717

I think he would be a good option. If I remember correctly he said in January he was willing to move on from Fiorentina after the season but his father convinced him to sign new contract there.

He's also versatile which is another reason why Lucho could like him.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Again this "we are only buying old players" debate.



And who should we replace that much? Think about this Barça in say 2019/20.

MAtS (26)
Vidal (29)-Pique (32)-whichever CB we buy this summer-Alba (30)/maybe Marin (22)
Roberto (27)-Busquets (31)-Rafinha (26)
Messi (32)* -Munir (23)**-Neymar (27)

*He could also drop more into midfield and get his place on the wing for a player like Halilovic or Suarez.

** Let him go on loan for two seasons to get regular playing time then return him.

This is the starting XI only. What happens when some of these players get injured? Do we pray everyday that our starting XI never get injured and hope for the best?

What about building depth? Our direct competitors Real Madrid and Bayern all have a quality bench and we need to have the same, if not better.

 

[Jombi]

I've criticized the club board plenty of times .I had tons of discussions with guy like BBz about important of youth more than anyone here
Hell I was actually criticized the board in my 1st post you quoted when I said I don't think that not going for youth isn't duo to Lucho .
But YOUR OBSESSION WITH LIGUE 1 is also well documented .yes we had gr8 signings b4 .but we also had gr8 signings since the Pep era when we started to drop interest in players from France. and this was by far the best era we had .
I loved Rijkaard days ,in fact 2005/06 still my all time favorite Barca season .But I am objective person .and that team is no match for the current era where teams are really super stacked .You can't get way with players like Belletti/Oleguer/Giuly/MVB/Edmilson in your starting lineup and win Liga/CL
And french teams now aren't selling with same prices they used to be . In summer of 2003 we bought R10 for 46% of the price of the most expensive player in the world at that time .R10 who was 23 ,proven .star player in a World Cup winning team .
Martial was sold for practically 80M (more than 80% of the current most expensive player) when he was unproven 19 years old player .
Yes France has talents ,but the bargains are few ,and rare if you compare it to the Rijkaard days .just because you like them and you think we should sign them doesn't mean they are actually good enough or affordable
The club paid huge money for young player when he was worth it in Neymar . We can't spend like Manu or City or even PSG to pay huge sums for many young players .and the club has La Masia that they need to keep making it a priority and can't afford to go the Chelsea way and keep signing 100 prospects and loan them .
And again .the real top clubs puts more effort in getting players from their own country/League . they are usually more affordable unless you are in England duo to the long term interests between the clubs and players preferring to stay in same country . and they have bigger chance to succeed and fit in the team .
Denis Suarez is starter at Villarreal btw .and he is really doing well there and while I don't like him personally he is proving me wrong big time lately .Halilovic has been gr8 most of the year .yes he was relegated to the bench lately but that is partially duo to Sporting having a defensive minded coach .nevermind he is 19 .he is a long term prospect who might take couple of more years to develop for us .just like players like Pedro/S.Roberto and plenty of others wasn't gr8 since they were 19 but were so freakin gr8 players for Barca

You basically defended every single decision the board did, coming up with all sorts of excuses. Thats not to criticize the management.

This isnt about the French league. I already mentioned Jorginho, Jorge and Mammana as top players from various leagues. How about Ruben Neves? Top player. Its about buying players 25 years or younger who are some of the best players in their league. We almost never do it. And that of course applies to La Liga as well. Alba is the only one in almost 8 years. So its the same as with the French league. Zero players from France. One player from La Liga.

You are making excuses claiming we can no longer afford to buy from leagues like France. You are suddenly claiming that all players in France will go for 80m+ if they have impressed in 2 or 3 games. Thats not how things work. Mahrez, Kante and Payet barely cost anything from French clubs and have set the PL on fire this season. Do I say we should have bought all of them? No, but to just portray all transfers around the world under 25 as hopelessly expensive is false. Bayern bought Coman for a bag of chips and Douglas Costa was 50% cheaper than Arda. Wake up.

We can get Umtiti for 20-25m from Lyon. What did we pay for Abidal from Lyon? Of course Abidal was important for the Pep era. Do you honestly think Umtiti will go for 100m like overpriced Stones? John Stones and Per Mertesacker are typical Barca targets. We need to think smart again.

 

[JamDav1982]

This is the starting XI only. What happens when some of these players get injured? Do we pray everyday that our starting XI never get injured and hope for the best?

What about building depth? Our direct competitors Real Madrid and Bayern all have a quality bench and we need to have the same, if not better.

There is plenty of depth other than maybe at for front three but even then Messi missed a couple months and the team coped.

How many teams have a stronger bench than Barca?

Bench for strongest line up would have Ter Stegen, Vidal, Mathieu, Roberto, Arda, Rafinha, Munir etc.

Cant think of many if any would swap for that.

 

[Luftstalag14]

You keep mentioning names you just like ,But those names could be just not the club standards or not worth the money for their roles
We have been the best club in the world in the past decade .that decade that we stopped buying players from Ligue 1 btw .May be that prove it isn't really the recipe of gr8 success?
May be the names you keep throwing aren't that gr8 after all?
We have good Scouting ,but the club strategy has been always to get youth players who will play in Barca B and get their time in the academy.
This is the Cruyff way who identified the club for decades now .The players need to get path in the academy to at least know the club philosophy .We got players like Halilovic & D.Suarez that way .
Those are really cheap options .Players who still didn't make it to the scene . Not the Ligue 1 overpriced young players .
If I am gonna worry about not signings players ,it will be preferring to go for Douglas over Asensio and losing on couple of young Spanish players like Vallejo for RM more than I would worry about those Ligue 1 players

We have been the best club in the world in the last 15 years or so because we have had the luck to have Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets etc. with us. We are still one of the best clubs today because of Messi for the most part.

France is producing a lot of young talent these days, why not looking at Ligue 1 or French talent? Bayern hit the jackpot with Coman, and the latest rumor indicates that they are looking to buy two more top talent from Ligue 1, one of whom was mentioned in Jombi's post. I don't see why we can't or shouldn't buy these players, kids with a lot of potential and put them in La Masia for a few years and see how they will turn out. If Bayern is willing to buy them, that tells me something: They are not that expensive.

I don't know if we have good scouting. Braida, what has he done by the way? He is on our payroll touring around Europe (Italy for the most part) and we have yet to see what value he has added to the club.

By the way, what happens to the rumor on Barcastaff several months ago (?) about us wanting to sign the top South American and European talent in the age group of 18, 19 etc.? Is that still the plan?

I really hate to see our biggest rivals such as Real Madrid and Bayern (and pretty soon City) sucking in all the great prospects while we are left counting our coins and thinking "we are good enough".

 

[Luftstalag14]

There is plenty of depth other than maybe at for front three but even then Messi missed a couple months and the team coped.

How many teams have a stronger bench than Barca?

Bench for strongest line up would have Ter Stegen, Vidal, Mathieu, Roberto, Arda, Rafinha, Munir etc.

Cant think of many if any would swap for that.

Plenty of depth? Perhaps midfield only, there is no depth in the back line or the front three. What depth do we have when we are saying Pique and Masch must not get injured in the next three months because we have little confidence on Bartra and Vermaelen?

I'd say Bayern, Real Madrid, Atletico all have more depth than us. And I don't follow the English teams that much so I don't know.

 

[Trickykid]

... and Douglas Costa was 50% cheaper than Arda. Wake up.. .

Uh no, no he wasn't - not even close.

 

[JamDav1982]

Alba is only player under 25 playing well that Barca have bought?

Neymar? Ter Stegen?

Rakitic was 26 which is younger than names like Abidal were when signed.

Vidal was 25 when signed last summer.

Others like Cesc and Song were under 25 when signed.

So not just Alba.

 

[LordLichtenstein]

The sheer strength of our starting XI completely compensates for our "a bit weaker than Real and Bayern" bench.

Who is the best LW in the world?

Neymar.

Who is the best RW in the world?

Messi.

Who is the best FW in the world?

Suárez.

Who is the best CM in the world?

Iniesta.

Who is the best CDM in the world?

Busquets.

Who is the best CB in the world?

Piqué.

 

[JamDav1982]

Plenty of depth? Perhaps midfield only, there is no depth in the back line or the front three. What depth do we have when we are saying Pique and Masch must not get injured in the next three months because we have little confidence on Bartra and Vermaelen?

I'd say Bayern, Real Madrid, Atletico all have more depth than us. And I don't follow the English teams that much so I don't know.

What team has 4/5th CBs better than Bartra and Vermaelen?

Maybe Bayern but I dont agree Real and Atletico have better depth at all.

Which of those have better depth at GK and defence. Even midfield?

 

[Jombi]

Uh no, no he wasn't - not even close.

Fair enough, Arda was almost 50% more expensive than Douglas Costa. Costa was 30m euros and Arda 42m euros.

 

[Jombi]

Alba is only player under 25 playing well that Barca have bought?

Neymar? Ter Stegen?

Rakitic was 26 which is younger than names like Abidal were when signed.

Vidal was 25 when signed last summer.

Others like Cesc and Song were under 25 when signed.

So not just Alba.

Alba is the only player from La Liga we have bought under 25 years old in almost 8 years. It was just to point out that it is not only the French league we ignore.

 

[JamDav1982]

Alba is the only player from La Liga we have bought under 25 years old in almost 8 years. It was just to point out that it is not only the French league we ignore.

Vidal was 25 when signed and Rakitic 26 both from La Liga.

Under 25 just seems like an age picked to make a point.

How many players in Peps 2009 eam were bought from Spanish clubs under the age of 25? Or the 2006 team?

 

[Trickykid]

Fair enough, Arda was almost 50% more expensive than Douglas Costa. Costa was 30m euros and Arda 42m euros.

Arda was 41M, and that's only if you include all 7M variables. No matter how you spin it, it won't amount to almost 50% difference.
There's no need to exaggerate just to try to prove a point.