I am wondering if we are judging too early but has another club had such a poor set of transfers in one season? Almost all their transfers have been average to flop. And here I was thinking the route they took in their summer transfer strategy could actually work.

Gomes has been a giant flop thus far. Barca are still reliant on old man Iniesta to carry their midfield. Aleix Vidal is ready to be shipped out. Alcacer scored his first goal for the club recently. Only Umtiti perhaps has been alright as far as I know. Which leaves you with the question that did Barca make a mistake by doing a bunch of depth buys instead investing in 1-2 top players that could have replaced the old guard ? Of course most times their deficiencies is masked by the fact that they have MSN to carry them every week but shouldn't this be a cause for concern where many of their recent buys have been failing to implement into Barca's system ?

Remember when Barca fans were shitting on Zubizarreta?

Actually you can enhance the op to look at all acquistions since the transfer ban was lifted!

Hapless_Hans wrote:Remember when Barca fans were shitting on Zubizarreta?

Yeah, and? Nothing changed, he's still awful

I think you mean during the past 6 seasons? Barca is a club that succeeds in spite of its management rather than because of it

Umtiti has been the best defender in Barca since Puyol, Suarez is decent, not convinced on Gomez at all though.

Is the platform there for the players to succeed though? You can criticise the signings all you want but when Mf are asked to be pseudo wingers/full backs is the standard of the midfield right for them? Barcelona have a coaching issue and a Messi issue.

They ae too structurally dependendt on Messi and his movement destabilises the team, particularly in the defensive phase. It usually pays off because he is a freak of nature but when the going gets tough, he makes it hard for his team to function properly and their positional game is non existent in the attacking phase and is too predictable. Pass the ball to Messi and hope he does something.

There is not much you can do about it because what can you tell a player that has 5 Ballon Do'rs and has scored 73 goals in one season to do? He is essentially uncoachable and you essentially have to pray that he listens to your instructions. This is what Pep realised before he even won his first Ballon D'or in 2009