Messi983
Senior Member
I think tactics are only part of the problem but it's really hard to judge that only from the matches, as we don't know what's going on in trainings. We can't deny that Busquets is not in his best form (him looking slower than ever and making mental mistakes he didn't made in the past can't only be fault of the tactics), Iniesta is injured, Rakitić is playing hot and cold and from other midfielders Gomes and Denis are new signings, Arda is in his second season (and he's shown a lot of improvement from last season; yes, he's better at LW but had some good matches in midfield too) and then there is Rafinha, who is in good goalscoring form this season but I think he's more comfortable in more attacking or (false) winger role.
I'm confident our midfield will start to play better in second half of the season. Right now Lucho is still experimenting and trying combinations to see if and how different players can play together so he'll know that at the end of the season when we'll play most important games. Lucho needs to find out what Gomes and Denis (and we could also argue about Arda and Rafinha as only three midfielders with defined roles are Busquets, Rakitić and Iniesta) roles/best positions are and how they work with other midfielders. You can do only so much in trainings, you have to see how things works in matches. Sometimes they work, other times don't. So inconsistency of our midfield doesn't really surprise me (but at the same time midfield is not our only problem and it's not their fault that Suarez, Neymar and defense are not at their best as well). Of course Iniesta's injury, Rakitić's inconsistency and Busquets's bad form don't really help any of our other midfielders who have far less experience in our system either.
It's easy to blame Lucho's tactics or (new) players not being in form or not being good enough but in reality is a mix of both. I just think it's unfair how some people are already saying that Denis or Gomes are not good enough to play for us and even less when they say they'll NEVER be good enough. Guess what. Should've bought someone like Gundogan who people are crying out loud we should've signed (despite some pretty big red flags about his injury history; yes, he's currently doing great for City but can he stay healthy for whole season? What would help us if he'd come here, be great for 2-3 months and then injured in April-May when we'd need him the most?) he'd also need more than two months to adapt to our system. Even big money signings like Verratti and Pogba would most likely struggle here early. Adapting to Barça (especially our midfield) usually takes more time than adapting to any other team in the world.
Some people also gave up on Roberto less than a year ago and he's now our starter. Yes, not at his natural position but if it were up to most fans opinion he wouldn't be here anymore. And there were people who thought Munir and Sandro were never good enough to play for Barça and now they cry for them when they left. Really, it's hard to find more fickle people than Barça fans.
And another thing. People expecting us to have the same midfield control and dominance we had in Pep/Xaviesta era will always stay disappointed. We'll never had that again unless we're lucky enough to get two as talented homegrown midfielders peaking in the first team again at the same time. And while that might happen in 15-20 or more years it's almost impossible that the same team will also have "a new Messi" who was the one who really made that system from only looking good/atractive for eyes to also being as successfull as we've been. Even Pep trying to stay loyal to his philosophy can't totally repeat that tiki-taka domination again in different teams with different players. And I think his inability to adapt it also costed him in the past with Bayern losing in consecutive semifinals against La Liga teams (that knows him the best) and will probably happen again with City. Tiki-taka as we've known it has died with Xavi leaving and Iniesta also getting old.
Lucho has different ideas and he wants different type of midfielders to realize them. He knew that we won't find a direct longterm replacement for Xavi (neither for his quality nor for his skillset which are pretty unique), because there is no player like him. So he went for Rakitić, who is a different type of player but works perfectly in Lucho's system (oh and yes, he struggled early to adapt too
). If Lucho will stay our coach long enough (which I doubt) he also won't go for a direct replacement for Iniesta when he retires/leaves because there is also no player like him available. We can still find a great midfielder to replace him but he probably won't be anywhere near Iniesta at his peak. But that's ok, because there are not a lot of player who are/were that good at any point in their careers, so a dropoff from Iniesta to whoever our next CM will be is expected as it was expected when we move on from Xavi to Rakitić. But Lucho's system made that transition a lot less painful than it could've been if our system would continue to depend more on midfield dominance than MSN brilliance. So I think we should just stop comparing any midfielder we buy with Xavi and Iniesta and especially expecting them to be close to their level just two months after they came (back) to the club.
I'm happy that we started to look for the future and bought Denis and Gomes. Yes, they are not on Iniesta's level right now and likely will never be but that doesn't mean they can't eventually replace him as our starting midfielder in a year or two when they will fully adapt to our system and get more experience and also learn a thing or two from the great Don Andres. Iniesta will stay here long enough and if he stays healthy can still play on top level for at least a season or two (if he's regularly rested which Lucho intends to do) so we'll see exactly what we have in them (and possibly also Alena and maybe another youngster who will emerge over the next year or two) before we'll need to make a decision whether we need to bring in another midfielder to replace him. But if that will eventually need to happen whoever that player will be will also need time to adapt, even if it would be a "big name" player that some people wants. And even if we buy a proven, worldclass midfielder from another club there is no guarantee that he'll even be a good fit here. People expected Cesc and his "Barça DNA" to be enough for him to be longterm Xavi replacement and then he left the club earlier than Xavi.
I still believe we already have Iniesta's successor already in the club, we just need to find out who that will be. That's not to say someone who is as good as Iniesta is now (and even less as great as he was a few years back) but someone who can play in his position good enough when he takes over and then continues to develop into an even better player, because it's very likely that Gomes and Denis at 25 will be better players they are now and Alena at 21 will probably also be better than he's now. But for that to happen we need to give them more that just two months to show what they can do. We can have a little patience and give our younger players time to adapt and develop or we can give up on them after a few months and continue to spend a few 100M trying to sign new Xavis and Iniestas every summer just so we can give up on them again when they won't start to perform on expected level from their first day. I know which approach I prefer but anyone can decide which one has bigger posiblilities to be successfull.
I'm confident our midfield will start to play better in second half of the season. Right now Lucho is still experimenting and trying combinations to see if and how different players can play together so he'll know that at the end of the season when we'll play most important games. Lucho needs to find out what Gomes and Denis (and we could also argue about Arda and Rafinha as only three midfielders with defined roles are Busquets, Rakitić and Iniesta) roles/best positions are and how they work with other midfielders. You can do only so much in trainings, you have to see how things works in matches. Sometimes they work, other times don't. So inconsistency of our midfield doesn't really surprise me (but at the same time midfield is not our only problem and it's not their fault that Suarez, Neymar and defense are not at their best as well). Of course Iniesta's injury, Rakitić's inconsistency and Busquets's bad form don't really help any of our other midfielders who have far less experience in our system either.
It's easy to blame Lucho's tactics or (new) players not being in form or not being good enough but in reality is a mix of both. I just think it's unfair how some people are already saying that Denis or Gomes are not good enough to play for us and even less when they say they'll NEVER be good enough. Guess what. Should've bought someone like Gundogan who people are crying out loud we should've signed (despite some pretty big red flags about his injury history; yes, he's currently doing great for City but can he stay healthy for whole season? What would help us if he'd come here, be great for 2-3 months and then injured in April-May when we'd need him the most?) he'd also need more than two months to adapt to our system. Even big money signings like Verratti and Pogba would most likely struggle here early. Adapting to Barça (especially our midfield) usually takes more time than adapting to any other team in the world.
Some people also gave up on Roberto less than a year ago and he's now our starter. Yes, not at his natural position but if it were up to most fans opinion he wouldn't be here anymore. And there were people who thought Munir and Sandro were never good enough to play for Barça and now they cry for them when they left. Really, it's hard to find more fickle people than Barça fans.
And another thing. People expecting us to have the same midfield control and dominance we had in Pep/Xaviesta era will always stay disappointed. We'll never had that again unless we're lucky enough to get two as talented homegrown midfielders peaking in the first team again at the same time. And while that might happen in 15-20 or more years it's almost impossible that the same team will also have "a new Messi" who was the one who really made that system from only looking good/atractive for eyes to also being as successfull as we've been. Even Pep trying to stay loyal to his philosophy can't totally repeat that tiki-taka domination again in different teams with different players. And I think his inability to adapt it also costed him in the past with Bayern losing in consecutive semifinals against La Liga teams (that knows him the best) and will probably happen again with City. Tiki-taka as we've known it has died with Xavi leaving and Iniesta also getting old.
Lucho has different ideas and he wants different type of midfielders to realize them. He knew that we won't find a direct longterm replacement for Xavi (neither for his quality nor for his skillset which are pretty unique), because there is no player like him. So he went for Rakitić, who is a different type of player but works perfectly in Lucho's system (oh and yes, he struggled early to adapt too
). If Lucho will stay our coach long enough (which I doubt) he also won't go for a direct replacement for Iniesta when he retires/leaves because there is also no player like him available. We can still find a great midfielder to replace him but he probably won't be anywhere near Iniesta at his peak. But that's ok, because there are not a lot of player who are/were that good at any point in their careers, so a dropoff from Iniesta to whoever our next CM will be is expected as it was expected when we move on from Xavi to Rakitić. But Lucho's system made that transition a lot less painful than it could've been if our system would continue to depend more on midfield dominance than MSN brilliance. So I think we should just stop comparing any midfielder we buy with Xavi and Iniesta and especially expecting them to be close to their level just two months after they came (back) to the club. I'm happy that we started to look for the future and bought Denis and Gomes. Yes, they are not on Iniesta's level right now and likely will never be but that doesn't mean they can't eventually replace him as our starting midfielder in a year or two when they will fully adapt to our system and get more experience and also learn a thing or two from the great Don Andres. Iniesta will stay here long enough and if he stays healthy can still play on top level for at least a season or two (if he's regularly rested which Lucho intends to do) so we'll see exactly what we have in them (and possibly also Alena and maybe another youngster who will emerge over the next year or two) before we'll need to make a decision whether we need to bring in another midfielder to replace him. But if that will eventually need to happen whoever that player will be will also need time to adapt, even if it would be a "big name" player that some people wants. And even if we buy a proven, worldclass midfielder from another club there is no guarantee that he'll even be a good fit here. People expected Cesc and his "Barça DNA" to be enough for him to be longterm Xavi replacement and then he left the club earlier than Xavi.
I still believe we already have Iniesta's successor already in the club, we just need to find out who that will be. That's not to say someone who is as good as Iniesta is now (and even less as great as he was a few years back) but someone who can play in his position good enough when he takes over and then continues to develop into an even better player, because it's very likely that Gomes and Denis at 25 will be better players they are now and Alena at 21 will probably also be better than he's now. But for that to happen we need to give them more that just two months to show what they can do. We can have a little patience and give our younger players time to adapt and develop or we can give up on them after a few months and continue to spend a few 100M trying to sign new Xavis and Iniestas every summer just so we can give up on them again when they won't start to perform on expected level from their first day. I know which approach I prefer but anyone can decide which one has bigger posiblilities to be successfull.
