Nelson Semedo

DonAndres said:

Part of it is the combination of horrible scouting and coaching. To Barca, a talent doesn't exist until they're already outrageously expensive, or "la liga experience". Look at what Bayern did with incredible scouting on Davies, or RM discovering a talent like Hakimi early.

Click to expand...

Barca has scouted many players early like Umtiti,Arthur and FDJ. Every club has their fair share of good and bad scouting. There are only 3 clubs with better situation in RB than us. That isn't really a big sample size to complain.

We got Emerson too early too and he is probably best young RB in Liga right now, was so close in getting Couto before Gulf money took him.

DonAndres said:

We had Mateu Morey who was an extremely promising La Masia talent was let go a year ago, even though he did want money I think the club has to be smart and give in to some demands for prospects that have the ability to make a real contribution. His potential is seriously high and he could've made the RB role his own, he was a standout player in multiple international tournaments and for youth club teams. Just debuted for Dortmund recently and had his first assist yesterday.

Click to expand...

Morey had bad injury, his development stagnated and already asked for more money twice and his agent seemed determined to go to another club for more money and easier route to first team.
Let's see if he became anything good first before complaining.

DonAndres said:

I've little doubt someone like Klopp would have done way more to get the best from Semedo than Valverde did, as Semedo really did look like a great talent at Benfica. In fact, I would say Semedo has looked absolutely great under Setien and should be given more of a chance before getting disposed. He has been a constant attacking threat in those games and had more attacking moments in a few games under Setien than entire seasons under Valverde. Including a key assist in an away CL game vs Napoli.

Click to expand...

Doubt Semedo would fit into Klopp plans like at all.
Klopp is a top 3 managers, who loves to work as an underdog and have complete authority in building a team, his football ideas are really different than Barca btw.
We were lucky to have Rijkaard, Pep, Lucho a our coaches for 12 years during a 14 years time. All were top 5 coaches during their time here. But at some point other clubs will have the top coaches. You always hope to have a "Klopp" as your manager, but it isn't always realistic.

For that, You can't keep saying our players would look better if we had that top 3 managers coached us. I mean yeah that is obvious but also not realistic.

DonAndres said:

. And look to other teams relying on young players (Trent, Kimmich few years back, Davies) to see that being U23 doesn't automatically mean they should be 2nd option behind Roberto just because he's Catalan golden boy.

Click to expand...

No coach will jeopardize his his winning chances for Catalan player. If the board bring someone the coach is convinced that he is better than Roberto, he will get his minutes.
But people underrating Roberto in general, he is one of those players who are clearly appreciated by coaches. He isn't gonna be benched for the sake of it.

gasgas said:

There's absolutely no reason to sell this guy. What are we doing?

Click to expand...

Contract renewal talks are broken, he wants to leave.
If we don't sell him, we lose him for free.

serghei said:

The problem is not that much that we are losing Semedo. The problem is we will replace him with junk probably. Our options next season will probably be Alba, Roberto, Firpo, somebody clearly worse than Semedo.

I thought the plan was to improve the defense.

Click to expand...

I have to say that shape of our defense next year is truly worrying.
Barca historically loves to buy attackers, IIRC during past 25 years our biggest signing was attacker in 22 of them.
That is why there is an obsession with Lautoro and probably will sacrifice defense to get him.
Add to that that Setien is one of those coaches who has the tendency to go YOLO on offense, and it things could turn ugly.
That being said, I think there will be a RB coming in, whether he is an upgrade or not remains to be seen.

If Khaled was out president, he would do things much differently than the current board, his mentality would be, yea we are failing but other clubs are in a even worst position, so we are fine relatively speaking, let's not change any we might start to fail even more.

Thier is no aspersions to be us to be great in any of his post, it's almost always, well things could be worst.

jamrock said:

If Khaled was out president, he would do things much differently than the current board, his mentality would be, yea we are failing but other clubs are in a even worst position, so we are fine relatively speaking, let's not change any we might start to fail even more.

Thier is no aspersions to be us to be great in any of his post, it's almost always, well things could be worst.

Click to expand...

The squad needs to improve but mainly through replacing the older core but Barca still have a strong squad and one of best in Europe.

Even last season were not far from a treble bar that Liverpool collapse based a lot on individual errors from players that dont tend to make them.

Folk tend to go over the top about how bad a situation Barca are in at times.

Could well win 3rd title in a row and make a run at CL... the quiet stadiums might actually help Barca. Will have to wait and see.

Personally I like Lautaro but dont want them to make a run at him at all costs and fail to address defence etc.

The midfield and forward line is fine for next season.... IF the old core stop being seen as automatic starters.

Of the top teams in Europe which ones are we better than currently or have a brighter future than given our current situation?.

Liverpool? No
Man City? No
Bayern? No
Juve? No
Madrid? No
Psg? Maybe 50/50 they certainly have better players than us looking at the next 2-3 years.

So it all depends on who you compare us to, are we one of the 10 best teams in Europe, sure 100%, but thats not what we should settle for, the way some here and the board seem willing to do.

Because we have basically mastered la liga and can now win it, while sleep walking, doesn't make us a top top team anymore.

The only top branded team we are better off right now is

Man utd
Inter
Milan
Arsenal

That's it and the way inter are going give them the resources we have and they'll be better than us in a few years.

We are kinda in a noman's land place right now, where sure we are good enough to probably win la liga, but it we come up against any team with a back bone, we crumble.

jamrock said:

Of the top teams in Europe which ones are we better than currently or have a brighter future than given our current situation?.

Liverpool? No
Man City? No
Bayern? No
Juve? No
Madrid? No
Psg? Maybe 50/50 they certainly have better players than us looking at the next 2-3 years.

So it all depends on who you compare us to, are we one of the 10 best teams in Europe, sure 100%, but thats not what we should settle for, the way some here and the board seem willing to do.

Because we have basically mastered la liga and can now win it, while sleep walking, doesn't make us a top top team anymore.

The only top branded team we are better off right now is

Man utd
Inter
Milan
Arsenal

That's it and the way inter are going give them the resources we have and they'll be better than us in a few years.

We are kinda in a noman's land place right now, where sure we are good enough to probably win la liga, but it we come up against any team with a back bone, we crumble.

Click to expand...

Depends on what judge future as.

In couple years Liverpool have VVD, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Mane, Salah, Firmino all in their early 30s and will be some task to replace them.

Same with City they have KDB, Aguero, Silva, most likely Sane all to be replaced in coming years as well and dont see clear world class replacements.

PSG will most likely lose Neymar, Mbappe, Cavani and Di Maria possibly.

Real I think their future is overplayed and not drastically better young players than Barca.

Juve dont have a better squad than Barca or any great young core really.

Bayern look like having the best future at moment the others not so much as is made out and at some point have to deal with losing Pep/Klopp as well.

By future I mean which clubs have the best structures in place to make the current decisions, that will have a positive impact on the field, even if Liverpool players are getting older, I trust the structure they have in place to effectively replace their core effectively.

Really the biggest thing Barca have going for them, is the elections next year, if we had to deal with this board for another 6 years with no messi, we would be screwed.

jamrock said:

By future I mean which clubs have the best structures in place to make the current decisions, that will have a positive impact on the field, even if Liverpool players are getting older, I trust the structure they have in place to effectively replace their core effectively.

Really the biggest thing Barca have going for them, is the elections next year, if we had to deal with this board for another 6 years with no messi, we would be screwed.

Click to expand...

I am not so sure likes of Liverpool will find it easy to keep at top. They need to make some unreal signings and keep Klopp...he may well stay long term though.

Building a one off side when can get in good players that will join as know will get minutes and can grow is different from adding good younger players to already top side when they might not see as easy a route into the team.

The biggest thing is the next board being prepared to rebuild and get rid of older players. Having the likes of Busquets playing alone at DM is recipe for disaster when have likes of Pique behind him should opposition break through midfield.

JamDav1982 said:

I am not so sure likes of Liverpool will find it easy to keep at top. They need to make some unreal signings and keep Klopp...he may well stay long term though.

Building a one off side when can get in good players that will join as know will get minutes and can grow is different from adding good younger players to already top side when they might not see as easy a route into the team.

The biggest thing is the next board being prepared to rebuild and get rid of older players. Having the likes of Busquets playing alone at DM is recipe for disaster when have likes of Pique behind him should opposition break through midfield.

Click to expand...

We all know playing busquets there right now isn't optimal, everyone but those who should it seems.

jamrock said:

We all know playing busquets there right now isn't optimal, everyone but those who should it seems.

Click to expand...

Too much loyalty to a team of legends and the board system lends itself to trying to see out time rather than putting through rebuild may not see benefit of.

jamrock said:

If Khaled was out president, he would do things much differently than the current board, his mentality would be, yea we are failing but other clubs are in a even worst position, so we are fine relatively speaking, let's not change any we might start to fail even more.

Thier is no aspersions to be us to be great in any of his post, it's almost always, well things could be worst.

Click to expand...

I aim for the team to be great, always. But this will never happen without a real sport project. One that start with the board and sporting director.
One who can find the right pieces that fit each other.
Semedo is decent, not top 3 player but decent, same for Roberto.
You can always do well with couple of those players in the starting line up, but you need elite players to do so.

But even when you aim for greatness, sometimes you need to understand the competition and the market in place. When there is very few elite RB or coaches, it is bound to happen you will at times get good rather than great.

jamrock said:

Of the top teams in Europe which ones are we better than currently or have a brighter future than given our current situation?.

Liverpool? No
Man City? No
Bayern? No
Juve? No
Madrid? No
Psg? Maybe 50/50 they certainly have better players than us looking at the next 2-3 years.

Click to expand...

Hmmm, RM & Juve are surely not in a better position than us for the future. Only thing Juve have over us is bad competition that won't punish them when they fail. RM has started their rebuild ahead of us due to having older team and by no mean further ahead of us. Bayern is arguable to have a better future, but they have been one of the most overrated team in past half decade for sure. Let's see if their current team is as good as folk think they are. Their decisions after Pep left wasn't that good at all regarding their coaches at least.
Liverpool are at their peak for sure, it is their era tbf. City? Not sure how they will deal with Pep departure.
And we will have a completely different board in less than 14 months. Tough to argue about our future when we don't know who is gonna make the calls after this summer.

JamDav1982 said:

The squad needs to improve but mainly through replacing the older core but Barca still have a strong squad and one of best in Europe.

Click to expand...

Lets hope the next board can do that. Also, all of the veterans we have to replace are great players. It's gonna gonna be very tough to do it.

If we end up swapping him with Cancelo the deal will probably look the same as when Cancelo was swapped with Danilo with those inflated prices to fix the books.

Danilo sold to Juve for 37M
Cancelo bought for 65M

Same with the deal between Cillessen and Neto.

Andresito said:

If we end up swapping him with Cancelo the deal will probably look the same as when Cancelo was swapped with Danilo with those inflated prices to fix the books.

Danilo sold to Juve for 37M
Cancelo bought for 65M

Same with the deal between Cillessen and Neto.

Click to expand...

Yeah, most likely. If we could do a similar deal to that Danilo-Cancelo swap (with Semedo being a much higher valued player than Cancelo) it would be great eventhough I don't really think Cancelo is who we should go for. If we could only make a swap like Neto-JC where Semedo will only be valued a few millions higher than Cancelo then I'd prefer to just sell him for whatever we can get and buy Dest or just go through the season with Roberto-Wague and bring back Emerson next year. BTW, I think FIFA should do something about swaps deals when teams are obviously trying to cheat FFP rules but until included prices are at least somewhat realistic I don't think they can do much.

According to Benfica's official statement at the time of the transfer we have to pay additional 5m for every 50 games Semedo will play for us until his first renovation (if this wouldn't happen obviously for the length of his contract or until he's sold). He has played 111 official games so far so we've paid 40m in total. Don't know if there are other criteria included in his contract, for example if he had to play at least 45 or 60 minutes or if every sub appearance is counting - there were a lot of games where he had come on for the last 15 or 20 minutes so maybe we still didn't need to pay those additional 5m and we could avoid paying them if he's sold before though there are still potentially 15 games to be played this season where he'll most likely be a starter in most of them as long as he's healthy.

Anyway, if we'd sell him for around 35m (3m more than his current market value according to TM) with two years left on his contract we'd only show a benefit of around 20m on the books so we'd still be 50m short of the required 70m we're supposed to get before the end of this month. So selling the likes of Todibo would still be required. If we could do a Danilo-Cancelo like swap we could make a benefit of around 50m so then we'd probably only need to sell 2-3 La Masia kids (who are fully amortized so whatever transfer fee we'd get for them would be shown as a profit on the books; almost the same for Todibo who was bought for around 1m) like Rafinha, Cucu and Miranda for around 20m. But don't think this is very likely as I doubt Pep really wants Semedo so much to do such a financially bad transaction for City who also needs to be aware of FFP. And well, I don't really trust Abidal to negotiate a good deal. Especially considering Txiki on the other side of the table knows Barca's negotiations tactics pretty good. As much as people criticised him during his time here he's turned out to be a good SD (obviously having almost unlimited resources also helped him a lot).

Dont think they will go for an inflated Semedo/Cancelo swap.

Worst case scenario would be to do that and Cancelo is not good enough and have player with too high a value that would have to put down as a loss when try to sell him for much less.

If City paid 65m on their books and he is costing them over 10m a season to amortize down and will be a loss when sold for anything under 50m that is not a great position to be in.

To lesser extent Barca will be facing same thing with Neto and doubt either want to repeat it.