This game, as the last game of the season, expecting another shitshow and i hope its the last in a row. In all this denial after liverpool game, although i earned some money still left me wondering and questioning if retardo stays for another season, with de jong coming what could actually change.
1. Is retardo doing his best job with current fuck up of a middlefield. Rakitic is overused, world class but nowhere near the guy who should pull the strings and be 'the best one' as he is using him in our middle trio. Busquets and rakitic together cant coexist, like many of us already know, they should fight for one spot. If its like that, that leaves other two spots for arthur, vidal, alena, coutinho. Alena is simply not good enough, arthur is inconsistent with low stammina, vidal is a reliable one, less tech but lungs and hunger kinda nullify that. Coutinho is too much of a gamble considering our game plan of a patient build up, but only one that can create something.
So, retardo logic is you have six mf players that are hard to mix together to create reliable mf trio. Considering all the flaws of the 4 players above that fight for 2 spots, ev, logical perhaps, gave rakitic and busquets, as the experienced seniors and most 'consistent' players two spots, third spot for in form arthur, but vidal overpowered him with his heart and running, and with dembele out because of injury, tried with coutinho on the wing for more creative firepower.
2.Because of the lack of mobility and creativity in mf, and considering our game plan, is roberto because of that ahead of semedo because he's a middlefielder naturaly, and when we are attacking busquets or rakitic obviously fall back between pique and lenglet so that roberto and alba could go upfront as they're more mobile, faster and 'trickier' to defend against.
So question is, is ev really that bad of a coach or is he trying his best to nullify the flaws of our weakest link of a team that is middlefield? Are we in denial that we have competitive quality mf's for every spot in that department? I think yes and liverpool exposed that, like we all knew even before the nou camp game, which btw only by the pure luck finished without the goal in our net.
So, with de jong coming, who is different then any of them, more mobile and ofcourse faster then any of them, with excellent ball control, is he the puzzle that we are actually missing or would ev play him out of position?
3. Busquets. He became the weakest link. If we play de jong in dm spot, then actually valverde could line up a mf trio with
De jong
?(vidal) coutinho
Or
De jong
Arthur(rakitic) ?(coutinho)
Question marks are because, considering the possible 120m splashing on griezmann, we should instead go for someone like erikssen, pogba, kante, thiago. Depends on the variations and i pray to whoever that thats what players are trying to say with 'no griezmann' appeal.
I could be delusional, but we still have messi in attack, dembele is not that reliable but lets be optimistic that he would be healthy next year, suarez is a liability but he still is capable of banging hattricks against real madrid. I'd rather went to bring back pedro, + one younger promising striker and one quality in prime middlefielder then splash 200m on de ligt and griezmann.
That could leave us with:
Ter stegen(back up goalkeeper)
Semedo(roberto) pique, lenglet(umtiti(30,40m), todibo) alba(we need a left back)
De jong, arthur, alena, coutinho, vidal, rakitic or busquets(sell one, 50m) gomes(20m) and add to that possibility of( erikssen, thiago, pogba, kante)
Messi, suarez, dembele, malcom(30-40m) possible outcome(pedro, piatek, jovic, sane, griezmann(if we dont buy de ligt))
So, optimistic that could be our line up for next season:
Mats
Semedo pique lenglet alba
De jong
Pogba coutinho
Messi suarez dembele
Or
Mats
Semedo pique lenglet alba
De jong
Arthur erikssen
Messi suarez pedro(if dembele injured, we wouldnt suffer watching coutinho on the left wing)
But, lets finish this season, and see next year what should we look like.
