Neymar Jr.

If Neymar will be bought there will not be room for Coutinho nor Dembélé in the squad nor would it be financially foreseeable. Not sure how anyone can even entertain such an idea to begin with. It should be painfully obvious to everyone except for the well-known trolls on this forum.

Coutinho has been a massive flop (expected if you ask me), is not content with playing as a "winger" in a 4-3-3 and it would suit both parties to part ways this summer. Dembélé has likewise not had the desired development in his 2 season here (for various reasons and a lot of that has to do with Valverde) and with Griezmann's arrival and Valverde going nowhere (that in itself is insanity) he will not get the needed and consistent playing time at all to develop into the kind of player that his talent and price tag would justify.

Players like Umtiti, Lenglet, Semedo and Rakitic could also be of interest for PSG and Tuchel or help finance the Neymar purchase if some of them will be bought by other clubs.

So nothing impossible about the Neymar transfer really. It all depends on how many of our current players the board deems surplus for requirements and how well they will be able to sell them.

I still think this is not happening. It doesn't make sense with Antoine here. Unless Suarez is benched which is unlikely.


But if it's a swap deal, our number 1 priority should be lumping Rakitic in the deal. Coutinho too.

Unpopular opinion and politically impossible but a

Neymar-Griezmann-Dembélé

frontline would be the solution to the "but where will Griezmann play" and "what gametime will Dembéle get" problems.

Everyone plays in his favourite position, pace and dribbling on the flanks, everyone runs off the ball all the time like normal footballers and no more need to adapt to Messi's lack of movement, workrate and positional discipline. Another plus: getting Messi's insanely high wages off the books.

I don't think 32 year old Messi is indispensable at this point of time. If the aforementioned frontline can be assembled it should be done. At best Messi will only give 2 more seasons at his best anyway. Messi playing until he's 40 as a midfield maestro is a pipe dream with his physical cababilities (or lack thereof).

If Neymar can truly be gotten, this is the perfect timing for a post-Messi Barca.

But no one will dare to do it of course.

The Observer said:

Unpopular opinion and politically impossible but a

Neymar-Griezmann-Dembélé

frontline would be the solution to the "but where will Griezmann play" and "what gametime will Dembéle get" problems.

Everyone plays in his favourite position, pace and dribbling on the flanks, everyone runs off the ball all the time like normal footballers and no more need to adapt to Messi's lack of movement, workrate and positional discipline. Another plus: getting Messi's insanely high wages off the books.

I don't think 32 year old Messi is indispensable at this point of time. If the aforementioned frontline can be assembled it should be done. At best Messi will only give 2 more seasons at his best anyway. Messi playing until he's 40 as a midfield maestro is a pipe dream with his physical cababilities (or lack thereof).

If Neymar can truly be gotten, this is the perfect timing for a post-Messi Barca.

But no one will dare to do it of course.

Click to expand...

switch neymar for mbappe and i'd sadly have to agree. these recent ucl collapses have shown that he's at an age were he can no longer put the team on his back like he could in the past (ironically, when he had more help).

he's the GOAT but it might be time to move on if he's content with crashing out in the ucl because he's won it all and he doesn't want to upset his friends in busquets, rakitic and suarez--who all need replacing.

The Observer said:

Unpopular opinion and politically impossible but a

Neymar-Griezmann-Dembélé

frontline would be the solution to the "but where will Griezmann play" and "what gametime will Dembéle get" problems.

Everyone plays in his favourite position, pace and dribbling on the flanks, everyone runs off the ball all the time like normal footballers and no more need to adapt to Messi's lack of movement, workrate and positional discipline. Another plus: getting Messi's insanely high wages off the books.

I don't think 32 year old Messi is indispensable at this point of time. If the aforementioned frontline can be assembled it should be done. At best Messi will only give 2 more seasons at his best anyway. Messi playing until he's 40 as a midfield maestro is a pipe dream with his physical cababilities (or lack thereof).

If Neymar can truly be gotten, this is the perfect timing for a post-Messi Barca.

But no one will dare to do it of course.

Click to expand...

Most Barcelona fans are fanatical about Messi. This will never happen, would trigger an insane scandal trying to move Messi. Besides, Messi still pretty much guarantees you a lot of goals in la Liga, even if he is a liability in CL due to his poor movement and effort.

Our best bet I think would be to move to a 4-2-3-1, with Arthur and De Jong in midfield. And get Suarez off the first 11. We can keep the 4-3-3 too, but we have to move Messi on the right and ask him to play like a more conventional winger-playmaker, where he played his best football post Guardiola.

The Observer said:

Unpopular opinion and politically impossible but a

Neymar-Griezmann-Dembélé

frontline would be the solution to the "but where will Griezmann play" and "what gametime will Dembéle get" problems.

Everyone plays in his favourite position, pace and dribbling on the flanks, everyone runs off the ball all the time like normal footballers and no more need to adapt to Messi's lack of movement, workrate and positional discipline. Another plus: getting Messi's insanely high wages off the books.

I don't think 32 year old Messi is indispensable at this point of time. If the aforementioned frontline can be assembled it should be done. At best Messi will only give 2 more seasons at his best anyway. Messi playing until he's 40 as a midfield maestro is a pipe dream with his physical cababilities (or lack thereof).

If Neymar can truly be gotten, this is the perfect timing for a post-Messi Barca.

But no one will dare to do it of course.

Click to expand...

got slated for saying the same a while ago, not that Messi should leave but hes a huge part of the problem - as crazy as that sounds

yes, he had one of his best season statistically last season BUT you can't have a RW that abandons his post to drift centrally/drop deep leaving our entire right side dead. add the lack of workrate and movement on top of this and our RB will continue to be overloaded, its so obvious and i expect even more teams to exploit it next season. we aren't winning a CL siphoning everything through a 32 year old Messi. football is a team game and this is FC Barcelona not FC Messi, we are creating this Messidependencia by hiring pussy yes-man managers afraid to make a change

Messi needs to play false 9, thats the only place he can play without the rest of the team suffering.

Neymar-Messi-Griezmann would be great. Dembele would have to be sold which is actually ridiculous as 1 of the main reasons hes 'underperforming' when fit is because hes forced to play LW so Messi can play false-RW

we don't have a manager strong enough to implement a change so all we can do is wait for the old guard + Valverde to leave and hope for the best.

The Observer said:

Unpopular opinion and politically impossible but a

Neymar-Griezmann-Dembélé

frontline would be the solution to the "but where will Griezmann play" and "what gametime will Dembéle get" problems.

Everyone plays in his favourite position, pace and dribbling on the flanks, everyone runs off the ball all the time like normal footballers and no more need to adapt to Messi's lack of movement, workrate and positional discipline. Another plus: getting Messi's insanely high wages off the books.

I don't think 32 year old Messi is indispensable at this point of time. If the aforementioned frontline can be assembled it should be done. At best Messi will only give 2 more seasons at his best anyway. Messi playing until he's 40 as a midfield maestro is a pipe dream with his physical cababilities (or lack thereof).

If Neymar can truly be gotten, this is the perfect timing for a post-Messi Barca.

But no one will dare to do it of course.

Click to expand...

It wouldn’t matter because if Ney does come back especially if Messi is asking for him then it obviously means Messi might be planning to leave or retire on his own accord within the next year or so

Givenchy said:

got slated for saying the same a while ago, not that Messi should leave but hes a huge part of the problem - as crazy as that sounds

yes, he had one of his best season statistically last season BUT you can't have a RW that abandons his post to drift centrally/drop deep leaving our entire right side dead. add the lack of workrate and movement on top of this and our RB will continue to be overloaded, its so obvious and i expect even more teams to exploit it next season. we aren't winning a CL siphoning everything through a 32 year old Messi. football is a team game and this is FC Barcelona not FC Messi, we are creating this Messidependencia by hiring pussy yes-man managers afraid to make a change

Messi needs to play false 9, thats the only place he can play without the rest of the team suffering.

Neymar-Messi-Griezmann would be great. Dembele would have to be sold which is actually ridiculous as 1 of the main reasons hes 'underperforming' when fit is because hes forced to play LW so Messi can play false-RW

we don't have a manager strong enough to implement a change so all we can do is wait for the old guard + Valverde to leave and hope for the best.

Click to expand...

even a Griezmann---Messi---Dembele would look great imo.

I don't see Neymar coming this summer as we don't have the $$$ and the players don't seem to want to leave.

For me, it would be a miracle if the board can sell the likes of Coutinho, Rakitic, Umtiti this summer

Not sure Messi can play false 9 anymore. RW would be a safer bet, with Griezmann taking the center.

Tekkers said:

switch neymar for mbappe and i'd sadly have to agree. these recent ucl collapses have shown that he's at an age were he can no longer put the team on his back like he could in the past (ironically, when he had more help).

he's the GOAT but it might be time to move on if he's content with crashing out in the ucl because he's won it all and he doesn't want to upset his friends in busquets, rakitic and suarez--who all need replacing.

Click to expand...

People hate Neymar because he is a really detestable character but it never really affected his performances on the pitch. He is also more clutch than any Barca player. I found it telling that one of PSG's players back in 2017 in the famous 6-1 game said that after PSG got one back and the scoreline was 3-1 Barca players admitted to the PSG players on the pitch that "it was over" and had given up. Except Neymar who kept going and initiated the comeback. He might be an absolute cretin off the pitch but on the pitch I doubt that we would give up big leads if we still had Neymar in the team. He would definitely pull one or two goals back as he did against Bayern in 2015 away from home. I would prefer him even over Mbappe. Just the better player, despite being a clown.

The Observer said:

Unpopular opinion and politically impossible but a

Neymar-Griezmann-Dembélé

frontline would be the solution to the "but where will Griezmann play" and "what gametime will Dembéle get" problems.

Everyone plays in his favourite position, pace and dribbling on the flanks, everyone runs off the ball all the time like normal footballers and no more need to adapt to Messi's lack of movement, workrate and positional discipline. Another plus: getting Messi's insanely high wages off the books.

I don't think 32 year old Messi is indispensable at this point of time. If the aforementioned frontline can be assembled it should be done. At best Messi will only give 2 more seasons at his best anyway. Messi playing until he's 40 as a midfield maestro is a pipe dream with his physical cababilities (or lack thereof).

If Neymar can truly be gotten, this is the perfect timing for a post-Messi Barca.

But no one will dare to do it of course.

Click to expand...

And no one should...

Messi just had one of his best seasons ever and now he's no longer indispensable...., the ungratefullness of some people is stagering.

EdmondDantes said:

I still think this is not happening. It doesn't make sense with Antoine here. Unless Suarez is benched which is unlikely.


But if it's a swap deal, our number 1 priority should be lumping Rakitic in the deal. Coutinho too.

Click to expand...

Agree. Coutinho and Rakitic no doubts.

He´s already putting barça crest on his instagram. lol

serghei said:

Not sure Messi can play false 9 anymore. RW would be a safer bet, with Griezmann taking the center.

Click to expand...

Messi cannot play RW anymore either. The current, post-30 Messi is incapable, if not unwilling at the very least to play a fixed position. It's one of the reasons why Barcelona and Argentina have struggled so mightily in premier cup competitions of late. It would be better for us to simply mark Messi down as a free roaming forward in the final third instead of referring to him as a false 9, RW or anything of that sort. No matter where you put the lad in a theoretical formation, he will still end up doing what he feels like.

Tackle said:

Messi cannot play RW anymore either. The current, post-30 Messi is incapable, if not unwilling at the very least to play a fixed position. It's one of the reasons why Barcelona and Argentina have struggled so mightily in premier cup competitions of late. It would be better for us to simply mark Messi down as a free roaming forward in the final third instead of referring to him as a false 9, RW or anything of that sort. No matter where you put the lad in a theoretical formation, he uwill still end up doing what he feels like.

Click to expand...

I’d agree .. just let him do what he wants as usual and build a team behind / around him somehow.

It means the other players putting in an extra shift which means no others being carried as well ( Rakitic !) .

The best player in the world, Messi, can never be a problem on his own. The problem in recent years have been the utter lack of sporting project and long-term planning from the board and absurd managerial appointments exemplified with the likes of Valverde or before that Martino. That and the board allowing the "club de amigos" clan to become this powerful. It baffles my mind that people who have watched football for years are unable to realize this simple fact. A sporting project goes before anything else. Especially at Barça. Has almost 30 years of the Cruyff sporting model being implemented at the club (at least until the current useless board took over) not taught people the essentials of our unprecedented success as a club in the past 30 years?

If Pep (or any other elite manager) had remained at the helm we would not have seen Messi doing what he wants to tactically. He would simply not have been allowed to do so. We saw that with Lucho in his first season in particular from January 2015 onwards after the seniors and him struck some kind of understanding after he was at the brink of getting fired for no longer tolerating the old guard to do as they pleased as occurred under Tata, and much of the 2015-16 season.

When you arguably have the GOAT (one of the very few contenders for sure) at your disposal you better create a TEAM and structure (tactics, sporting project) that enables that player to excel for the benefit of the team. We (the board) as a club have failed to do that utterly in the past 3 seasons by relying way too much and for too long on seniors that are past it. Or on Messi himself to do everything on his own. Hence why our main "tactic" in the past 2 years have been to play the ball to Messi at all times and wait for him to create some magic. This neither helps the team nor Messi. Certainly not against elite clubs in the CL as seen in the past 4 years.

It speaks volume that the likes of Dembélé are rumored to leave the club while a soon to be 33 year old and way past it Suárez is still here. Or that the likes of Rakitic and Busquets are likely to continue as undisputed starters with only the likes of FDJ threatening them or occasionally Arthur.

Messi might be at fault for not being an adequate leader on and off the pitch, as a captain material, for not being more vocal against the board and internal club policies (would put him in a difficult place so not blaming him overly for holding back and not in his nature either) and for being a part of the "club de amigos" clan himself. That is all. The rest (vast, vast majority) is the responsibility of the useless board.