This might be a bit of a lengthy post so I apologize in advance.
As many of you are surely aware of, this team is unfortunately stuck in-between conflicting ideologies. There are certain things our style of football will always be synonymous with: attack oriented with a high emphasis on technique and possession. We should always be the innovators, the standard for how offensive football is played and the threads of totaalvoetbal should always be apparent in how we play. So this whole debate on whether we should play tiki-taka or more direct doesn't make a lot of sense to me, we will always look to dominate teams with our possession and still look to do so. Even in all our losses this season, we still held a lion's share of the possession in-between 63-68%. Point being, just because at times we sit deeper and can score on the break doesn't mean we are changing our style completely, it shows that we are evolving, something that Tata is directly responsible for and I think it is a good thing.
With this in mind, when it comes to transfers and the squad, it is of utmost importance that whoever come into team can play our brand of football. Ibrahimovic, case and point, is imho the second best player in the world behind Messi. He oozes raw class and genius, and can literally score from anywhere in the attacking third. But even he couldn't play total football, and it showcases how hard it is mentally to play our style. Its why Song will never truly succeed here.
So all of these names people seem to constantly throw out like Lukaku, Gundogan, Vidal, Kroos, Cardozo (lol wut?) are simply not feasible transfers. Its not because these players are poor by any means or don't have qualities that are admirable, its because there style of play is too different to how we play. That's why it took Sanchez so long to figure out how to play in the team.
The sad truth that we have to keep in mind is that Pep's template is dying. The era when that worked is vastly different to the football era we are in now, particularly in regards to how teams approach playing us. While we can still put up close to 30-40 passes to finish an attacking move, the regularity of how often that is successful is much lower than it was in 2009. Thus this season, Tata has expanded our attacking scheme to include the occasional long diagonal ball, the quick counter attacks and the crosses. Its just the natural evolution of how to overcome these buses we pass around night in and night out.
Its for this reason I think it is really important that we slowly start to push Xavi out of the squad after the WC this year. Brazil 2014 will be Xavi's and possibly Iniesta's swansong so after that, we should really try to pass the torch on to our younger MFs like Cesc, Rafa, Sergi and Samper. We should be building the team around Cesc, Neymar, Pique, Messi and Busi. They will be the leaders of the club in the foreseeable future so much like Pep centered the setup of the team around Xavi, Iniesta and Messi with who he brought in, Tata absolutely should find players who will mesh well with those aforementioned players.
So with all of that in mind, here would be my strategy for next season if I was Tata...
