Re: Match Day Thread 19/20

[BarrileteCosmico]

Ter Stegen; Semedo, Piqué, Lenglet, Jordi Alba; Busquets, Arturo Vidal, Arthur; Messi, Luis Suárez y Griezmann.

[danyjr]

Griezmann is Lost Lamb 3.0 after previous versions Fábregas and Coutinho.

What a waste of talent and money.

[Myesyats]

The lack of creativity is causing me physical pain.

Suarez is a very key player for us but sadly he's been injured and is out of form.

[BarrileteCosmico]

what an unbelievable miss by suarez

[BarrileteCosmico]

Griezmann is Lost Lamb 3.0 after previous versions Fábregas and Coutinho.

What a waste of talent and money.

to be expected by now

[danyjr]

The lack of creativity is causing me physical pain.

Suarez is a very key player for us but sadly he's been injured and is out of form.

Don't worry mate, Lautaro is coming

[danyjr]

I prefer Setienball way more than Valturdeball. Anyone else feeling the same? I know the results haven't been great and the squad is shite but the style is getting back at least.

[Myesyats]

The lack of creativity is causing me physical pain.

Suarez is a very key player for us but sadly he's been injured and is out of form.

Don't worry mate, Lautaro is coming

Nah, his release clause is 111mil. We don't have that kinda money, especially during Corona.

[Myesyats]

I prefer Setienball way more than Valturdeball. Anyone else feeling the same? I know the results haven't been great and the squad is shite but the style is getting back at least.

Yep, I think the shape isnt all that bad, just the players are shit and old

[BarrileteCosmico]

20 mins in and Athletic could've scored 3 times smh

[Myesyats]

Messi should retire

[BarrileteCosmico]

The lack of creativity is causing me physical pain.

Suarez is a very key player for us but sadly he's been injured and is out of form.

Don't worry mate, Lautaro is coming

Nah, his release clause is 111mil. We don't have that kinda money, especially during Corona.

let's not scapegoat corona as the reason the club is in the financial shape that it is. This board keeps making one boneheaded decision after another, it was always going to catch up with us

[Myesyats]

Yeah i'm not excusing the board, i'm just saying corona, on top of the mismanagement, will make it impossible to spend 100mil this summer especially for one player

[danyjr]

I would offload both Grizzy and Coutinho and perhaps even Dembélé just to get Lautaro.

[Myesyats]

Griezmann is just a mess all around

What the hell is happening here

[BarrileteCosmico]

all forwards seem rusty as hell

[danyjr]

Piqué doing a better job up front than Griezmann

[Myesyats]

Puig breathed a new life into this lost cause

[BarrileteCosmico]

Agreed, night and day

[BarrileteCosmico]

tough to see Messi miss shots that he used to finish with ease

[windkick]

I do wonder how much the Covid break, no fans in the stadiums, short time trying to get fit and play again, and the quick 3-4 days rest between games is affecting the players. Even in the EPL there have been a ton of draws, nil-nil games. Seems like only a few teams have really come out scoring a ton of goals like nothing happened. So I'm not overly upset if players like Messi, Suarez etc are not super 100% game ready fit and arent firing on all cylinders, as we don't really know how much all these out of normal things going on in the world affected their rhythm, mentality and fitness etc.

HOWEVER. The guys I am looking at are the ones who have had issues producing dating back to before the break.

That would be Griezeman. I don't think he is a bad player, I look at him and he is clearly trying hard to get the ball and produce and be involved but he just can't figure out how to do it. He is basically having the same issue we had with Coutinho. Good player, just dumb by the board to get them since it was clear to most people these guys wouldn't if with what we do. Then you got the board, who I can't understand how Setien and the VP came out recently and both said that we need vets in important parts and younger fast guys in less critical places like the wings, fullbacks. Like by that logic Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Pique would of never go ta chance to shine and would of been sold. They want to sell Arthur who is 24 for Pjanic who is 30. And I'm like, how can anyone look at this team on the pitch, and think, what we need to do is make this team even older, when its clear that we need to start getting younger and faster/hungrier. The game against Bilbao changed when Puig and Fati came on. Yet according to rumors, Setien doesnt really like Fati that much and favors Braithwaite more due to experience.

Like wtf is happening to this team? lol

We are old, trying to get older, and because of Fart and his idiotic ways and inability to properly build a team we are now also hurting for cash and were not in a good place to handle the lock down.

Remember the days before Ronaldinho? Not sure if anyone here is old enough, but with Messi (who turns 33 today btw) on the way down (to not his fault, he has done so much and is getting older it is what it is) that i can see this team going back to that era very soon just based on mismanagement by the board for so long. We spent about 350+ million on 3 players who didn't pan out in Coutinho, Greaseman and Dembele. How did we have so much cash to spend, and spend it so badly that we are no trying to make swap deals for old players just to balance the books? Its ludicrous.

[BarcaLearning]

Only managed to watch the whole match now, and actually think we werent that bad, better than expected, as in the first half I saw us doing a lot of different ways to penetrate and defended reasonably well apart from set pieces which is always our weakness.

Suarez is still getting into form, Griezmann isnt effective but I see him doing a lot of good things and hes definitely gonna grow in importance for us as Suarez and Messi ages so Im happy with him. Our problem continues to be on the right and probably our midfield without enough creativity, but at least I see theres good competition as mentioned above the likes of Puig and Fati bringing energy and freshness when they came on and Rakitic obviously with the goal.

So all in all we arent great, but we arent bad, hopefully we can gain momentum and hit form to finish the season strong. Too bad I dont see Real dropping points though... but its gonna be a tight and intense rest of the season, and who knows if we hit form come the CL games we may have slight hopes for that?

[danyjr]

I completely agree with @windkick. This has been a long time coming. Mismanagement in this club is second to none. I can't think of a single big club who has had a worse transfer history in recent years than this team (Milan are bad, but they don't spend the millions Barcelona have).

The club members are to blame, they could have sacked Bartomeu at the elections 4 years ago but they decided to stick with him, and you get what you deserve. An incompetent cuck with zero understanding of football (forum members here understand football more than him) who received the club at the height of financial status and has turned it into the dreadful situation you are in now. From poor coach selections to incompetent sporting directors and an abysmal transfer record to beat.

I would personally offload all three of Coutinho, Dembélé and Griezmann in the summer. Sell them before they are worthless. They will never adapt to the style. At this rate even La Masia products perform better than them. Promote Aleñá and Ansu as starting players and also Puig in a year or two. It is not going to be pretty, but this period should be utilised not to win titles but to try to slowly rebuild for years to come.

I think goalkeeper and CB positions are covered for now, as well as RB which I believe in Semedo and Roberto as his back up are as good as any other team. Jordi Alba is still a beast but he is about to be finished and his backups in recent years in Digne, Mathieu, Vermaelen, and Firpo don't even come close. The club needs to find a replacement for him very, very soon.

Selling those three muppets will give you enough cash to sign Lautaro Martínez, which will be a fantastic purchase. He will be a great investment and one of Europe's top strikers in a couple of years. Moreover his style fits Barça's even when Messi retires in a few years. The perfect man to replace Suárez. Maybe in a year or two you'll have enough funds to sign a winger too, which I think you need.

In midfield you don't have anything special right now. I wanted to believe that De Jong was world class but I don't see anything special in him. He is not a bad player, is a humble guy and works hard. He would do well in a balanced midfield but to rely on him to split a defence line with a pass or boss the midfield, no. One thing that strikes me is how uncreative this midfield is. It doesn't help, of course, that your forward line is hesitant to make runs behind the defence. In these last matches especially I've noticed Messi really slows the game down when Barcelona win the ball up the field but instead of him making a run behind the opponent's defence, he comes back to receive the ball from midfield and the opportunity is gone. Not only your transition from defence to attack is so slow, this makes your team relying heavily on your midfield to get forward and score, and while both Rakitić and Vidal are good at, they are not strikers.

PS: While I'm not a fan of Arthur, I agree that replacing him with a 30 year old is complete nonsense.

[danyjr]

On the plus side, I far more enjoy watching Setien's football than Valverde's. Hopefully the days you had less possession than relegation teams at Camp Nou are over. I actually think, despite not defending deep, your defence overall has improved. What is missing is creativity in the final third but with this squad it was expected.

[BarrileteCosmico]

We are old, trying to get older, and because of Fart and his idiotic ways and inability to properly build a team we are now also hurting for cash and were not in a good place to handle the lock down.

We spent about 350+ million on 3 players who didn't pan out in Coutinho, Greaseman and Dembele. How did we have so much cash to spend, and spend it so badly that we are no trying to make swap deals for old players just to balance the books? Its ludicrous.

It's the slowest moving train wreck I've ever seen and deserves to be called out for what it is

[FennecFox7]

You guys needs athleticism. Messi is old but still scores and assists. It’s possible to build around him, but you cant do that with 30something year olds who also can’t run

[Sponsored content]