Well we still own Umtiti, just cannot keep him healthy (nor get anyone to pay his salary much less give us a transfer fee for him, much less get him to agree to leave), and we still own Todibo who seems promising but for some reason we seem ready to sell as he'd be a rare economic win for us, signed for 1M, trying to sell for 15M or more. So till either of those frenchmen leave we have 5 CBs plus Barca B. Not sure how much Garcia improves upon what we have. Sure he could be the next Pique to come back to Catalonia from Manchester for a reasonable price and become a starter, just not sure he has it in him (to start, nor that the 10-15M being discussed is worth it). And I'd rather get him for free on July 1st (so keep Todibo till then). Also worth noting, FdJong played some CB in a pinch for Ajax and could do it again for Barca and he is nowhere near as slow as Busquets. So that is worth keeping in mind if we have a Pique or Lenglet injury, and Pjanic or Roberto can man the double pivote with Busi in that case (or even Alena or Rafinha if they are not sold and ever get minutes).
The only players that played poorly or at least not well and seemed out of sorts were Roberto and Griezmann. Roberto has no business starting now that Dest is here. I know Dest is very young but he's a better bet. Try him out and see what happens. It's not a big risk because Sergi is just mediocre. And Griezmann unless he starts playing better shouldn't be a guaranteed starter. I'd give Trincao or Dembele (if he's still around) some starts and see how it goes. Griezmann really has no excuse because Coutinho just came into an almost completely new team this season and is shining so far in two matches. Anyways so far it's just two games in but this is day and night compared to how we played last season. I love watching this team!
Barca played dollar store version of Total Football under Setien and some garbage under Valverde. Now we actually press well which is a key component to that philosophy.
Agreed Fati’s all round play and link up is looking very promising. He seems to have an ‘old’ head on him .
Did you watch the match? Roberto plays well. With Dest here, Koeman will have more options to rotate right back. Only left back now is thin, even if Koeman can bring pre Anfield Alba back.
Yeah, I agree with all that. We could definitely use another right-CB to backup Pique. We're playing 2 matches every week for the foreseeable future, not counting FIFA windows.
I actually thought it was Alba and Griezmann (that didn't play well). Though Roberto did get sucked-in by the dribbler and lost his man on that one big chance that Celta had which could have changed the result. But that's the only mistake I saw. Alba is actually a big worry for me. He seems to have lost a lot of his pace. Luckily he plays on the easier side of the field given the way Barca plays.
Sadly it only takes one moment like that and the other team takes the lead and suddenly it’s a completely different game
Well, we would've still been leading 2-1 so it would've taken at least 2 mistakes, but it would have been a nervy last 15 minutes.
RB is a key position at Barca while Messi is still on the team. The RB has to be able to combine quickly and read the mind of Messi. Dani Alves could do that and has the assists to prove it. No one has come close since. Roberto is there because he has La Masia mental conditioning - so going forward he is fine. He just isn't a better defender than Semedo. Alves was both - defender and attacker in one. Dest is coming in and he is probably on par with Roberto on defense now. His skills going forward are on par with Roberto now. As he is only 19 I expect that he can grow into the role and improve quickly.
I really hope Dest can deliver, cause if he does, we won’t have to worry about RB for a long time given his age. My only worry is that he has been playing second fiddle to Mazraoui at Ajax barring injury or a small patch of bad form. One has to wonder why. Oh well, he’s been pretty darn good whenever I’ve seen him play for Ajax, so let’s hope his evident talent can come to fruition here. We’ve been trying to replace Alves ever since he left, to no avail.
Dest’s problem is his defensive ability which is something that he could work on with. He has the technical ability and all that is needed for Ajax and Barca’s style of play, He does well forward, but is a bad defender currently. Replacing Alves obviously is gonna be difficult because he’s one of the greatest full back of all time who happened to be world class on both aspects. Considering a team like Bayern was desperate to sign this guy for his potential, he’s definitely a good talent. In fact, I would be pretty happy that if Dest develops well like Davies did.
I was only able to watch the first 20 minutes before my lunch break ended, and I must say that I'm liking what I see so far. Everyone is decisive, quick decision-making, quick passing, succeeding in tight spaces, close control. No obvious dependence on Messi Magic has been the best, most telling thing so far, at least in the goals I've seen this season. That goal from Ansu was a mere inevitability. His other goals so far under Koeman have looked a bit similar with us overloading the boxes. Mess and Griez have just been decoys so far. Coutinho is not the hesitant left winger whose only move is to fake left and launch screamers. Also, I've never been convinced by Clement Lenglet, seems like he's just been a stopholder while we wait for the uninjured world cup version of Umtiti to show up. Next match.