No Money, Even Mo Problems - The 2021-2022 Season Thread

I read that we can’t even register Torres until we offload a couple of players

 

So Araujo could be out for months and the jury is still out on Frenkie. The season of horrors continues. The fact that Xavi has managed to guide this team to a point from the top 4 is nothing short of a miracle. Keeping us there would be a feat of epic proportions.

 

Top 4 is not a miracle. It's not like we battle against Liverpool, Chelsea... for top 4. Teams like Betis, Rayo all are expected drop points later. No way we have worse squad than them.

 

Fwiw, when Xavi took over Barca were in 9th position but 'only' 5 points out of 4th place in the table.
https://www.kicker.de/la-liga/spieltag/2021-22/13

 

Have you not seen us struggle against every single team we’ve played up to this point? I can’t remember the last game that we breezed through.

Now add to that the mounting injuries and a team comprised of Barca B debutants and yes it will be a miracle if we finish top 4. Not exactly hard to conclude that based on the above.

 

Why is Yusuf Demir being excluded; honestly, you're throwing away a top talent for others like Luuk de Jong, etc.

 

This is pretty accurate, spot on.

 

I like Demir, and I don’t think that he’s been given enough opportunities in his preferred position. However, whenever he did get the chance he didn’t make the impression that I had hoped he would. He did show flashes of brilliance, especially his innate ability to dribble and his eye for a pass, but it wasn’t consistent enough to leave his mark on a game.

If it were up to me he would stay. It’s not like he’d command a big salary and he could potentially be a great player. Low risk, great potential reward.

 

So Eric is out for 5 weeks. Lmao. We’ve lost 2 starter CB’s in the span of 2 consecutive games.

At this rate we’ll have no other choice but to keep Umtiti. This is getting absolutely ridiculous. Almost like we’re cursed and I am not superstitious at all.

 

the problem is that, according to the terms of his loan agreement, if he makes one more appearance for the first team, Barca will have to pay 10m to complete his signing. right now the club is better off putting that 10m towards the payments for Ferran Torres. Demir is a good player with a bright future, but right now the club has to prioritize the short term target of fighting to qualify for the UCL.

 

Did not realize that. Nice research.

 

Umtiti extends contract with wage reduction allowing registration of Ferran Torres.
Trying to determine if this is good news or bad news.

 

This is exactly what I was afraid of. Our mounting injuries have been conducive to us going from wanting to offload Umtiti to actually extending his contract.

Anyway, the good thing is that he finally agreed to reduce his wages and in doing so has allowed us to register Ferran! Finally.

My only hope now is that Umtiti’s knee has healed up completely and that he can get back to the monster form he was in prior to his injury.

I guess this also means that we probably won’t be signing any other CB for now. I don’t know how I feel about that. I guess it will depend on Umtiti’s form.

 

Why does extending Umtiti’s contract allow
the registration of Torres ?

 

So will Torres start against Real Madrid ?!

 

Despite having been renewed, Umtiti is open to leaving on loan if an attractive proposal comes in. [@AdriaAlbets]

 

Has to do with players wages being under a certain amount.
If Umtiti doesn’t extend, his wages wouldn’t be reduced and Ferran can’t register.
La Liga has a cap on the amount the whole of the squad wages can be.
It’s the reason why Messi wasn’t able to be renewed, if I understand it all. Many players kept accepting wage cuts to try and get the payroll under the Liga limit so that Messi could renew.

 

I wonder if Ferran and Pedri can still be called up for the Supercopa match vs Madrid if they test negative. They’ve been infected for a week now which is the average time it takes to recover from covid. It could be less if they’re vaccinated.

Would love to see both of them and Fati on the pitch vs Madrid. Even though they’ll lack match fitness so who knows how that will go.

 

The level of injuries we've had this season is truly mindboggling.

 

Got my answer. Ferran and Pedri have tested negative and are now part of the squad for the game vs Madrid! Great news.