Danilo to Madrid. Zubi

Who cares. Daily Mail is linking us to Bellerin come home Héctor

daily mail

I don't want to have repeat myself AGAIN, BC:

Keep your dirty corrupt hands off our Bellerin. Kid is destined to be photographed in Lederhosen ffs.

Ffs hans you already have Pep and Thiago, is that not enough Barça DNA for a German team?

No. We need one more piece of Barca DNA to balance the mediocrity of our Dortmund DNA.

just got the
BREAKING NEWS: Dani Alves signs two year extension!

I don't see anything about us signing Alves to a 2 year extension.

Seriously though, I wanted Danilo, and we NEEDED him but come on, not for 30 something million. That's allot for a defender. And the worse thing about the transfer ban ending in the winter is the that fact that Porto would of cup tied Danil before we would of even been able to sign him. Meaning that even if we signed him in the winter, we would of still been stuck playing Montoya in the Champions League. Utterly ridiculous Zubi didn't guy a right back...jesus christ our board is full of such morons

I read somewhere we are now linked to Fabinho. Does anyone here watch Monaco enough to comment on him, or watched how he did vs Arsenal and the other Champions League matches?

He's 6"2, 21 years old and from what I've read about him he shows allot of promise. The bright side is also that he is only on loan with Monaco from Rio Ave. Meaning that unless he gets moved again in the summer, he should be good to sign and not be cup tied in the winter.
Because of the transfer ban we have to realistically look to sign players from teams that aren't going to be in Europe which is total shit. Unless we are ok with signing a cup tied player and using Montoya in all of our UCL matches (terrible...)

Theres also Bellerin, but again as mentioned earlier, he would be cup tied by the winter window and we would be stuck using Montoya in our knock out stage Champions League matches. And I'm pretty sure he would be sold to us for a hella lot more than what Fabinho would cost. That said I know little to nothing about Fabinho which is why I am asking if anybody knows anything about him

A back line of Fabinho (6"2), Pique (6"4), and Mathieu (6"4) would be of some impressive height I must say. Even if we use Bartra (6"0) allot more next season until we go out and find a younger replacement for Mathieu and Mascherano we would still be allot taller than what we were last season.

Thoughts?

Btw, as I wrote that last post, I can't help but cringe at how much work our team needs. It's ridiculous how we let our team get in so bad shape.  And to make matters worse any great player we want will likely be cup tied by the winter. Meaning we might have to wait until the following summer to seriously over haul some much needed positions. (of course there's always the Dortmund and Milan club players that won't be cup tied)

I know I wrote this before but wtf...

Below I put the age the players will be at the time the transfer ban ends..

Keeper situation is immaculate for years to come, no worries here..
Ter Stegen (23), Bravo (32), Masip (27 in January)

Defenders...This whole back line needs to get younger..
Pique (28)
Mathieu (32)
Mascherano (31)
Bartra (25 in January)
Alba (26)
Douglas (25)
Adriano (31)
Montoya (24)
Vermalean (30)

Alves (32) Likely gone

Midfielders : Our midfield is going to be WEAK next season...
Sergi (23)
Busquets (27)
Iniesta (31)
Rafinha (22)
Rakitic (27)

Xavi (36 in January) Likely gone

Forwards, no problem here just not a whole lot of depth beyond MSN
Messi (28)
Suarez (29 in January)
Neymar (23)

Pedro (28) rumored to want out this summer

Players I read that have a shot at getting promoted, Adama (20 in January), Munir (20), Edgar Ie (21), Halilovic (19), Samper (21 in January), Grimaldo (20) and returning from loan Deuolofeu (21)

Out of that list, realistically none of them are ready to start for us and most likely all will get little mins or get loaned out.
Grimaldo I could see staying and getting the Adriano role, with Adriano being sold.
Deulofeu I think has failed too many times to show he is worth the hype and will likely get loaned or sold (he looks destined to be our new journey men ala Bojan)
If Pedro leaves as the rumors have stated due to him wanting more playing time, then I could see us retaining Adama and Munir to become the back up winger role that Pedro would leave open. Thats if Pedro leaves, if not then I would guess Adama gets loaned and Munir stays and assumes the same role he has played this season
If the club were smart they would sell that worthless Sergi and give the playing time he got this season to Samper next season. If anyone of our players on our roster could one day become the new Xavi it's definitely Samper.  Him getting the junk minutes that Sergi usually gets won't hurt us either.
I'm guessing Halilovic gets loaned out, there is realistically not room for him to play in his position and is still super young. I am guessing we loan him out for a season or 2 until Iniesta is run to the ground and then we actually start to use Halilovic as a player in the Iniesta role. He will get loaned out for sure, same with Ie I am guessing

So if the rumors of Xavi, Alves and Pedro are true...then our squad is going to in some real shit as half the team will be on old legs and the other half way too green to be starting for us. Only a few players will realistically be in top prime years, and again all the top players we could sign in the winter will be cup tied. Not to mention an injury here or there and we will be grasping for straws as our depth will be horrible.

Comparing our average age and depth vs that of Real Madrids next season, for the first time since 09 can I say that they will without a doubt have a superior team to us on the field, in almost every position and on the bench. Even when they were at there most stacked, we had a starting 11 that would easily rival theres. I fear that due to the boards horrible decisions that next season things will get real ugly for us. Lets just hope that the crap about Messi leaving this summer is actually just rumors and nothing more.

Sorry for the long ass post, I've been asleep all day and now I am wide awake lol

Excellent post windkick. It really sums up the disastrous reign of the board whom took over from Laporta, on both sporting levels and image of the club.

On a sporting level:

• No new key players have been signed other than huge money movements of Neymar and Suárez. Difference makers in the team are still the ones dating back 6 years ago
  
• Failing to add players with Barça DNA which has lead to loss of identity
  
• Thiago sale
  
• Signing Vermaelen (injured +last year of contract) and Mathieu (31 year old) for a sum of €40 million.
  
• Signing Alex Song to play CB
  
• Sale of promising youth players practically for peanuts
  

On image level

• Neymar scandal
  
• breaching FIFA's rules on the transfer of players aged under 18
  
• Qatar sponsorship
  
• Sponsor on the sleeves (Beko)
  

To put it mildly, if Barcelona were a limited company the shareholders would have sacked the entire board within the first two years. But these clowns are easily getting away with murder. Did you ever ask why Rosell simply resigned to clear himself from the whole Neymar business? It is comical.

If Messi leaves we are screwed. And I wouldn't blame him if he did, he is going to be 28 and going to be on a team with is pretty much going through a rebuilding process, and the team has a transfer ban so it can't rebuild for a while.

Messis not going to leave lol. Where would he go?
First of all, noone can afford him, second, nowhere else would be an improvement for him.
City? pls
Chelsea? bad joke
Real Madrid? yeah right
Manchester United? to be benched by van Gaal because Fellaini provides more 'balance' lol?
PSG? Why would he do that? Also they can't afford him.

Any particular reason you left Bayern off that list Hans lol?

windkick wrote:If Messi leaves we are screwed. And I wouldn't blame him if he did, he is going to be 28 and going to be on a team with is pretty much going through a rebuilding process, and the team has a transfer ban so it can't rebuild for a while.

In the cup final, top of the league, one of the favourites for the CL.

DAT REBUILDING PROCESS.

Hapless_Hans wrote:Messis not going to leave lol. Where would he go?
First of all, noone can afford him, second, nowhere else would be an improvement for him.
City? pls
Chelsea? bad joke
Real Madrid? yeah right
Manchester United? to be benched by van Gaal because Fellaini provides more 'balance' lol?
PSG? Why would he do that? Also they can't afford him.

He won't leave mainly because none of this club will accept both Messi and his alter-ego Coachessi. As good as Coachessi is, I don't see Chelsea firing Jose Mourinho or PSG firing Blanc. City is a possiblity though.

Don't know if I agree, Valk.

The genius about coachessi is of course that the nominal coach doesn't have to be fired for coachessi to do his work.

I think all of the mentioned clubs, Real, Chelsea, City, PSG, would benefit from being coachessi-enhanced since they have a coaching-deficit, of course the only top club that coachessi wouldn't improve is Bayern, which is also the reason why I didn't include us.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

windkick wrote:If Messi leaves we are screwed. And I wouldn't blame him if he did, he is going to be 28 and going to be on a team with is pretty much going through a rebuilding process, and the team has a transfer ban so it can't rebuild for a while.

In the cup final, top of the league, one of the favourites for the CL.

DAT REBUILDING PROCESS.

mean next season, if you noticed my long ass post previously to that one. our depth is going to be shite, even more so than this year. And all the players we would likely sign in the winter will be cup tied, or not want to leave there teams until the summer if they are still playing in Europe.

Inter have apparently offered 8 to 10 plus incentives for Pedro. Barca wants 17. Pedro would be willing.

17 is too little in todays market, some mid level club could offer more in the epl lol

true but Pedro also wants to leave

if raul albiol can go for 15m in seria zzzz i'm sure we can atleast get 25m+ for pedro.

Yea but this is Barca your talking about. We probably pay out his contract and let him leave for free