Apparently Abidal is/was in Qatar talking to Xavi about taking over this summer. Does anyone know how his current club has done?
I hate Valverde with the passion of a thousand burning suns but it’s really hard to be mad at him anymore when the board is the much larger problem. They want a yes man who does exactly what they ask and that’s why he hasn’t been fired. The handling of La Masia, player personnel/development, and transfers have been shameful for years under this board.
Good day today. Anxious to see how the team responds. Have to think Firpo will get more run and subsequently Alba more rest. Would like to see Greizmann play centrally with Suarez out.
Seems like an odd time to finally pull the trigger. If they didn't can him after the Liverpool collapse why do it in the middle of the season when you're tied atop the table and through to the CL knockouts?
Quique riding these boys hard as soon as he walked through the door. Practice every day since he was announced, most days have been double sessions. Going to be on the training pitch tomorrow morning before the match as well. Good, get their soft asses back in shape and working
Valverde was a problem. The board is a problem. However, one of the less talked about points is how the players backed Valverde because he let them do whatever the fuck they want. Setien may not succeed but goddamn do these players need a kick in the ass.
YES! Some of the poor footballers had to cancel photoshoots to attend these practices. How awful! (That's no bullshit. Wed. was a scheduled day off before the change and some of the guys had publicity engagements they had to reschedule)
Part of the reason we haven't seen Arthur in awhile is he ce back from injury/Christmas out of shape. Unacceptable.
I mean, the two usually go hand in hand. No goals in the first half but we’ve been good so far against Granada.
Three days of Setien training and we see an actual shape to the team, one touch futbol, passing triangles, a hunger to win the ball back, and youngsters who wouldn’t even sniff the bench under Valverde given a chance. My nightmare is over.
Yup. This was a nice game to watch again. I was actually excited to watch today for one of the first times this season. Some of the passing wasn’t quite there, need to work on knowing and anticipating where guys are, but it was great to see an actual game plan once again.
Busi was man of the match. Is anyone surprised that as soon as Busi is put in a position to succeed that he immediately shows his class? Also, what a fucking shocker that our defense looks light years better when we aren’t playing pragmatic futbol designed to “protect” the defense and instead play possession based futbol with an intent to attack and press. Barca finally have me excited for upcoming games again.
Btw, our previous high in passes was 988 in 2011. Busi, Arthur, FdJ with Puig subbing in? GIVE ME ALL OF THAT!
Feel bad for Quique, and valverde for that matter. He’s been tossed into a terrible situation, and clearly Xavi is being bundled as a package deal in the presidential elections. It’s absurd how broken this team is given that they have everything a squad could possibly desire.
It being thrown around that he's playing hurt, again. But we only have like 16 first team players and zero backup forwards, so he can't afford to miss any games.
We're not even going to be able to sell Dembele after (if) he ever comes back. Who the fuck is going to spend any money on Mr. Glass?
Soft tissue injuries are brutal. Surgery is likely the best option at this point. But basically ruins this season. He was our only real shot at winning something meaningful, which is sort of depressing in its own right.
I mean, that’s a bit aggressive. He’s still in a developmental stage, and by no means should he be viewed as some sort of final piece to the puzzle (although, with that price tag, probably so). He exhibited moments of brilliance, but often looked like a chicken with his head cut off. The more worrying aspect is all of the youth we just got done shipping out. Someone (many someones) severely dropped the ball on this one. Best route forward is to not throw cash at the situation. Let Quique tinker with calling up academy players, and lick our wounds. It’s becoming concerning that Messi will actively ignore Griezmann in order to, ostensibly, protect Suarez. Fucking hell what a mess. Need to get complete turnover at the top. It’s all so frustrating given the pieces we have and yet, we can’t get out of our own fucking way.
he’s the only player on our team that provides speed to our attack. We desperately need that. Adds a different dynamic. If we were gonna contend for the UCL. He needed to be a big component of that. Even with Suarez healthy, the attack was stale and slow.
So I guess this is just what we should expect for the remainder of the season. Play defense by retaining possession. No attack, because we have no one to make runs. Clench our buttholes and hope MatS can make an incredible save when someone counters.
And Busquets heads in an own goal just as I post. Sweet. Start the season with an outside hope for another treble, but a double is very likely. Now we're not even going to win any hardware.
Just so fuckin stale. Griezmann and Messi both squandering attempts. Using Sergi as a RW is just not going to work. Content to just fucking pass it around while doing nothing threatening what so ever. Frenkie at least attempted to get forward, everyone else is too busy looking for a fucking backwards pass to attack.
Never realized we had this Board. Just stopped by to say we're awful. Bartomeu is wasting the last great years of Messi. I love Dembele but it's time for him to go. We need 4 new backline guys. Valverde did his best to ruin de Jong. We need to get Neymar back if we ever wanna win CL again. Força Barça
Oh Jesus. Unless you’re talking about early retirement, Messi is not going anywhere. He’ll retire from Barcelona.