Eric Garcia (loaned to Girona)

Messi983 said:

Even more lamentable is you have to bring Rosell and Bartomeu into discussion in most your posts.

Click to expand...

Lamentable is the infantile assessments, many of whom indeed supported Rosell and Bartomeu when a number of us (Even in this forum) were hellbent against them. Point is, you can always have an opinion but your credibility dwindles the more you make poor assessments. Garcia case is similar in that the incessant trolling of him from those who purport to be fans is borne out of ignorance about the nature of this club, La Masia or the actual level of the central defender.

Fans, even Barca ones, are so lazy today that they do not form their own opinions but regurgitate social media hyperbole until they think they subscribe to it without actually having ample evidence to come to those conclusions

Messi983 said:

I've never binned Pep. I was disappointed when he left but I understood him. But I was always a Barca fan first and foremost so I'm not a fanboy of certain players/coaches and follow their every step when they leave the club. I still wish them the best (unless they go to RM) but I don't see why I should support Pep coaching clubs like Bayern (whom I've always respected but also disliked) or City who I've had no previous hard feelings about either. They were just a club for me before Pep and they're just a club for me now. Since he has left us I've always considered Pep as a manager of opponent/rival clubs when we've played Bayern/City but most of the time I didn't care how he did in BL/EPL because in general I just don't care much about other leagues than La Liga. I also won't even bother watching the CL final because I'm indifferent to both Chelsea and City.

Click to expand...

I didn't point you out on binning Pep, it was a commentary about the perverse nature of those calling themselves fans have been critical of the greatest local player in the club's history who also became the greatest coach. From there, there is a laundry list of myopic takes on players, board members or the club itself

What really is irritating however is the audacity/temerity to make such an outlandish comment like you have about you giving a kid who has given everything to the club of his home & region a chance. Good grief, bury your head in shame

What qualities great CB have?

-Tall
-Strong
-Fast
-Expirience
-Aerial duels
-Offensive threat on corners
-leadership
-Reading the game
-Pressing
-Good on the ball

This guy who jumped to England for few 100 000k , is now our primary target in never worse defense.
From all of these qualities he have one.
And for rest of these he is bellow average.

Mingueza is 5x times better player then this guy.

Puyol - 1m78
Mascherano - 1m74

Eric Garcia - 1m82


Too many English kids think they know what makes a world class footballer, join the modern world. Similar was said about a slow & weak Pique at United

You are going to compare an aggressive tackling machine that can play CDM, who was built like pitbull with skinny Garcia...?
Or Puyol who was physicality-wise beast?

Boy you trippin

Both Puyol and Mascherano were relatively quick and quite physical as CBs. You don't need to be tall if you play like you're much bigger, like Verratti for example.

Eric Garcia is neither tall nor physical or quick.

He'll be a good 3rd, 4th choice CB. He's never going to be a starter for Barca if Barca are serious about upgrading their defence. I would love for him to prove me wrong, but having seen our defensive issues for a long time now I don't think he can lead our defence. Cannot compare him to Pique either since Pique always had his height and played with Puyol and Mascherano to guide him in his younger years. Football have also changed a lot over the last decade. Players are quicker and stronger now. Even the smaller players.

Lenglet is unquestionably a much better player and we need to upgrade significantly on even him IMO.

FWIW, I don't hate us signing Eric Garcia if he's replacing Umtiti. Ideally you'd want Pique to leave soon too so you need to sign another CB anyway and getting one for free and low wages is good.

But we need to sign a CB that's World Class or close to World Class. We already have too many projects now in Araujo, Mingueza and E. Garcia. Araujo is the most likely to start out of those three. We need to find a CB that can lead the line and help Araujo along the way.

It should be a top priority either this summer or the next one.

Well , we will be after De Ligt and Kounde in near future for sure. But they are not realistic targets considering we could spend money next year for Haaland.

Maybe Laporte will want to go back to Spain, and now it seems like Stones and Dias are best CB pairing in the world.
Soyuncu,Koulibaly,Badiashile or someone like Lisandro Martinez...

vuji_31 said:

Well , we will be after De Ligt and Kounde in near future for sure. But they are not realistic targets considering we could spend money next year for Haaland.

Maybe Laporte will want to go back to Spain, and now it seems like Stones and Dias are best CB pairing in the world.
Soyuncu,Koulibaly,Badiashile or someone like Lisandro Martinez...

Click to expand...

Kounde might go to Man Utd.

de Ligt is the big one. If Juventus fail to make it to the CL and that entire project collapses he might look for a way out.

So can anyone tell me how good Eric Garcia actually is as a CB, not the "he is from La Masia" and "Pep likes him" stuff?

No ones knows, because he does not play ever.

I watched one time, Spain against Kosovo, he was ridicules by some 1. albania league players.
More on the floor the on the legs.

Luftstalag14 said:

So can anyone tell me how good Eric Garcia actually is as a CB, not the "he is from La Masia" and "Pep likes him" stuff?

Click to expand...

It's impossible to make a case that he is better than any of our CBs bar Umtiti.

So all we are really doing is adding another player into the mix of Pique/Lenglet/Mingueza/Araujo when we should probably be signing someone who is a few levels above the current mix.

Garcia played for City v Newcastle. He was poor. He is rated as City 4 th choice, but watching him v Newcastle, if he stayed at City, he will drop to 5th. City have a young CB loaned out who is better.
Garcia, Pep speaks highly of, as a nice guy. But in the Premiership he is not fast enough, strong enough, and slow at reading the game.
Barca get him on a free. But they get no more than a squad player, at present. He maybe one for the future , but he’s leaving City because they’re all better than him.

How far we have fallen. Our singings are City rejects Aguero and Garcia. They barely play for City.

From what I've seen he is pretty average. He isn't a special cb. That's for sure. He is average in many areas and as mentioned by many before will be a squad player.. Nothing else.

iniestaGOAT said:

How far we have fallen. Our singings are City rejects Aguero and Garcia. They barely play for City.

Click to expand...

Sign of the times.
We have a massive rebuild ahead. Minimum 5 to 6 years. Could be ten plus before we regain some sort of swagger.