https://twitter.com/HagridFCB/status/1367140015671635968
This is what I have big concerns about.
He can't say he knows how the market works when he's been out of the game for over 11 years. It's totally changed from when he was last in charge. You're not getting players like Eto'o, Ronaldinho and Henry for the kind of prices he did back then. You're pretty much paying 40m for an average defender these days.... and 60m plus for a decent midfielder. You're paying over 100m for a world-class player. Also, he stated, "in case we need to improve". We clearly need improving, so he must think our squad is already competitive otherwise he wouldn't have said that. We may do okay against a poor La Liga this season, but we're miles behind the big teams in Europe.
There is FFP now. There are COVID restrictions. You have to overpay for the best players now. He didn't have to deal with FFP, COVID or an inflated market back then. He also didn't have a massive wage bill back then. He had the likes of Messi, Iniesta and Valdes coming through, whose wages were small. He had the likes of Puyol and Xavi on decent wages for being great players. Back then, the big-name players didn't demand 300k a week plus.
He's being very vague and hyping up his case. But in reality, he isn't going to sign any big players. His transfers will be loan or free transfers. He most likely has to sell, loan or release players before he can actually bring in any free transfers.
He keeps saying he can't name the players he wants in case it increases their price, but he won't have much or any money to spend in the summer in the first place. I guess he has to hype up that part because nobody likes to hear you can only sign free transfers.
I don't know. I think it's going to end up in a disaster. He won't get fortunate again with the youth players, in the transfer market or with getting another Pep out of nowhere. Regardless, whoever is coming in is going to do terrible for the first 2 to 3 years because of the debt and the wage bill. They have to pay back 266m by June 30th and another 160m by the end of the year. That's a total of 426m euros by the end of the year. Not to mention, we're still over the salary cap for La Liga.