Rumor: Yea or Ney-mar - The 2019-20 Transfer thread

Players like Arthur are like gold dust imho

Plus at just 23 he’s still learning and developing and getting used to things..
The injuries haven’t helped

 

This thread from @SwissRamble does a good job of explaining the finances behind the Arthur-Pjanic deal.

seems like Barca would rather keep Arthur, but are being forced into this move to balance the books.

Bartomeu continues to destroy the club.

 

That's exactly what I explained in this response but it was buried in the match thread for the Barca v Bilbao match. And the sad thing is that this kind of sale keeps our finances dangerous into the future as well, especially if stadiums do not open soon and yesterday's salaries and transfer fees are not seen again for years to come:


inswinger said: ↑
This is the only potential silver lining of this Arthur-for-Pjanic swap deal. Maybe it clears the path for Puig to step into a more regular role.
[Me:] That's a nice way to look at it. More opportunities for Puig and other youngsters.

It certainly feels stupid to get 7 years older at a position where we already have 3 other important players on the wrong side of 30 (Busquets, Vidal, Rakitic). However, I fear that a decision has been made that Arthur, as good as he is in possession both on the ball and passing, does not have enough of the line-breaking ability (neither the genius forward passes, the take ons, nor enough of the outside shooting - a skill he has but we rarely witness). Nor does he have the defensive tenacity in the high press of someone like Vidal (very few do), plus there have been injuries and fitness concerns (rarely goes 90 minutes), and he doesn't project as a Busquets replacement. So ultimately the new Xavi is not Arthur but might be Puig? And Pjanic is maybe better thought of as a younger Rakitic or younger Vidal; both of them are on contracts which expire June 2021, and at least one (or both) will likely be moved when the season ends.

Beyond de Jong, Busquets, Puig, Pjanic if the swap is made, Barca also has Trincao coming in the new season and supposedly project him more as an attacking mid than a forward (which is good when M-S-G, Fati, and Braithwaite are already here, and Dembele and Coutinho are also still on the books and hard to move, so not much room at forward for Trincao). Other midfielders are Collado and Monchu with Barca B and now making each 23 man squad, and Alena out on loan, and Roberto when not at RB. We also still own other loaned out players who can play midfield in addition to defense: Oriol Busquets - DM, Todibo - mostly CB but also DM, Cucurella and Miranda - both LBs who can also play LW or left attacking mid

But that's me looking at the bright side. The sadder view is that Arthur has the rare skill set to succeed as a Barca midfielder, but is being sacrificed in a desperate bid to balance our books. And by balance our books it is not like they really balance at all, rather we pretend that they do in a FIFA sactioned manner.

So Juve pays us 75M for Arthur (just guessing the number), in turn we pay them 60M for Pjanic (again just guessing for purposes of this example). Barca immediately books 75M in revenue before closing its books June 30th, and this allows FCB to "balance its books". Now you might think that Barca could only book 15M (the difference between 75M for Arthur less 60M for Pjanic), but no, they book the entire 75M for Arthur, for Pjanic they are allowed the amortize his 60M over the life of his contract (which gets both increased and extended out 4 or 5 years, so he will be impossible to move in a couple years), so if he is extended out to 2024 they only take a 15M hit, so their net is 60M plus (but they then record 15M hits for the next 3 years into the future). Here's the funny thing, Juve gets to do the same thing, and with Arthur being younger they'll amortize his transfer costs out even longer, probably extend his contract out to at least 2025.

And that, sadly, is why this deal is likely going to be done. Quoting:

Both players would move in separate deals, to allow the clubs to include the incoming fee in this season's accounts, thus balancing their books following a tough time financially due to the coronavirus pandemic. The outgoing fees would be amortised over the length of the players' contracts.

Barca's need to bring in cash before the end of the month is particularly high. ESPN revealed in May the Catalan club needed to pocket €70m before June 30 based on a revenue plan drawn up at the start of the season which banked on receiving €124m in player sales.
SOURCE: https://www.espn.com/soccer/soccer-...ose-to-arthurpjanic-transfer-exchange-sources

 

This pisses me off to no end.

 

The club are in a total ness in abd off the pitch. On the pitch Nessi is covering the cracks and still making us appear to be competitive, but we all know when we pkay a half decent team the best we xan hooe for is draw. Off the pitch, wow, what can you say, disastrous signings, really poor managerial appointments, no sign of any improvements to the stadium , the finances in a total mess, i could go in but we all know anyway.

 

Official: Arthur for Pjanic

 

Pjanic has signed a four year contract with a 400m euro buyout clause.

 

Great, so we will be paying him a huge wage when he is 34. All driven by us wanting amortize his "transfer fee" over 4 years, while recognizing 100% of Arthur's transfer fee this year. This freaking board is going to screw us way out into the future, to the point where no new board, even if Xavi coaching and maybe Puyol handling transfers will ever succeed.

This was in the Athletic, it was quoted extensively on the r/soccer subreddit today, which is good since Athletic has a paywall:


[The Athletic] "Summer 2014 was the last time Barca’s first XI was seriously strengthened, with €165 million spent on likes of Suarez, ter Stegen and Rakitic. Since then Barca have spent more than €800 million on new players, without even one of them establishing themselves as a senior team leader."

Summary from the article:

"Summer 2014 was the last time that Barca’s first XI was seriously strengthened. In that window €165 million was spent and top-quality arrivals Luis Suarez, Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Ivan Rakitic settled in quickly, and improved key areas of the team.

Since then Barca have spent more than €800 million on new players, without even one of them establishing themselves as a senior team leader. The current team’s key figures were all already at the club when they won that treble in 2015 but that outfield spine of Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, Lionel Messi and Suarez are all into their 30s now.

In summer 2016 they spent €125 million on Andre Gomes, Paco Alcacer, Samuel Umtiti, Lucas Digne, Jasper Cillessen and Denis Suarez.

Twelve months later Neymar pushed through his exit to Paris Saint-Germain for €222 million. Barca’s spend following that was €375 million on Ousmane Dembele, Philippe Coutinho, Paulinho, Nelson Semedo, Yerry Mina, Gerard Deulofeu and Marlon.

The 2018-19 season involved €129 million being spent on new players — including Malcom, Clement Lenglet, Arthur, Arturo Vidal and Jeison Murillo (on loan with an option to buy).

This season there has been €273 million invested — on Antoine Griezmann, Frenkie de Jong, Martin Braithwaite, Neto, Junior Firpo, Emerson and Marc Cucurella.

So much money has been spent, but not even one of these 30+ new signings has been a complete success. It all points to deep structural problems at the club, and continuing mismanagement by the current board."

Source - https://theathletic.co.uk/1892919/2020/06/28/barcelona-decline-la-liga-real-madrid-setien/

and here's the link to the reddit thread in case you want to see what others have said, since it is in r/soccer there's commentary by far more than Barca fans. https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/hhvp0g/the_athletic_summer_2014_was_the_last_time_barcas/

 

I don't mind Pjanic per se. He is obviously not worth 60 million of course but this will only have a happy ending if Pjanic will be great until Puig grows a little. Feel bad for Arthur as he clearly was pushed out.
So weird ending the year at Barca. Maybe win the CL and La Liga before he goes

I don't think Bartomeu has any chance next year even if Barca win the double. The guy makes me miss Sandro Rosell

 

Our signings have been horrific, our managerial appointments since Enrique left just as bad. Iver €100 million soent on Coutinho, a guy who is now a largely unused sub at a superb Bayern side, over €100 spent in Dembele who is permanently injured / disappointing, over €100 on Greizman with no idea if how to use him. We have an old squad that lacks pace, so we sell a 23 year and replace him with a 30 year old. We gave no plan, just randomly signings player who we then don't know what to do with and managers who are not good enough to either improve or get the best out of them

 

Arda Turan's contract ends tomorrow.

 

The fact that Messi is still the top scorer & top assister by some margin proof he's not in much on a decline, but the team as a whole does.

Now if this team is as good as let say , the 2015 team, Messi would lead the goalscoring & assist chart by even bigger margin.

The fact that Messi looked so piss proof he care about the club.

 

Messi is the reason that Barca are still competitive, the reason we still win La Liga despite the absolute shambles on and off the pitch, he papering over the cracks. it must be maddening for him to see the club wasting his final years at Barca.

 

Read and weep;
https://www.planetfootball.com/quic...celona-have-spunked-on-27-players-since-2015/

 

Wouldn't he be cup-tied? Would he receive a winners' medal if Juve win CL?

A player in that position could still be quite effective at 33. I'm more concerned about how good he is now. He's coming from a one-team league which is notably weaker than La Liga.

 

Marc Cucurella transfer is completed, Getafe purchase him for 10M (a pre-set option they had at the end of his loan), we do NOT have an option to pay more and bring him back this time (we did when he was on loan and Eibar and they bought him for 2M, we then bought him back for 4M, and loaned him to Getafe). So we have now made 8M on his sale, yet transfermarkt rates him as worth 19.8M (22M pre-COVID).

 

Great ... we lose Arthur and keep Rakitic

 

The 'cup-tied' rule has been abolished, starting with 2018-19.

 

Bayern Munich are signing Leroy Sane, the sort of player we should be looking at, young, lightning quick, but we only sign slow players over 30.

 

We fall further behind every season !

How on Earth we managed to get FDJ I’ll never know..

 

Lol, the board probably thought he was 35.

 

Yup, we don't need another Coutinho-style player with a Dembele-like attitude and injuries.

Given how many holes we have in this squad, wing-forward/attacking midfielder is the least of my concerns.

 

Damn this hurts:

 

Honestly I think our club will have a very hard time recovering from the mishaps in recent years. If we invested in our midfield and defense what we did in Coutinho and Dembele, we'd have exactly the same team going forward but with world class depth and talent across the pitch.