Loaned: Arda Turan

xXKonan

Senior Member
Arda had his chance here and he didn't take it.

Lucho kept playing him a lot even when he wasn't deserving of the minutes. He looks out of shape most of the time, slow and can't be bothered to fight for the shirt. you keep hearing how "Oh I want to stay and prove to Valverde that I can be useful" But it was evident in preseason that wasn't the case.

I liked Arda a lot especially during his Athletico days, but this transfer is a bust and a massive disappointment. there's no defending this one.
 

Windhook

Well-known member
Wow! Someone got finally banned. Same should be considered about 30% of the active users on this forum. They have nothing to do with F.C. Barcelona.
 

Horatio

You're welcome
Wow! Someone got finally banned. Same should be considered about 30% of the active users on this forum. They have nothing to do with F.C. Barcelona.

What u talking about? Bans have been handed out left and right. Sometimes too easy imo. There is a clear distinction between a blatant troll and someone who just has a very unpopular opinion(if he honestly believes it then it isn't trolling).

This was probably just an enthusiastic Arda fanboy.
 

Windhook

Well-known member
What u talking about? Bans have been handed out left and right. Sometimes too easy imo. There is a clear distinction between a blatant troll and someone who just has a very unpopular opinion(if he honestly believes it then it isn't trolling).

This was probably just an enthusiastic Arda fanboy.

I see a lot of "lawbreakers" around here... :lol: (a Louis C.K. reference here)

Now, honestly, I don't want to point at anybody but we've been tolerating some folks here, trying to prove their clubs' supremacy over. It's something I wouldn't call "unpopular opinion". You are aware that the board has been invaded by Liverpool and PSG fans lately. Maybe they were banned in the last week, maybe they are not, I was away lately.
 
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God Serena

New member
Whelp. Was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but... *clicks go advanced*

I typed this up a couple of days ago but somehow didn't press submit. I clicked on this tab only to realize I had this massive page open and panicked. :lol:

Say what? When Lucho joined, we made transfers for Suarez (then 27), Mathieu (30), Vermaelen (28), Rakitic (26) and Bravo (31) and then Douglas and Ter Stegen, who were young. All those big signings were more or less at their prime age, except for maybe Rakitic, who could be still considered younger player. This is clear strategy of making the current team stronger, not investing into youth. This strategy proved to be correct one. Suarez formed MSN, Bravo was excellent in his first year, Rakitic was perfect fit for midfield and well, Verminator was Verminator. We won treble.


Of all our signings that season only Bravo, Rakitic and Suarez proved to be good signings for that season. Mathieu costed us more points than he helped us win, even with his goals against Celta and Madrid (Although we can blame Lucho for that, Mathieu should have never been given a role as LB), Vermaelen is quite possibly the most idiotic transfer we've ever made and I shouldn't have to explain why, although Douglas comes REALLY CLOSE to trumping that, as he was considered trash even by his own team's fans in Brazil. Rakitic wasn't a "Perfect fit", he was good at filling the role needed for covering for Alves, and once Alves left his quality didn't decline rapidly, it fell off a cliff. Signing both Bravo and Mats was a massive redundancy that only served to create conflict as well. And you forget: We also "Signed" Rafinha, who was instantly one of Lucho's favorites. I'd actually like to revise my earlier statement about Lucho's transfer strategy. There was a mix of younger players, older players, and players in their prime signed. Almost as if there... wasn't any plan at all.


Then we faced transfer ban, Turan was more or less only top player who accepted to sit half a year doing nothing (now we know why). Vidal was probably signed more or less for same reason. Lucho wanted someone with similar qualities to Alves to cover right side and thought Vidal could do the job, similarities were there (Sevilla, being played as WB) + he was ex La Masia. To compensate loss of Pedro, both Sandro and Munir were introduced from La Masia. Everything went well for half a year or so, but team dropped in form heavily and we only won 2 major trophies.

Arda wasn't signed because he was willing to sit, he was signed because Barto needed a top signing and fast because he had elections coming up, and Arda's persona as a "warrior" and an apparant huge Barca fan was just what he needed. There was no sporting reasoning behind why a treble winning side needed to add an extra midfielder, and 40m for a 28/29 year old was always a questionable purchase. Vidal was similarly always known to be a god awful defender and it was laughable how Lucho insisted we sign a player like him just to nearly perma-bench him for being a poor defender. Bringing Munir and Sandro up from La Masia also didn't benefit the team much because neither player got much playing time, as MSN heavily dominated any minutes our forward line had available, a situation I've been saying for years is a massive problem and one of the primary deficiencies of our team. Our team didn't just drop in form, we plummeted in quality and very nearly blew a massive lead that we'd built up in the first half of the season. If the season was one or two weeks longer we'd have almost certainly dropped the league to Real Madrid, we were that shockingly poor. A huge part of that was our transfer policy. Buying players that will help *right now*, no matter the cost, is something that everyone could see was harming us in the long term.

Still noticing that maybe there is an issue with motivation, we totally changed our transfer strategy, instead of buying experienced players like in previous years, we bought 6 22-23 year olds, to insert fresh blood who had not won everything over and over again. We all know how that experiment went.

Just signing young players doesn't do anything. Take a look at who we actually signed. Paco? A generally useless player who spends the majority of most games completely invisible. Never showed anything to indicate he was good enough for Barca. Gomes? A mediocre at best player who's only justification for being here is "Real Madrid wanted him". Denis? A winger signed to play as a midfielder purely because he'd be cheap. Not given the light of day by Lucho. Digne? Was only ever signed to be a backup in the first place. Of all those young players we signed, the only one who was a result of proper scouting *and* was signed based on potential to become a key player for us is Umtiti.

So if u actually take time, you will realize that our transfer policy has always MADE SENSE. Issue here is that the people who we have picked have just not been the correct ones.

A conga line of poor signings can generally be chalked up to poor transfer policy. What kind of a statement is this? Our transfer policy is good, it's our signings that are bad? What? Players are more than just their freaking age. Come on. Try to at least be a little logical here. Because what you are saying makes no sense.

What you are doing here is trying to be smart afterwards, as always. It is so easy to claim Turan was always going to be flop now. Just go read this topic when he was signed and before. Tone of voice apart from very few single posters is rather positive and many even claim he will be definitely a starter.

His price was always questionable, and he was always very clearly a political signing, this much is reflected even in going back 200+ pages, which I just did. Most of the positive attitude about him was in relation to his comments about Barca, Messi, and his dedication to making us a top team :)lol:). There was some hope he could be the player for us that he was at Atletico but very many people felt it was Simeone who was pushing him to be better than he was. They were right. Even as people ardently defended him in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October... I really wonder at what point his defenders finally realized him being lazy, unmotivated, and all around terrible wasn't because of his "6 months" (Really 4 months) of not playing.

Also goddamn Grimaldo, dude is either on bench or injured most of his career. Has he lit the world on fire in Benfica? No. Has any La Masia player, who has left during last 4 years been a sensation anywhere? NO.

I like how you try to complain about being "smart afterwards" but then do the exact same thing in your very next thought. Just because Grimaldo is having a lot of issues with injuries at Benfica doesn't mean Lucho was right to ignore him and use other players proven to fail as LB instead. Unless you were actively cheering when Mathieu fucked up for the hundredth time or when Adriano jogged back while attackers tore our defense apart through his flank I really don't see how you could argue against using Grimaldo when he was healthy would not have been preferable. This is an incredibly weak argument. And you're also wrong, on your last part. Bartra went to Dortmund to replace Hummels and is now a fan favorite. Last I checked he left in the last 4 years, and he was La Masia. I'm also willing to bet he knows players can't be offside in their own half, and we possibly could have won the league if the same could have been said for Mathieu.

La Masia quality is totally different topic and serious issue, but just giving chances to players, because they are in La Masia is bullshit.

Why the hell do you think that? What I think is bullshit is spending nearly 200m on players who provide us absolutely nothing. It's beyond my comprehension how anyone can prefer we sign players like Paco, Gomes, Digne, Arda, etc. for astronomical fees instead of giving a chance to a player who is free and can be easily sent back if they prove not to be a success.

Ever since we had that golden generation, there is a group of people on this forum and overall as well, who seem to think that La Masia is some kind of quality sign. IT IS NOT. Majority of the hyped players are just hyped, in reality they are just as average as the ones coming from other academies. Samper is good example of it.
Alena is pretty much only player who i can see playing a role in first team at the moment. Munir? He is mid-table La Liga level, like Sandro, Grimaldo, barely even so.

Just as there are people who overhype the academy, there are just as many who underrate it to a sickening level. Samper is not a "good example" of anything, he has exactly one year of top flight experience and he was playing on a team that had 3 managers in one season and was flying rapidly towards relegation, and he even had a clause in his loan contract that would make his loan team pay us more if he played too often. Wow, what a flop. I suppose you'd rather spend 40m on players who are mid-table level like Paco or Paulinho than bring some up from the academy, because that's all we've done. And then we struggle to come up with the funds to bring top players to the squad. But forward thinking has never been a strong point for you people. Your hate-boner for La Masia transcends all logic. Why use a mid-tier academy player like Sandro (Who is actually proving that if given more than 300 minutes a season he's actually pretty good) when you can just buy one for 30 or 40m? We're not signing incredible young talents who can work their way up to being stars for the club in a few years. That's Real Madrid's calling. We're too busy bringing in aging players with no resume and younger players with no potential or quality who's main positive attribute seems to be they're not from La Masia. It's so interesting how you seem so calm and level headed until it comes time to discuss the ignorance of the academy. Fuck logic, and fuck La Masia. They're all average. It's like you're completely disconnected from reality, in case you haven't noticed the majority of our bench is average or worse and most of them aren't La Masia players. Oops.

And no, i am not arguing here that our transfers have been poor, yes they have, it is issue with both requests from coaches, also scouting department, maybe some other things as well.

This can generally be chalked up to poor transfer policy but for some reason you seem to think that's perfect.

But majority of our transfers have actually made sense at the time if you only put little bit of thinking into. You will never get everything right, no teams never do, you will always have flops. You do not know the future. (and yes i do realize Douglas signing was as bizarre as it could get and something shady was going on in backround).

No, the majority DO NOT make sense. From a pure sporting perspective Paulinho, Douglas, Arda, Mathieu and Vermaelen made no sense at all. And it's not as if Paco and Gomes were logical signings, either. But yes, yes, I'm sure it made perfect sense to sign a 30 year old who smokes and ignore our doctors and sign a paraplegic defender. What a great way to ensure our long term future.
 

BarcaOG

Banned
watching old clips of previous barca sides...

it's a total farce and unacceptable that arda is wearing Villa's and (for a little time) pedro's # 7....
 

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