Thin squad

[Barcaman]

I think we should finally have a topic about this. We've discussed it here and there but also I noticed us being critical towards players when it's clear that they are fatigued. Obviously, Pep has little options to rotate and we'll have to cope until the January (13 more matches).
I just saw the title in one Catalan newspaper saying that Barca will sign 2 players. Do we need 1 or 2? Should we loan or buy? Do we even have the money? Maybe look to Barca Athletic again? We've hardly seen any of those youngsters as much as we had last season in Pedro and Busquets. Which positions do we need to strengthen? Etc...

 

[Beast]

Pre-season..blame the pre-season

It gave the wrong impression about the strength of the Cantera and possibly gave the idea that u don't need to buy anymore.

now to the tricky controversial part
conflicting reports about your financial situations , if you announced that you made 6 Million Euro profit last year . how can you afford to Spend 100 Million on players ?
granted without discussing Eto'o situation back & forth i'll say you needed a forward but paying all that much consumed your money (and i don't believe for a second you didn't take a loan , won't be the first nor the last time the current regime lied )

so in principle you have zero money for reinforcement (feel free to correct me if i'm wrong ) in January not only that but you did take a loan (Rosell will do the job of clearing this one in the summer ) to pay those 100 (+/- ) on Ibra,Maxwell,K9,shagmisskey
so how can you be spending 40 or 50 in the winter transfer window for players ? especially that this administration is out next summer .

Unless Laporta has the idea of bringing the house down you logically have no option but to look inside the youth system cause you won't find quality player for loan and not cup tied (see Fabuert for Real last season ) .
which brings us to the next question ; does Pep think the current Barca athletic have the required caliber ? and if the answer is yes why he complained about the thin squad ?

 

[VivaBarca]

K9 should be brought back. I'm sorry but he is needed to bolster the frontline I think 2 midfielders are needed ( a loan player and a really good player for as little as possible ). And 1 versatile defender with pace. i think that should do us for this season.

 

[Khalifa]

Thanks Bojan!

great timing.. I was just thinking about the problem we're having with our 'thin squad'

truth of the matter is that we got a superb line-up but we haven't got quality players to fill the gaps.. or play the role of the 'super-sub' up front.. we used to have larsson who was just the perfect experienced sub and we saw how he managed to turn things around in paris..

Bojan and pedro are talented there's absolutely no doubt about that, but i personally believe that they're still fresh (i.e not 1st team material) I mean those guys can be out-muscled easily! they can walk all over weak teams but they still can't face tough defenses, opponents you name it..

We NEED to get new players in the jan market, note that we'll be missing the african duo for a month or so.. and we cant carry on without quality subs.. trust me on this, barca has the money.. its all a matter of will.. if they want to fill the gaps and strengthen the team then laporta & co will stop at nothing to achieve that..

We have to create a balance and be rational. We cant just rely solely on the academy.. sure La masia produced great icons like xaviesta,messi, puyol etc.. but the team is in need of experience as well as strength.. bear in mind barca will play more games than any other team.. so having a big squad with quality players + subs puts pep at an advantage..

As for the reinforcements, I think that barca should go for a winger given that henry is way past his prime and can't maintain his fitness and performance ( some would argue that pedro and bojan can fill the void but as i've pointed out they can't make a diff in big profile games).. getting a winger (robinho on loan) would be great for iniesta who will stay put in the middle of the park alongside xavi..


another issue.. barca shouldn't have let K9 go on loan.. as he's the type of striker we're missing.. you see when zlatan picked a knock with his national team barca were forced to play without a central striker against valencia.. i dont know if K9 fits the bill right. but im sure that we need a box striker (e.g toni or even cruz) someone with a strong physical presence.. good in the air.. ( zlatan is prone to injuries and wont be 100% present on every occasion) we got phenomenal providers like xavi, messi, iniesta and alves (crosses). so why dont we utilize that???

 

[Cule Angles]

Pre-season..blame the pre-season

It gave the wrong impression about the strength of the Cantera and possibly gave the idea that u don't need to buy anymore.

now to the tricky controversial part
conflicting reports about your financial situations , if you announced that you made 6 Million Euro profit last year . how can you afford to Spend 100 Million on players ?
granted without discussing Eto'o situation back & forth i'll say you needed a forward but paying all that much consumed your money (and i don't believe for a second you didn't take a loan , won't be the first nor the last time the current regime lied )

so in principle you have zero money for reinforcement (feel free to correct me if i'm wrong ) in January not only that but you did take a loan (Rosell will do the job of clearing this one in the summer ) to pay those 100 (+/- ) on Ibra,Maxwell,K9,shagmisskey
so how can you be spending 40 or 50 in the winter transfer window for players ? especially that this administration is out next summer .

We made a profit despite spending a net 45m on players and paying mediapro 31m, so far this season our transfer spending is a net 57m which suggests we may have some more to spend on players without taking out a loan or selling land (the club owns a shit load of land).

The fact remains that we need to bring in another couple of players, probably valuing around 35m to provide cover and competition. Is that a possibility? We shall see but the figures suggest that we didn't need to take out a loan for the summer transfer activity when you compare it to what we've been capable of spending in other summers.

 

[Barcaman]

Thanks Bojan!

great timing.. I was just thinking about the problem we're having with our 'thin squad'

truth of the matter is that we got a superb line-up but we haven't got quality players to fill the gaps.. or play the role of the 'super-sub' up front.. we used to have larsson who was just the perfect experienced sub and we saw how he managed to turn things around in paris..

Bojan and pedro are talented there's absolutely no doubt about that, but i personally believe that they're still fresh (i.e not 1st team material) I mean those guys can be out-muscled easily! they can walk all over weak teams but they still can't face tough defenses, opponents you name it..

We NEED to get new players in the jan market, note that we'll be missing the african duo for a month or so.. and we cant carry on without quality subs.. trust me on this, barca has the money.. its all a matter of will.. if they want to fill the gaps and strengthen the team then laporta & co will stop at nothing to achieve that..

We have to create a balance and be rational. We cant just rely solely on the academy.. sure La masia produced great icons like xaviesta,messi, puyol etc.. but the team is in need of experience as well as strength.. bear in mind barca will play more games than any other team.. so having a big squad with quality players + subs puts pep at an advantage..

As for the reinforcements, I think that barca should go for a winger given that henry is way past his prime and can't maintain his fitness and performance ( some would argue that pedro and bojan can fill the void but as i've pointed out they can't make a diff in big profile games).. getting a winger (robinho on loan) would be great for iniesta who will stay put in the middle of the park alongside xavi..


another issue.. barca shouldn't have let K9 go on loan.. as he's the type of striker we're missing.. you see when zlatan picked a knock with his national team barca were forced to play without a central striker against valencia.. i dont know if K9 fits the bill right. but im sure that we need a box striker (e.g toni or even cruz) someone with a strong physical presence.. good in the air.. ( zlatan is prone to injuries and wont be 100% present on every occasion) we got phenomenal providers like xavi, messi, iniesta and alves (crosses). so why dont we utilize that???

Sensible post Khalifa. Our B team doesn't look like a good source of new squad players as last season and also agreed on Keirrison. With so much matches this season there would have been a lot of chances for the Brazilian. There's no way of escaping the fact that Txiki did a lousy job this summer.

 

[House of Flies]

i agree. pedro, busquets and bojan need to eat more

 

[Jordzibob]

At the risk of sounding like I'm on soccermanager, we should have gone for players like Melo, Veloso, Ribas, Fucile (I rate him even if alot of people dont). Strong backup, we didnt need a huge amount of improving. We also could have got Torres, I will maintain that. Are the rumours that Villa may still come to us in January true? Or is it just bullshit?

 

[Khalifa]

Bojan

spot on man. Txiki was absolutely terrible last summer.

Pep made it clear back in june by saying that he needs at least 4 players but this call fell on deaf ears..

I know its hard to improve on a treble winning squad.. we only made one change in our starting 11 (eto'o out zlatan in)

but our bench remains relatively weak..I just hope we can survive til Christmas.. then we can sort things out..

 

[House of Flies]

Bojan

spot on man. Txiki was absolutely terrible last summer.

Pep made it clear back in june by saying that he needs at least 4 players but this call fell on deaf ears..

I know its hard to improve on a treble winning squad.. we only made one change in our starting 11 (eto'o out zlatan in)

but our bench remains relatively weak..I just hope we can survive til Christmas.. then we can sort things out..

erm. he did get 4 players.

zlatan, k9, chyg, maxwell....

 

[yusuf]

true but we let a players such as eto, guddy, hleb, sylvinho go so we just replaced 4 with 4 and with a bigger schedule this year it was a clear mistake on the management for not getting another midfield player and as soon as we realized thiago was down for s long time we should have bought another mid, letting hleb go was a mistake as we bought nobody to replace him

 

[IrvDizzle]

letting Hleb go was a mistake because there was no replacement for him. I know Pep must have been upset over the comments he made after the CL Final, but he would have at least been able to spell Iniesta/Xavi until the Jan window.

 

[yusuf]

agree as much as a flop hleb was he could at least function in the mid

 

[spursandbarca]

dont panic over one loss where we totally dominated and didnt have much luck.


priorities. I think we need 3 players.

a striker. Henry is finished and always injured. that leaves just zlatan, messi and Bojan.

a lb or a rb. now alves is injured and el captain has to play rb.


a winger with pace.


were fine with cb, holding midfielders

 

[Barcaman]

I think we need 2 players. Striker to relieve Ibra and also a midfielder. Loan deal for someone like Toni sounds like a best solution for the former.