Quique Setien

[malvolio]

Don't know why people still put Griezmann and Dembele as starters in their fantasy formations. Just sell them so we can be spared of further emabarasment FFS
These 2 mugs + Coutinho + Rakitic and Vidal wages would clear some of the financial burden

 

[khaled_a_d]

Pep rebuilt it as well over the course of 2 seasons.

In his 2011 side we had Mascherano, Villa, Pedro, Alves, Busquets, Pique as new players compared with Rijkaard era. That's 6/10 outfield players.

That was a consistent retooling not a rebuild. The end product is the same and the former is the right way to go when you already have a good team but we are a bit late to it tbh.

Don't know why people still put Griezmann and Dembele as starters in their fantasy formations. Just sell them so we can be spared of further emabarasment FFS
These 2 mugs + Coutinho + Rakitic and Vidal wages would clear some of the financial burden

If we can sell Griezmann for huge sum he then it should be done.
But I doubt he is leaving tbh. He will try to prove his worth and we won't have buyers for him.

 

[serghei]

That was a consistent retooling not a rebuild. The end product is the same and the former is the right way to go when you already have a good team but we are a bit late to it tbh.

We are late because we have been sleeping for too long and allowed short-term results to be everything we cared about.

 

[Tackle]

Pep rebuilt it as well over the course of 2 seasons.

In his 2011 side we had Mascherano, Villa, Pedro, Alves, Busquets, Pique as new players compared with Rijkaard era. That's 6/10 outfield players.

-Market is hyperinflated today
-More "big" clubs than ever with more money than they know what do with
-La Masia isn't producing 200m players for free anymore

Apples and oranges.

Any rebuild in 2020+ will take at least 5 years. It will be slow and painful. This is with a competent manager of course. In the the likely scenario we're stuck with another gaffer that isn't cut out for the job expect maybe even a decade of toiling between 3rd-6th place while we swim in mediocrity trying to sell fans on successes of yesteryear. A Copa Del Rey win will soon be celebrated as the equivalent of a treble and we'll often fail to get out of the group stage in the CL.

This is the reality and I am not sure the average Barca fan that jumped on the bandwagon between 08-12 is ready for it.

 

[Luftstalag14]

I think we need a platform that can help us to forge and develop these players, so we will cut the middle man (teams who sell these players at super-high prices) who makes the big money out of these deals. Or if not cut them completely, since it's impossible, at least become less dependent on these clubs as the main supplier of talent. The clubs who make the big money from players ins and outs are the tier B clubs, like Dortmund, Ajax, Porto, Monaco etc, who are good enough to play at a high level consistently, but not great enough to be demanded to win the big titles year after year.

The challenge is getting a good enough management team (board + manager + technical staff) to get the most out of the majority of the players we have in the squad, while also winning titles (which goes without saying it's a major objective of every elite club).

Not going to happen, unless we become like City with some affiliated clubs in various leagues which could buy talent for cheaper and act like incubators to groom talent/players for the first team. As soon as we show interest in a certain player, guaranteed the selling club will raise the price significantly, even if there was no competition.

I agree that it takes a board or a management team with both footballing knowledge and a lot of business acumen and shrewdness to guide us to success, something we don't have.

 

[serghei]

-Market is hyperinflated today
-More "big" clubs than ever with more money than they know what do with
-La Masia isn't producing 200m players for free anymore

Apples and oranges.

Any rebuild in 2020+ will take at least 5 years. It will be slow and painful. This is with a competent manager of course. In the the likely scenario we're stuck with another gaffer that isn't cut out for the job expect maybe even a decade of toiling between 3rd-6th place while we swim in mediocrity trying to sell fans on successes of yesteryear. A Copa Del Rey win will soon be celebrated as the equivalent of a treble and we'll often fail to get out of the group stage in the CL.

This is the reality and I am not sure the average Barca fan that jumped on the bandwagon between 08-12 is ready for it.

Market is hyper-inflated. Which means there is a dire need of a top manager more than ever. Someone who doesn't need 7 world class players at once on the field to win things and play good football.

Rebuilding will take longer or shorter depending on who does it. It's like in everything. The better the guys who think up the plan and the steps to take, the less it will take and the better the results. Throw in some incompetents in high hierarchy positions, and yes, we can even have a few trophy-less seasons without much improvement. 6th place? Impossible. Even at the most terrible state we won't 'manage' to end lower than 3rd. Will often be eliminated in the Group Stages? Again... lay off a bit.

But let's just not assume the worst, that we will have another clueless board, and will name some more clueless managers in the future.

 

[Andrew M]

The high prices aren't a problem when you buy the right players and have a cohesive vision throughout the club of the sort of team we need. In 2008 the fee we payed for Alves was pretty insane at the time.

 

[serghei]

The high prices aren't a problem when you buy the right players and have a cohesive vision throughout the club of the sort of team we need. In 2008 the fee we payed for Alves was pretty insane at the time.

Yes there are man. There is a huge problem when players who are mostly potential and no certainty end up costing almost 100-150m.

 

[serghei]

Not going to happen, unless we become like City with some affiliated clubs in various leagues which could buy talent for cheaper and act like incubators to groom talent/players for the first team. As soon as we show interest in a certain player, guaranteed the selling club will raise the price significantly, even if there was no competition.

I agree that it takes a board or a management team with both footballing knowledge and a lot of business acumen and shrewdness to guide us to success, something we don't have.

It's hard to tell, because we rarely go looking for un-hyped talents. We usually go sniffing for players after everybody hypes them up, which is a good sign that our staff is borderline incompetent. It's like you are a reporter and only arrive at a scene after every other reporters are already there.

I am certain that we could've gotten Fabian Ruiz for a rather good sum. Somewhere around 40-45m.

 

[DonAK]

A full rebuild only takes 5+ years if you insist on signing established players that all cost 50,60,70m+.

A few smart signings along with the established players or high cost players and you suddenly cut that time in half.

 

[Luftstalag14]

And also, we make fun of Wolfe, and he makes fun of us, and it's banter, but the main thing I really like about Madrid is that they very rarely completely give up on talented young players. They have much more patience with young players, and much less patience with managers they feel are not right for them. They are ahead of the curve, in this sense. They know that a 25m. talent in the hands of a top manager has more chances to make it than a 80m. talent in the hands of an average manager.

Completely agree. Real Madrid doesn't easily sell their players and they maintain a large loan army across multiple leagues in Europe (what struck me was how they were able to strike those loan deals with top clubs without an option to buy, case in point Carvajal and Hamiki and recently Odriozola) which help them develop young players.

Real Madrid is way ahead of us in that regard. A long time ago Florentino Perez had realized that they didn't have the resources (no club does, for that matter) to spend an astronomical amount of money buying established players (with the exception of perhaps Mbappe for them) so they started investing on some of the best young players from Spain and lately Brazil and elsewhere. Of course not all of them will turn out great and succeed but if some of them do turn out good for them it is already a big win for them, considering they didn't spend too much money on them (in the case of the Brazilian trio yes they did spend a hefty amount for the three but still less than what we have spent on Coutinho or Dembele). Now they have many promising young players in almost every position perhaps with the exception of CF. Their post-Ronaldo transition/rebuild so far has been almost seamless with just one season (last season) going down the drain and now they are neck to neck with us and actually showing more potential than us already this season. Real Madrid has got a huge head start in the race of future.

We on the other hand will have a much longer and more turbulent transition/rebuild period once Messi and the old guards are all gone. This board has not helped, and I don't know if Font and his team will be any different.

 

[DonAK]

Football or Sports in general is moving towards more athleticism, but Barca for some reason keep trying to develop or sign players that are the opposite.

 

[serghei]

Completely agree. Real Madrid doesn't easily sell their players and they maintain a large loan army across multiple leagues in Europe (what struck me was how they were able to strike those loan deals with top clubs without an option to buy, case in point Carvajal and Hamiki and recently Odriozola) which help them develop young players.

Real Madrid is way ahead of us in that regard. A long time ago Florentino Perez had realized that they didn't have the resources (no club does, for that matter) to spend an astronomical amount of money buying established players (with the exception of perhaps Mbappe for them) so they started investing on some of the best young players from Spain and lately Brazil and elsewhere. Of course not all of them will turn out great and succeed but if some of them do turn out good for them it is already a big win for them, considering they didn't spend too much money on them (in the case of the Brazilian trio yes they did spend a hefty amount for the three but still less than what we have spent on Coutinho or Dembele). Now they have many promising young players in almost every position perhaps with the exception of CF. Their post-Ronaldo transition/rebuild so far has been almost seamless with just one season (last season) going down the drain and now they are neck to neck with us and actually showing more potential than us already this season. Real Madrid has got a huge head start in the race of future.

We on the other hand will have a much longer and more turbulent transition/rebuild period once Messi and the old guards are all gone. This board has not helped, and I don't know if Font and his team will be any different.

Yes, I agree, but the changes can be quick and swift. Even in a season things vary a lot. Madrid seem more set, but you don't know how much impact a few essential changes at Barcelona can make. I would be reserved to make doom and gloom or ultra-positive predictions in any direction.

 

[Luftstalag14]

It's hard to tell, because we rarely go looking for un-hyped talents. We usually go sniffing for players after everybody hypes them up, which is a good sign that our staff is borderline incompetent. It's like you are a reporter and only arrive at a scene after every other reporters are already there.

I am certain that we could've gotten Fabian Ruiz for a rather good sum. Somewhere around 40-45m.

There were definitely many examples of us being completely incompetent and short-sighted (Asensio came to mind) when losing out a player or choosing not to pursue a certain player, no doubt about it; but I was thinking, there could be other reasons such as some players simply didn't want to join us because of the concern of not getting too many minutes with our team dominated by the old guards. Not to mention we are not good at managing bench players/non-starters at all, we send them off to loans to and they never come back.

 

[Tackle]

Market is hyper-inflated. Which means there is a dire need of a top manager more than ever. Someone who doesn't need 7 world class players at once on the field to win things and play good football.

Rebuilding will take longer or shorter depending on who does it. It's like in everything. The better the guys who think up the plan and the steps to take, the less it will take and the better the results. Throw in some incompetents in high hierarchy positions, and yes, we can even have a few trophy-less seasons without much improvement. 6th place? Impossible. Even at the most terrible state we won't 'manage' to end lower than 3rd. Will often be eliminated in the Group Stages? Again... lay off a bit.

But let's just not assume the worst, that we will have another clueless board, and will name some more clueless managers in the future.

Liverpool, Milan and United fans snarked with the same arrogance when anyone suggested they could hit a low as they did when they were on their downswing. "This could never happen to my club. We're rich, have millions fans and are still competitive!"

Let's use United as an example as they are currently relevant. Remove the old veterans from our squad and compare:

Dembele is Rashford
Fati is Greenwood
Puig is McTominay
Coutinho is Pogba
Ter Stegen is De Gea
Semedo is Wan Bissaka
Roberto is Lingard
Umtiti is Bailly
Lenglet is Lindelof

Not a perfect comparison and not every player is included, but you get the point. We aren't too far off from reaching that level of mediocrity in the next few years. Why should I not assume the worst? Success is a lot harder than failure and has a much lower possibility of happening. If you are a betting man you always put money on a manager and board faced with the challenge of rebuilding to fail. That is just the harsh reality of football and life general. Anyone who has watched the game for long enough knows this.

You keep speaking about a "good manager" and "good board." We need a great, not good manager and board to get us back to pinnacle of football. Unfortunately all the candidates for president are self-serving, dodgy politicians and there are hardly 3 great managers available in world football today.

The next few years will be interesting.