I disagree, I have the bad habit of watching every single match of Barcelona and coaching is the number one problem. The issue is that they don't and haven't played has a team since Luis Enrique left.
Barcelona to fire Valverde. Quique Setién to take over
- Thread starter RoyH1
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
This place does my head in at times, my friends what happened to United post-SAF was not normal. It was an absolute masterpiece in feckwittery and mismanagement
And i mean, sure, here's to hoping Nobita is followed by Gaspart 2.0
But realistically? It's unlikely they'll spend 7 years in the wilderness after Messi walks
This place was predicting years of doom and gloom for us too, after we sold Cris. Fast forward 2 years and we're still very much a top 10 side in the world, close to winning the league with a great manager in place and the resources to improve and get back to the top, quickly
And i mean, sure, here's to hoping Nobita is followed by Gaspart 2.0
But realistically? It's unlikely they'll spend 7 years in the wilderness after Messi walks
This place was predicting years of doom and gloom for us too, after we sold Cris. Fast forward 2 years and we're still very much a top 10 side in the world, close to winning the league with a great manager in place and the resources to improve and get back to the top, quickly
Yes, but we never had to borrow money to buy dud transfers.
If you want to wank over Barcelona, go somewhere else
I did try to make the point that Real Madrid could cope without Ronaldo, if they reorganize their attack and share goals which they partially did, but you mainly did it by drasticly improving the defense. The problem with Barcelona is that you need a good coach to do that, one that has a bit of character and do not pander to the board or players for the sake of doing it.
But that has been down to the board's utterly haphazard recruitment, without any regards to the coaches the have in charge to be fair. The coaches literally have zero power, yet the board has no patience
When a force of nature carries ordinary players then surely it is normal?
Look at Madrid, 4 CL in 5 years yet fall away when Ronaldo left. Havent won at home in Europe for 4/5 games? About to go out with a whimper again. Hell look what happened when Zidane left.
You will won the league but its a poor league really, this Barca side has fallen away badly themselves.
I reckon if we'd have lost vs Brighton yesterday this thread would be completely different! Bullish or what?
They still have the best GK and outfield player in the world. Oh, and an incredible back 4, 3x midfielders who can start for any team in the world and GRIEZMANN, SUAREZ AND DEMBELE up top with Messi.
Its not that bad. They're managed by a clown who will be sacked in a month. Some superstar will declare Barcelona is their dream and balance will be restored.
They still have the best GK and outfield player in the world. Oh, and an incredible back 4, 3x midfielders who can start for any team in the world and GRIEZMANN, SUAREZ AND DEMBELE up top with Messi.
Its not that bad. They're managed by a clown who will be sacked in a month. Some superstar will declare Barcelona is their dream and balance will be restored.
No. The coaches are useless and the board is even worse, it's not one or the other. Barcelona don't play as a team at all, they have excellent players and could at least have one strong eleven if they had good coaches but they don't.
Barca is on decline for sure. However, they still haven't reached the levels of Milan, Arsenal, Us, Inter yet and I don't think they will. Although, I do believe that now we are not that far away from their level, which is it top 10nish (I consider us top 20). Last year they were better than us, but since then they declined more and we improved. But last year they were top 5 in the world for me. I mean they did bottle the second leg against Liverpool, but overall they outplayed them and they missed many chances even in the second leg.
They are now at the late 90s Barca level. They still have amazing players but they seem to lack something.
They are now at the late 90s Barca level. They still have amazing players but they seem to lack something.
What they lack is pretty obvious, a competent management. The Athletic had a tremendous piece that lined out that 2014 (!) was the last transfer summer in which the starting XI was actually significantly improved. The amount of money they have wasted on the transfer market since then has been staggering. They behaved like a caricature of a sheikh club.
I am not sure about that. Barcelona have incredible players on paper. However, I am not sure they compliment each other well. It's hard to play as a team if the individuals you have don't gel well.
You can blame it on the coaches if you want but I think that's the easy way out. I look at the Barcelona squad and I don't see anything other than the ingredients for a segmented team.
In a functioning unit the weaknesses of some players are complimented by the strengths of others. However, that is not how the Barcelona squad is built. The things, for example, Busquets has lost as he's aged are not compensated for by anyone else in the team. Vidal to some extent but he also has gaps as has aged.
The team has been constructed on the Luis Enrique blueprint: bypass midfield and go straight to the attackers. It's no surprise Valverde tried to put together a basically counter attacking side. The idea you can do something massively different with these players is being disproved by Setien.
Ironic if you bare in mind the thread title
First Luis Enrique blueprint wasn't to bypass the midfield that was all Valverde, Luis Enrique had a fast transition that was based on heavily using the midfield and not using the defense that much, that's the difference with Guardiola who wanted to build slowly from the goalkeeper to the opposing box, with Luis Enrique the build up started with the midfield and Iniesta-Rakitic-Busquets were heavily involved. Valverde was extremely direct and would indeed bypass the midfield.
Now, that's not the same team. Currently their midfield options are Vidal, De Jong, Busquets, Riqui Puig, Arthur and Rakitic. You have four new players from Luis Enrique time and they are all better performers or equal to Busquets and Rakitic. Currently the issue with them is that they are basically doing what Valverde asked them to do, don't take risks and pass it to Messi or Alba. Setien has brought nothing.
Regarding attackers, Suarez isn't the same player than he was 3-4 years ago, he is sluggish and doesn't defend or press anymore, he barely does anything physical but his role hasn't really changed there isn't a tactical adaption to the player that he is today, the role that Neymar had hasn't been adapted to the players that Barcelona has, they didn't adapt for Coutinho, Fati, Dembélé or Griezmann.
On the right side they don't adapt tactically whether they use Semedo or Sergi Roberto who are completely different players one tend to play the width and use his pace while the other plays inside and tries to support on inside channels, in many games you see their roles reversed and it makes no sense at all.
Since 2017 at Barcelona only three things work Alba, Ter Stegen and Messi.
They are in a mess, no getting away from that. Definitely not a cohesive unit as before.
They should just send him back to Atleti
Keep thinking martial is better than Griezmann, amazing to read that
Yes, they might not spend years but that is also because of the strength in the PL. La Liga does not have the same strength in depth. La Liga is realistically a 2 horse race generally. The PL has alot more competition.
PL is a two horse race as well. The gap from city (when healthy) and Liverpool and the rest of the league is far greater than the gap from madrid/Barca and the rest of la liga. The PL has been brutal in ucl this year as well. Atletico were 6th at the time and still knocked out Liverpool. La liga has gotten worse at the top, but the epl is overrated. A painfully mediocre Leicester team is third ffs
Last edited:
I don't disagree that la liga has less depth at the top, but the united sides under Van Gaal were brutal. Regardless of the strength at the top of the league United have still yet to build and field a team worthy of being manchester united. 7 years after SAF left...
That's a very long time to keep failing, for a club of United's size and resources
They should hire Poch. Probably should have never fired Valverde.
Valverde shouldn't have started the season and they should hire an actual top manager.
He’s an espanyol man, would never take the Valverde job
Stupidest managerial change I've seen in my lifetime. Show me just ONE other club that sacked their manager in the middle of the season who had them top of the table 3 SEASONS in a row and was also well liked by the squad.
Sure, Barca was nowhere near as dominant as they used to be some years ago in their heydays. But guess what, that wasn't on Valverde. When you lose Iniesta and Neymar and the rest of the squad keeps aging while young players like Démbéle spend 80 % of the time on the treatment table it's obvious that Valverde got the best out of this squad. Expecting more basically means you would expect a treble.
20 games after Valverde got sacked and the club looks in total ruins. Well deserved.
Sure, Barca was nowhere near as dominant as they used to be some years ago in their heydays. But guess what, that wasn't on Valverde. When you lose Iniesta and Neymar and the rest of the squad keeps aging while young players like Démbéle spend 80 % of the time on the treatment table it's obvious that Valverde got the best out of this squad. Expecting more basically means you would expect a treble.
20 games after Valverde got sacked and the club looks in total ruins. Well deserved.
People project Ronaldo as mean and selfish but I always felt Messi has a hidden dark side underneath his innocent baby face outer look.
Whether its signing players of his choice or sacking managers, it looks like he wants full control and always get things on his way.
Whether its signing players of his choice or sacking managers, it looks like he wants full control and always get things on his way.
PL is a 2 horse race for the last 2 seasons, La Liga has been a 2 horse race for years. The gap from City / Liverpool to rest of the league is the same gap to any other team in the Europe. These two teams are fantastic.
Premier League in the Europe have been impressive last few years. 2 finalists last year, 1 the season before. 2 finalists in the EL as well.
Well, your comment about Liverpool being knocked out by 6th place Athletico is quite naive really, these results happen. The best team doesnt always win in cup competitions or Real wouldn't have won the Final V Liverpool.
I agree, we have been let down by our management. There are no excuses on that. This has shades of Milan written all over it if we do not get our act together.
Dude this is a thread about barca and everyone feels you guys have been run poorly and once Messi retires you will find it hard to be this successful. Nothing to do with United. You keep on bringing brighton, SAF, Woodward when this thread about you guys.
Yes I don't think they will be that bad and the big reason for that is even if they have a transition season after messi.leaves they will still find a way to be in CL spot. United were grossly mismanaged and with other teams.around them getting competitive it was always going to be difficult for United after SAF left.
No it wasn't. The year after Moyes United were able to sign Di Maria, Falcao(who was pursued by half of europe) and a number of other players. Rebuilding wasn't that difficult, you just screwed it up royally. You hired Van Gaal and went back to CL, only to realize the following year that you were going nowhere. So you replaced him with Mourinho, signed Zlatan and Pogba despite the lack of CL, and lo and behold a year and a half later you realized he was taking you nowhere(despite back to back CL qualification, a point against this famed competitiveness of the PL making it hard for you. It didn't, you just kept screwing up)
You didn't get my point. Yes we were grossly mismanaged which no one should deny and that is the main reason we have been out of top 4 on more than multiple occasions since SAF left. But the emergence of spurs and liverpool as a top contender and city getting pep meant our gross mismanagement became even more evident. Had city not got pep we might have won the league under Jose in his second season. That's why I said Barca can afford to lose messi and still finish in top 4 in la liga. We did not have that privilege.
Well everyone is entitled to their opinion i guess. But its weird for sure
Are you kidding me? I didn’t just randomly bring up united for the fun of it, go back a few pages. United fans were bringing their own team into this
Well everyone is entitled to their opinion i guess. But its weird for sure
Very strange that one is considerd a must for for the best national team then, and one is maybe in for consideration.
Nobody has denied Martial's talent. But claiming him better than Griez is something only a united fan would do. And thats an answer
No, city and Liverpool are not the best two teams in Europe. I’d place Bayern ahead of both.
Pl strength is massively overrated. A mediocre Leicester team at third, while la liga has been producing multiple CL and Europa finalists. No other league has had 3 different teams in the finals this past 5-6 years.
Liverpool and city will still be well ahead of the rest of the league. Even one of the worst Madrid sides of the past ten years gave city a run for their money in CL. The “strength” of pl is overrated especially with this season being second worst batch of teams for the league after the Leicester season.
If we lost Messi (who has 83% of our goal contribution) we’d be fighting for a Europa spot. We can’t even beat Sevilla and Atletico WITH Messi absolutely no way we’d be locked for a top 4 spot without him.
Spurs are not a top contender, what rubbish is this. One decent season and they’ve been mediocre otherwise outside of a Cinderella CL run (where Barca even beat them last year 4-2)
There’s only two contenders pool and city, it’s a two horse league. Spurs were never legit title contenders, they were for a brief time legit contenders for a top 4 spot.
Spot on, you’d have to be beyond delusional to rate martial over Griezmann
So Barca, Valverde, Setien
The primary similarities between Barca now and United around 2010 or so, is the obvious issues at board level that are resulting in poor recruitment and squad building.
We had SAF then to cover up the decline in the level of our squad and recruitment. Barca have Messi now who does the same.
They have bought a number of talented players in the last few years, but building up a coherent squad with complementary talents is more than just buying names. United struggled with this post-SAF as numerous transfers like Mata, ADM, Falcao, Schweinsteiger, Sanchez, etc. made clear. Only now after the club has overhauled how recruitment is done, including creating it's own proprietary database, and with a manager who has a genuine vision for how he wants United to play that aligns with the talent on hand does it genuinely feel like progress is being made.
Barca's issues, as I see it anyways, are that their recruitment doesn't seem to have much thought or process to it and the managerial appointments don't seem to have any common thread in the ethos and preferred style of each manager. The managers also don't match what you'd want with the recruitment, or vice versa. On top of that the mistakes they're making in the transfer market aren't failing on cheaper punts, but rather spending exorbitant amounts on big name players and talents, who struggle to adapt and need to be sold, but the club are unable to even get buyers for said player to recoup their investment. These are massive problems that have long-term impact.
The difference between Barca and Real's decline in squad quality in Ronaldo's later years there is that in that instance Madrid simply wasn't spending much at all, while they trimmed down the wage bill to keep their finances in order. They therefore had the financial muscle to invest quite a bit into the squad one year out, and the remaining spine was still quality enough in a bit of a down period for Barca and Atletico to capitalize and put themselves in the driver's seat for La Liga. Zidane's re-appointment as manager, a man who understands the club and proven he can manage the egos and win at the highest level at a major club like Real has also been a key factor.
Barca now having an aging squad with mega earners who they cannot offload easily, not without taking a significant financial hit, or even perhaps subsidizing the move themselves. On top of this the board situation is a mess, their managers have little power over a core of aging players who have gained internal influence and power due to the infighting and power vacuum at board level which complicates the process of rebuilding the team. Will they struggle as much as United did post-Ferguson? Odds are they won't, but Messi, as great as he is, has dropped off a bit and that means he can't cover up as much as he has, and that's something that is likely to only get exacerbated over the next couple of years, as well as natural declines for core players like Pique, Busquets, Suarez, Alba, etc.
They won't fall into the abyss, but I'd be surprised if they don't drop off in a major way over the next 2-3 years.
We had SAF then to cover up the decline in the level of our squad and recruitment. Barca have Messi now who does the same.
They have bought a number of talented players in the last few years, but building up a coherent squad with complementary talents is more than just buying names. United struggled with this post-SAF as numerous transfers like Mata, ADM, Falcao, Schweinsteiger, Sanchez, etc. made clear. Only now after the club has overhauled how recruitment is done, including creating it's own proprietary database, and with a manager who has a genuine vision for how he wants United to play that aligns with the talent on hand does it genuinely feel like progress is being made.
Barca's issues, as I see it anyways, are that their recruitment doesn't seem to have much thought or process to it and the managerial appointments don't seem to have any common thread in the ethos and preferred style of each manager. The managers also don't match what you'd want with the recruitment, or vice versa. On top of that the mistakes they're making in the transfer market aren't failing on cheaper punts, but rather spending exorbitant amounts on big name players and talents, who struggle to adapt and need to be sold, but the club are unable to even get buyers for said player to recoup their investment. These are massive problems that have long-term impact.
The difference between Barca and Real's decline in squad quality in Ronaldo's later years there is that in that instance Madrid simply wasn't spending much at all, while they trimmed down the wage bill to keep their finances in order. They therefore had the financial muscle to invest quite a bit into the squad one year out, and the remaining spine was still quality enough in a bit of a down period for Barca and Atletico to capitalize and put themselves in the driver's seat for La Liga. Zidane's re-appointment as manager, a man who understands the club and proven he can manage the egos and win at the highest level at a major club like Real has also been a key factor.
Barca now having an aging squad with mega earners who they cannot offload easily, not without taking a significant financial hit, or even perhaps subsidizing the move themselves. On top of this the board situation is a mess, their managers have little power over a core of aging players who have gained internal influence and power due to the infighting and power vacuum at board level which complicates the process of rebuilding the team. Will they struggle as much as United did post-Ferguson? Odds are they won't, but Messi, as great as he is, has dropped off a bit and that means he can't cover up as much as he has, and that's something that is likely to only get exacerbated over the next couple of years, as well as natural declines for core players like Pique, Busquets, Suarez, Alba, etc.
They won't fall into the abyss, but I'd be surprised if they don't drop off in a major way over the next 2-3 years.
You are having a laugh arent you? Bayern are not ahead of Liverpool and City. The Bayern team that got destroyed by Liverpool in the CL last season?
So we should use 5/6 years because it suits your argument?
I would agree that between 2010 - 2015 La liga teams were on a rise in europe however; for the last 2/3 seasons the prem teams are back.
You might want to check your records again. lets use your timeline. 2015 onwards.
CL
Real Madrid - 3 Finals
Liverpool - 2 Finals
Totenham - 1 Final
EL
Sevilla - 1 final
Athleti - 1 Final
Manutd - 1 Final
Chelsea - 1 Final
Arsenal - 1 Final
That equals to 3 La liga 5 PL clubs.
City literally thrashed Real at the Bernebeau.
Once Messi leaves Barca, there will only be one winner for years.
Griezmanns best position is outdated in modern football. Its the same as Coutinho. He was exposed as soon as he left a team that made allowances for him.
Im not saying Martial is better but Griezmann is vastly overrated and history wont look too kindly on him.
I honestly think more managers would take Martial for his tactical versatility then Antoine right now. Take away Griezmanns defensive workrate up top and he's half the player.
That's a bit of stretch, it's more or less a version of the roles played by Bruno Fernandes at United, Muller at Bayern and Reus at Dortmund.