So you expect him to be the finished product? You can’t judge anyone in half a season, let alone 90 minutes of football. He wasn’t spectacular, he wasn’t poor. It was an ok performance on his European debut.
He should be a lot closer to the finished product than he is now, that's for sure. As I said, he almost costed us the game. Defensively he often left Digne out to dry. Lucky for us Digne played out of his mind that night and was able to carry him.
He is the 4th choice CB, but that doesn’t mean he should be banished from the squad. He should be given opportunities (i.e. against Malaga) and be allowed to develop. Pique and Vermalen won’t be around forever, and the latter is made of glass anyway.
By the time Pique and Vermaelen are no longer available Mina will be 26/27 years old. 25 if you want to be extremely optimistic. At that point his potential will just be a "Could have been" and everyone will blame Valverde/Next Manager for not giving him enough playing time despite him never being better than the three players in front of him competing for two spots, and the club will ultimately look for someone else who can fit in immediately as a partner for Umtiti without needing to develop. At 23 years old Mina is hardly even young. If we really want to develop players based on their potential, we already have plenty of flops just waiting to happen coming through La Masia, except not only are those inexpensive (Free, actually), but they don't use up a very valuable non-EU spot on the team.
Did you trully expect that he would be better than Pique, Umtiti or Vermaelen (when healthy)? We bought him because of his potential and low price for today’s market. It’s hard to say will he be a flop or not after 90 minutes. That’s yet to be seen.
Also it’s totally unfair to judge him based on that one mistake. Appart from that no look pas he had a decent game. He was for sure no worse than Mathieu in majority of games he played.
If we were looking for a player based on potential we should have gone for Davinson Sanchez, who is younger, has actual European experience, and came from a club that taught him how to properly play his position. Aside from his mistake that could have jeopardized our liga campaign, he was also constantly out of position, and I mean *far* out of position. He made a couple of good tackles but it's clear he isn't ready for La Liga competition, and has a long way to go.
I can say I expect him to flop based on the fact that his debut was close to being a total nightmare (That mistake would be what defines him now if it weren't for Busquets) and the fact that Valverde doesn't count on him or even seem to acknowledge that he's part of the squad. He was poor in his debut, he's likely poor in training, the coach doesn't trust him, he's 4th choice in a position that only needs two players, he's wasting a non-EU spot, and it seems unlikely he has much future here.