BarçaBarça
New member
Debut this season would be great - a league game should be possible. Next season he should be part of the first team squad and a backup-player, like Alena this season..
Mavericky Puig
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Raketa10
Senior Member
With De Jong here and Alena performing better and better he won't have any playing time. To be fair Alena was our best player in Segunda while Puig isn't dominating in Tercera. I like the kid but I am not that sure about him anymore. From my point of view Alena is a safer bet at the moment.
God Serena
New member
Puig kind of is dominating the Tercera, actually. Seems to always be a standout whenever he plays. De Jong will most likely play the Busquets or Arthur roles, which doesn't really clash with Puig. The main roadblocks are Alena, Rakitic, and Vidal. One of Rakitic or Vidal should be leaving next season. Realistically speaking, the only thing that'd make minutes impossible for Riqui would be Valverde and his inability to rotate Rakitic, which is a huge part of why I think he specifically should leave.
Raketa10
Senior Member
Hmmm, even if Raki and Vidal both leave Rabiot could come and than there is no chance Puig will get playing time. I don't know to be honest even Alena will struggle for minutes if that happens. Also Raki and Vidal are much physically stronger than Puig so to be fair I really don't see how will Valverde find place for Puig since the way Barca is playing uder Valverde is far from Xavi-Iniesta time. Maybe we should loan him for one year.
I also agre with BBZ on one thing, we need to have some muscless in midfield and if we sell both Raki and Vidal we'll be in trouble.
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God Serena
New member
Hmmm, even if Raki and Vidal both leave Rabiot could come and than there is no chance Puig will get playing time. I don't know to be honest even Alena will struggle for minutes if that happens. Also Raki and Vidal are much physically stronger than Puig so to be fair I really don't see how will Valverde find place for Puig since the way Barca is playing uder Valverde is far from Xavi-Iniesta time. Maybe we should loan him for one year.
I also agre with BBZ on one thing, we need to have some muscless in midfield and if we sell both Raki and Vidal we'll be in trouble.
I never said both Rakitic and Vidal should leave. I said ONE of them should. Preferably Rakitic.
BarçaBarça
New member
Alena is a much safer bet - he has the determination and toughness in his talent, that e.g. Samper lacks. I really hope Puig is more Alena than Samper in that regard.
So I think Rakitic will leave, so the question is if Rabiot or a new CM joins. I'm not sure, but it's not unrealistic to expect him to get the kind of minutes Alena does this season, and that will be plenty for him at this stage of his development, imo. Because, I agree, it is too early to know if he can be a first-team player, even a squad-player, I hope we see some tests this and especially next season. If Valverde implements Vidal as the sole Rakitic-replacement next season he is not fit for our club.
Leo_Messi
New member
Wait a second.
The following below was what I wrote.
I did not exclude Vidal. A big detail that was missed.
You also somehow "forgot" or did not "notice" the fact that I wrote that we might sign Rabiot, Lo Celso or another midfielder should Rakitic be sold. Another quite substantial detail.
The midfield that I wrote, including a potential midfield reinforcement in case Rakitic leaves, is indeed a perfect mixture of experience, youth, talent and different player profiles.
However let me ask you a question. If Rakitic was not Croatian and called Ramírez instead, would you be this much against us selling a 31 year old and declining Ramírez with his best years behind him, who moreover publicly demands an contract extension and naturally a wage increase despite not playing better than what he did in previous years? All while knowing that this summer (given that he will turn 31 soon) will be one of our last opportunities to cash in on him as otherwise we will let him move for free since his current contract ends in 2021 or he will leave for peanuts in 2020. In particular considering everything that I initially wrote.
Lastly, I also wrote the following;
So I am not hellbent on selling Rakitic per se but selling him and earning €40-60 million for him would be great business. We need to gradually part ways with some of our seniors. La Masia boys like Piqué or Busquets won't be sold, most likely. They will retire here, unlike a fairly recent foreign arrival like Rakitic.
Nowhere to be seen as expected when countered.
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khaled_a_d
Senior Member
Regarding Puig next year. Right now it seems our midfield has the "optimum number" of midfielders sharing minutes. We have Arthur/Raki/Busquets/Vidal playing most minutes. Alena getting minutes and Roberto there when needed. That isn't counting Coutinho/Denis/Rafinha who barely feature in 3 men midfield.
Next year, Alena will need bigger role.
Next year FDJ is joining, so if someone leaves he automatically gets his minutes too. If Vidal too leaves and Rabiot joins he will get his minutes too.
So, I don't really see how Puig will get minutes when there is another 2 young players of almost same age who are more talented who needs a lot of minutes next season? Only way for it to happen that we sell more than we buy in order to create space for him. We are surely not selling Arthur or Busquets. So unless we sell both Vidal & Rakitic I don't see how Puig get decent minutes for his development.
tbh, I think he will need to be sent out on loan next summer, Alena simply blocks the Puig "internal" pathway. he will need to prove himself somewhere else for the team to bring him back.
Next year, Alena will need bigger role.
Next year FDJ is joining, so if someone leaves he automatically gets his minutes too. If Vidal too leaves and Rabiot joins he will get his minutes too.
So, I don't really see how Puig will get minutes when there is another 2 young players of almost same age who are more talented who needs a lot of minutes next season? Only way for it to happen that we sell more than we buy in order to create space for him. We are surely not selling Arthur or Busquets. So unless we sell both Vidal & Rakitic I don't see how Puig get decent minutes for his development.
tbh, I think he will need to be sent out on loan next summer, Alena simply blocks the Puig "internal" pathway. he will need to prove himself somewhere else for the team to bring him back.
Gnidrologist
Senior Member
How about actually letting him show what he can for the first team and THEN decide what minutes he can get. Oh wait, we have fraudverde so this shit wont fly and we will play Rakitic till he's 45 and a bunch of forumites here will cheer on. ;/ I wonder how did Pedro (when he was still Pedrito) got minutes under Pep. He would never break through under Ernie the Fraud. Same with Busquets.
Leo_Messi
New member
Puig will be 20 years in August. Aleñá was getting games for us that age last season when we had a similarly stacked midfield (arguably).
No point mentioning Rafinha (who will leave this summer), Denis (who already left and won't return) or Coutinho (who won't play in the midfield as long as Valverde is here) either.
If Rakitic leaves (which could very likely happen) and De Jong will be the main midfield reinforcement, Puig will be getting opportunities or at least should. Even from a conservative (notoriously) manager like Valverde. Puig is the bigger talent than Aleñá IMO. The things that he is already doing, his eye for the pass, including the final pass, dribbling ability etc. is not something that many players his age are capable of doing. Him getting routinely slaughtered/tackled by much bigger players and in a league where harsh play is MUCH more tolerated than in La Liga, has no impact on him. So he does not lack character either.
As I wrote, if Pep was the manger he would already have gotten 5-10 first team appearances and garbage minutes here and there and even more than that in easier games on paper at the Camp Nou. Not only that I am not the least in doubt that Puig would not have failed in such appearances.
But God forbid that fans want to see local kids doing well. Let us instead give long contract extensions and wage increases to old players like Rakitic whose level is only going in one direction and that is down. But hey, he played a decent game against RM (one of the few this season) and Mourinho braised him on some Qatari television talent.
Let us instead piss on our sporting model (what is left of the Cruyff model), our tradition and our local youth. Great idea as giving clearly talented players their chances has proven a bad strategy in the past 30 years.
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khaled_a_d
Senior Member
Pep promoted 4 players as Barca managers, all players were playing under him as Barca B coach. An aspect that people always loves to ignore for whatever reason, that continued at his time with Bayern and so far to a lesser extent in City. Only Tello and Cuenca got minutes (during his 4th year when we lacked depth and wanted to try new things) that got minutes and weren't his player with Barca B. And quit ironically Cuenca was coming back from loan
And Pep didn't promote 2 youngsters in same line/position into 2 consecutive years while signing 2 of the world top youngsters in same position. Thiago was promoted 3 years after Busquets, only Cesc joined at that time.
And I didn't see any complains about a guys like Cucurulla/Rafinha/Denis joining Liga clubs before getting first team games, plenty of RM talents had successfully been loaned out before joining 1st team so let's not pretend that it is unprecedented or shocking thing for a player to go on loan before moving to 1st team.
Having a player like Alena in front of him along FDJ/Arthur makes thing difficult for Puig, whether we have Pep or EV.
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khaled_a_d
Senior Member
Leo_Messi
New member
Nobody said anything about loaning him out for 1 season (next season) being a horrible thing. BTW which loan of ours of a young player recently have been a success? Rafinha at Celta years ago maybe when Lucho was their manager. Denis had decent spells at Sevilla and Villarreal but nobody really seriously believed that he will play any significant role at the club or rated him as highly as Puig is currently rated.
Sometimes, when the talent is obvious, giving your local youth first-team minutes is the by far best idea. Plenty of examples of that. Pedro, Busquets, Aleñá, Roberto, Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Valdés, Munir, Bartra, Sandro, Montoya, Cuenca, Tello, Bojan etc. Not all of those succeeded but in hindsight given them first team minutes rather than loaning them out proved the right choice.
Loaning players (young talents) out to other clubs (those same clubs knowing that they won't have a chance of keeping said player for more than 1 season if they are genuine talents) is actually a quite difficult job. Hence our and other clubs limited success of such an approach.
Puig is not some 16, 17, 18, 19 year old kid. He will turn 20 this August. Clearly the Segunda División B is a too low level for him.
Yes, he already received his debut in the CdR and crowned that cameo appearance with a wonderful assist but I see no reason why he cannot get 10-20 appearances next season (this includes garbage minutes in said games). There will always be room for exceptional/great talent in any team. Look at how Pep has been handling the likes of Foden (18), Zinchenko (just turned 22) for a stacked Man City team. Even the recently turned 18 year old Eric García got his debut as an 17 year old with Pep in the League Cup if I recall.
In any case we should not look towards Pep, Man City or any other clubs. Giving talented, in particular local, La Masia graduates opportunities for the first team has been something that we have been doing for the past 30+ years very successfully and something that most fans would love to see us continue doing, me included.
This is actually what I said
And I agreed with you and said that there is no point of even mentioning those 3 as they won't play any role (the first 2 with 100% certainty) in a discussion about our midfield next season.
BTW looks like (another confirmation) that Rabiot is discounted so the club only getting De Jong this summer of midfielders is gaining ground. It is a position of the pitch where we are rather stacked. Even if Rakitic leaves.
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khaled_a_d
Senior Member
1-Cuenca got loaned first before playing with us.
2-I've spoke about the topic of loaning for years, yes it is difficult thing and in many cases we have executed it poorly but that was due to lack of sporting vision, that is something that have to change because loaning players has proved to be one of the main important aspects for any good academy. We lose a lot if we didn't learn to execute it right. So far under current management our last loans have been success. So let's be hopeful
3-Bartra/Roberto/Montoya/Sandro/Munir would have all benefited tremendously from getting a decent loan rather than staying aimlessly in the 1st team for years.
Right now Puig is heading to that territory if he stays, there will be clear better players in 1st team, 3 whom are just 3 years or less older that him. Him or Alena being a bigger talent might be debatable but Alena being better player atm isn't.
Only Roberto have been able to save his career and make it to Barca and that was after the return of his former coach who believed in him and knew him while changing his position twice and learning to be the most versatile player, possibly between all players at the top level.
4-Iniesta is a special case here, the club knew how great he was, and for that the club sold Van Bommel to Bayern to open minutes for him. I would argue that this deal cost us the league title in 2007 but the long term reward was worth it. Iniesta was just that type of talent and already showed that at 1st team level.
Is Puig this level of talent? if yes then I am open for such sacrifice, but I am very skeptical about the kid. I don't think he is a superior talent than any of FDJ/Arthur and probably not Alena either (the later whom we clearly disagree about)
5-Again, I would have agreed with you if wasn't for those 3 other young midfielders. But with them creating the minutes is true challenge. And yes at 20 3rd division is too low for him, so that is why I think loan is best case scenario for him, obviously a well thought loan.
I believe in developing talents internally when a- they are elite talents. they are worth any sacrifice you make b- you can ensure a minimum 1st team minutes, a 1k-1.5k minutes in season at least. Alena for example is on his way to get that type of minutes despite a serious injury, but he had only Arthur in front of him from young players.
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