Barça's Transfers and Rumors

[JamDav1982]

We have good experience of buying from France with Marquez, Abidal, Yaya Toure (he even made appearances as CB!) but we stopped buying from France many years ago. I think Umtiti and Fabinho both have the type of skills we need with several years of Ligue 1 experience behind them, and would be more in line with that type of strategy.

I think it is better than buying more garbage from Arsenal like Vermaelen and Song to be our saviors.

It is harder to buy from French football than those days.

EPL teams are taking as many players as they can as soon as they see promise and PSG too are their to compete for the better ones that are established.

Not saying there is not good players to be bought but it is a tougher market than in past when Barca could almost cherry pick the better players from that league. Players that were already established and played at a decent level.

 

[khaled_a_d]

I think that stats say that we are HORRIBLE at buying Cbs.

With attackers, we had around 50:50 success with awesome players like Ronnie, Etoo, Henry, Villa.
With very decent players like Larsson, Guily.

With Cms, we also had decent buys in Rakitic, Deco, to some extent Van Bommel, Edmilson, Yaya etc.
We were covered here Xavi-Iniesta-Busi, so we didn't need to buy too much.
But when we bought, we had a nice ratio of success.

With fullbacks, we also had a decent success with Alves, Alba, Van Bronckhorst and decent players like Silvinho, Belletti, Abidal etc

Our worst nightmare are Gks and Cbs.
With Gks, the funny thing is, the one who saved us was our product, Valdes.
The same with Cbs, our guys Puyol and Pique.
With Bravo and Mats, we improved our horrible stats in buying Gks.

And imo, today, our by far worse history is with buying Cbs.

Imo, the same as how some people are saying that Mats is a perfect Barca's keeper, since not everyone can be Barca's keeper (you need some special skills, like playing with feet and similar). Imo, the same is with Cbs.
There are tons of good defenders out there, but it seems that when majority of them come here, that they fail.
Our style of play asks for a certain skills of Cbs which other teams aren't, it seems.

And again, the funny thing is, the best guys for our style of play were Puyol and Pique.
Even Oleguer, who was poor to average player (our product), was a much better and more useful player than some expensive, foreign players like Chyngy or Christanval...

I have no idea what we should do with Cbs.
But again, I can smell a disaster, NO MATTER whom we will buy.
It seems that more or less no one (from defenders) fits to our system :/

Depends on how you want to look at it
Edmilson was a CB/DM signing ,Same for Yaya (who played in all lines b4 joining us) and Pique should definitely count .at that point in 2008 he was surely more developed by Manu & Zaragoza than Barca 17-21 is the most important for a prospect career and he spent those there .at the end we bought him & didn't promote him
Militto was really good ,and despite I didn't like him b4 joining us he played well but injury fucked him up
At the end ,since the start of the new Barca era in 2003 .Chygrynsky ,Caceras & Henrique was the only CB failures here .along Vermaelen right now

 

[Jombi]

It is harder to buy from French football than those days.

EPL teams are taking as many players as they can as soon as they see promise and PSG too are their to compete for the better ones that are established.

Not saying there is not good players to be bought but it is a tougher market than in past when Barca could almost cherry pick the better players from that league. Players that were already established and played at a decent level.

I disagree. Barca had lots of competition from clubs like AC Milan, Inter and other clubs as well in the past, while we hadnt been as successful as we have been over the past years. There will always be competition, we just have to be smart about it. Our style is also very unique which makes us look for different qualities.

 

[JamDav1982]

I disagree. Barca had lots of competition from clubs like AC Milan, Inter and other clubs as well in the past, while we hadnt been as successful as we have been over the past years. Our style is also very unique which makes us look for different qualities. There will always be competition, we just have to be smart about it.

There are more clubs with money that can take players from the top French clubs. Virtually the whole of EPL can and number of other top clubs and billioanaire backed clubs.

Far more than 15/20 years ago.

Those clubs are taking the players earlier as there is so much more money out with French football.

More competition and less quality in French league than back then without a doubt.

Barca are LESS unique than 15/20 years ago as well as clubs since Peps time have copied Barca and the players they look for. More competition for technical players etc than ever before.

 

[Jombi]

There are more clubs with money that can take players from the top French clubs. Virtually the whole of EPL can and number of other top clubs and billioanaire backed clubs.

Far more than 15/20 years ago.

Those clubs are taking the players earlier as there is so much more money out with French football.

More competition and less quality in French league than back then without a doubt.

Barca are LESS unique than 15/20 years ago as well as clubs since Peps time have copied Barca and the players they look for. More competition for technical players etc than ever before.

Well, we are about to sign Ben Arfa whether we like it or not. Hopefully we sign more players from France and other smaller teams. We cant afford to splash a gazillion euros on lots of superstars so we need to be shrewd in the market and find value.

 

[JamDav1982]

Well, we are about to sign Ben Arfa. Hopefully we sign more players from France and other smaller teams. We cant afford to splash a gazillion euros on lots of superstars so we need to be shrewd in the market.

I agree there are bargains there.

There are in every league. It just isnt the same situation as in past I dont think when it was much easier to get established intls who as you said played a certain way.

 

[iniesta_8]

It is harder to buy from French football than those days.

EPL teams are taking as many players as they can as soon as they see promise and PSG too are their to compete for the better ones that are established.

..Times when we could easely say hallo to Ronaldinho from PSG

 

[Darko]

About this part, fans would like to buy a player who will *surely* be a starter for the next 10 years.
But, realistically, what are the chances that we will find a player who will fit to our team perfectly, and who will cost a decent amount of money?

For example, Barca has a horrible history of CB signings in the last 15 years.
We had huge problems to find players who will fit in, and a lot of them looked perfect on a paper.

For example:
1999': Dehu from Lens, French ligue winners from 1998.
-- Dehu played 11 matches in Barca career
2001: Patrick Andersson, experienced Swedish NT player from Bayern Munchen
-- he was here for 3 seasons, he suffered horrible injuries
-- played 19 matches in 3 years
-- transfer price 8 Millions back in 2001. That is like 20+ M for a 30 years old today
2001: Christanval, 22 years French young Cb from Monaco
-- price 15 M
-- that is like 30-40 M today (a young player with lots of potential)
-- played 31 match in 2 years
-- released for free, if I remember correctly
2003: Marquez, 5,2 Millions from Monaco, 24 years old, something like 15M today
-- he was a success in Barca staying and playing for 7 seasons
2006: Thuram, 34 years old Cb from Juventus
-- price 5 M Euros, something like 10M for a 34 years old today
-- stayed for 2 seasons with average success
2007: Milito, 17 Millions, like 35 M today
-- suffered horrible injuries
2008: Pique
-- a huge success
2008: Caceres, 21 years old, 16,5 M, like 35-40M today
-- didn't succeed here
I won't even mention Henrique
2009: Chygrynskiy, 22 years old, 25 M. something like 50M today
-- didn't make it here
2014: Mathieu, 20 M
Vermaelen 10-20 Millions

So, let's do some maths here:
-- our only successful Cbs in the last 15 years were:
1. Puyol, from La Masia
2. Pique, from La Masia and Man. Utd
3. Marquez, a transfer
4. Mascherano, who is not a Cb at all

If we remove Puyol and Pique from these stats, since they are our products, let's see how many transfers we attempted in the last 15 years, and what is our success ratio with those transfers:

Success:
1. Marquez, 15M in current prices

Failure:
1. Chygrynskiy 50M
2. Christanval 40M
3. Caceres 35M
4. Mathieu 20M (not a failure, but...)
5. Vermaelen 10M
6. Thuram 10M
7. Dehu
8. Henrique

Injuries:
1. Milito, 35M
2. Andersson, 20M

So, our success ratio with foreign defenders is 1 out of 11 in the last 15 years (only Marquez was a good job, and we had 2 players with horrible injuries in Andersson and Milito).
Also, we attempted high-profile signings of young defenders a few times also: Chyngrynskiy 50M, Christanval 40M, Caceres 35M, Milito 35M (in the current transfer-market prices).

What I am trying to say, when people say: we should buy a guy for the next 5-10 years, well, a history is saying that it isn't such an easy job.
I am not saying that we shouldn't buy a young Cb for a 50M, but I can easily see Laporte or Marquinos as the next Caceres or any of these players from above.

The only good comparison there is Christanval, a young player of the year in Ligue 1.
Caceres played for Recreativo, Thuram was ancient, nobody wanted Chygrynskiy (except Pep) or Vermaelen, Henrique was only bought for Rosell's money laundering, Mathieu wasn't a failure etc.

History is saying is that we always had shit board members/poor scouting/transfers, whatever you want to call it, not that good players are bound to fail at Barca.
But if we actually got some decent players (that Barcaforum kept talking about) like Thiago Silva, Alderweireld, Hummels, Verthongen I guarantee you that they wouldn't have "turned into another Caceres".

 

[JamDav1982]

The only good comparison there is Christanval, a young player of the year in Ligue 1.
Caceres played for Recreativo, Thuram was ancient, nobody wanted Chygrynskiy (except Pep) or Vermaelen, Henrique was only bought for Rosell's money laundering, Mathieu wasn't a failure etc.

History is saying is that we always had shit board members/poor scouting/transfers, whatever you want to call it, not that good players are bound to fail at Barca.
But if we actually got some decent players (that Barcaforum kept talking about) like Thiago Silva, Alderweireld, Hummels, Verthongen I guarantee you that they wouldn't have "turned into another Caceres".

Henrique and Keirrison were bought by Laporta and his team to money launder in 2008.

 

[Co0ter]

Edit: Nevermind, I see you changed the prices into present estimates.

Henrique was under Laporta fyi.

 

[i_bleed_blaugrana]

I don't get this whole Ben Arfa thing, guys. I'd rather us go after Nolito again considering they are roughly the same age and Nolito isn't injury prone.

Arfa was good and all in his Toon days but I'm skeptical of his ability to make this big of a jump from Nice where he can do anything he wants on the pitch to the demands our style of play require. Nolito isn't just a dribbling goal scorer like Arfa, he is an excellent passer and crosser, he has the vision and plays the type of balls we thrive on and overall, I think he'd offer more consistently off the bench than and as a rotation starter.

CB for me should be either Laporte, Marquinhos, and if those fall through, a gamble on Umtiti wouldn't be bad. Every club has their moments of brilliance in the market and their flops.

 

[xXKonan]

Ben Arfa would be a good punt considering he out of a contract after this season is over and he has performed well for Nice this season.

If we were to splash the funds on a Forward it will likely be Gamerio, I don't think Nolito is very high on the list of potential foward/RW/LW subs anymore.

 

[Lelouch vi Britannia]

We have good experience of buying from France with Marquez, Abidal, Yaya Toure (he even made appearances as CB!) but we stopped buying from France many years ago. I think Umtiti and Fabinho both have the type of skills we need with several years of Ligue 1 experience behind them, and would be more in line with that type of strategy.

I think it is better than buying more garbage from Arsenal like Vermaelen and Song to be our saviors.

How much would Fabinho cost? I'm a little surprised we haven't been linked with him considering we're already looking into the French League (Ben Arfa deal seems inevitable and Umtiti's also being linked with us) and need a long term RB.

Umtiti for 20m, Fabinho for 15 and Ben Arfa for free could turn out to be a very shrewd trio of signings. We've had a lot of those from France. Still need a backup LB and possibly a midfielder though.

 

[Barcaman]

Getting Bailly would be best option. He is cheaper than our other targets, wouldn't mind sitting on the bench and can play anywhere in defence. And yeah, never underestimate La Liga experience and in possession team like Villarreal.

 

[Barcilliant]

Call me crazy but I think we will sign Pogba for some crazy fee this season or next.