The Observer
New member
No way to wiggle out of it. Give or take 95 % here wanted EV gone and 85 % wanted Suarez replaced, particularly in CL games, the intersection is huge. His CL scoring record was brought up time and time again. I would know as I was one of the very few who still rated Suarez and his overall impact so people got into arguments with me over that. The narrative was: "Everyone can score in easy games when Messi sets you up 5 times a game" and "he only plays because he is Messi's buddy". Let's not pretend many people still rated Suarez here, let alone as a key component for the CL. At most some might have rated him in La Liga still. Bit of honesty does not hurt. Want some examples from our resident forum experts?
So LOGIC dictates that without EV (apparently Setien is a big manager improvement) who was the sole culprit for the past bottling jobs and without CL bottling donkey touch Suarez (Griezmann = striker improvement) and with the addition of CL jugadorazo elite midfield talent De Jong (thousand times improvement on Rakitic), team should be CL favourites or thereabouts.
Démbéle's injury is irrelevant as he never really played in 2 years and it doesn't hinge on Alena or Todibo whether team does well in the CL as neither would see game time under Setien. Malcom is a trash player also, Ansu adds the same.
People like me get abuse for this because people don't like their bullshit to be exposed so blatantly. Either you think without EV, Suarez, De Jong -> Rakitic the team must have improved considerably. A La Liga winning and CL semi finalist team that barely (3-4) lost to the best team in the world which has now improved should be CL favourites. Or you think we have no shot at the CL and should barely fight for the league. You can't have both within logics and there is no way to wiggle out of it.
The expectations have been lowered considerably. In the Bilbao matchday thread people said they wouldn't be surprised to get knocked out by A. Bilbao (which happened) or even Napoli. Now in this thread I'm reading again that we don't win the CL anyway and should concentrate on the league. The tone was completely different 2 months ago. With a good manager the midfield would be flying, Arthur-De Jong dream combo unleashed, firing Valverde midseason would still give us hopes for the CL etc.
It's amazing to see that brigade suddenly setting different standards after all their wishes have come true. Must be really confusing to see those grinding performances against Getafe and Granada at home despite all the major "culprits" gone. All that is left now is to pretend that the style is beautiful to watch at least. Really beautiful to watch ter Stegen triple save the points against Getafe on Camp Nou.
