Are We The Worst Coached Team Out Of Any Big Club?

serghei said:

Also, one of the 2 clear players that would currently start for Chelsea is a soon to be 35 year old player who is 2 years away from an Al Hilal transfer.

Consider Lewa someone to be replaced soon.

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Using that argument can say Pedri/Gavi/Balde/Araujo all young and will improve.

Works both ways.

JamDav1982 said:

Using that argument can say Pedri/Gavi/Balde/Araujo all young and will improve.

Works both ways.

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Sure, and if they do improve and become great, situation will be much better for the club. Right now, only truly elite players we have are De Jong and Lewa and one of them is at the tail end of his career.

We lack 2-3 great signings to help the other good young players develop. Someone like Bernardo in AM position, and an elite RB would make a big difference. By the time we could get that, holes at LW and 9 will appear. Hole at LW is already becoming clear on top of DM/AM, and RB. After the flopping of Ferran (sadly he is indeed a certified flop) and the state of Fati.

serghei said:

It's not massive. It's 2-3 players, in a team that needed 6-7 new starters.

Also account for potential flops like Ferran Torres. He was brought as a solution, but needs replacing now. Same as Fati. Was seen as solution but looks like everyone overrated him too soon based on some games in La Liga.

Chelsea won the CL in 2021, right. Check how much they spend since 2021... Come on, we're wasting time arguing about obvious things.

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It's not massive to clubs which are owned by billionaires but Barca is a club which was close to bankruptcy one or two years ago. Our risks are real and we don't have any extra bullets if we miss a target(Chelsea and others can miss ten times more). It was massive risk for us financially. It backfired sadly.

Thread is a golden read. It's like watching a double-feature. Should be immortalized.

lol

Meh, many large companies sell assets in order to fund current operations that will eventually generate addicitonal value. With that said, the club has been operated in a terrible manner but our main obstacle currently is La Ligas corrupt and destructive FFP rules.

Our squad is very very good.

And Xavi. The club deserves a top manager who knows what he is doing. Xavi would be fine at Celta Vigo or Alicante to gain experience, not at Barcelona. He will end up in the same league as Lampard and Pirlo. What a shame for as a player, he was incredible.

delancey said:

Meh, many large companies sell assets in order to fund current operations that will eventually generate addicitonal value. With that said, the club has been operated in a terrible manner but our main obstacle currently is La Ligas corrupt and destructive FFP rules.

Our squad is very very good.

And Xavi. The club deserves a top manager who knows what he is doing. Xavi would be fine at Celta Vigo or Alicante to gain experience, not at Barcelona. He will end up in the same league as Lampard and Pirlo. What a shame for as a player, he was incredible.

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What do you have to say for yourself now? We have a mentality problem and Xavi is winning the league purely on mentality. We lost that since Enrique after we saw Madrid do the 3-peat we were demoralized so we only really performed in the league, and then Covid further destroyed us financially while higher ups continued their mismanagement up until Laporta was voted in as president.

Laporta coming in didn't have its ups and downs, but the biggest down was how we lost Messi. We went into Europe with Koeman expecting him to perform miracles against mentally competent clubs. Our players had to deal with the constant disturbance of deferrals and wage cuts and the media fanned the flames further which only made our mentality and morale even weaker. Koeman couldn't deal with it and Laporta took the hard choice to sack him. He contemplated for a while but saw that appointing Xavi wasn't only economically wise, but also a bet like that of Pep and Rijkaard which both paid off in their own ways. One more than the other though.

Xavi came on and won us the Catalan derby in his first game, he then beat an Emery led Villareal side that knocked Bayern out of the UCL the season before. His side undeservedly drew to a Benfica side which Koeman lost 3-0 to (watch the replays), and then he finally knocked out by Bayern. He couldn't do what Villareal did because league competitions requires a different mentality than cup competitions. Emery was prepared for that both tactically and mentally, more the latter, and Xavi simply wasn't. And we were outplayed and got demoted to the Europa league.

In the Europa League, we still had zero luck since the first team handed to us was Spalletti's Napoli. Xavi showed what he was capable of in the second leg with a display of pure tactical versatility. He was there to win, and not to obey a certain style. He did what was necessary and that birthed the X4VI era. We had no hope of ever beating Madrid in 3 years and Xavi beat their UCL winning side with goals without a single reply from the future UCL winners that would go on to trump the likes of PSG, Man City, Chelsea, and Liverpool. Then came the day we lost. We played horribly at Frankfurt's home stadium, even while we were playing horribly the only chances Frankfurt got where from outside of the box. Same thing happened at the Camp Nou, but this time around we didn't even get the support of our home ground. A memorable day which taught us a valuable lesson.

Come this season, we seemed prepared because we had a good pre-season, but when the league started we drew to Rayo and Madrid won their first game. Then in the UCL we were once again unfortunate to draw Bayern Munich in our rebuild phase. Not even Barca under Lucho with MSN could beat Bayern twice in the UCL. We were ready for the game regardless. On match day we went to Bayern and owned them but of course that was the very moment Lewandowski decided to miss extremely easy chances Aubameyang would have buried. Pedri also missed a couple of chances while Bayern were creating absolutely nothing. If it had gone our way that 1st half would have ended 4-0 with Bayern being too mentally broken and physically outmatched to react in the 2nd half. None of that happened. It was basically 2010 all over again. Play better but the ball just doesn't go in but the opponent make 2 moves in a 15 minute window and score 2 goals spawned from pure individual brilliance. The same was the case vs Inter 1st leg. We didn't try enough but the only chance from range Inter got was converted to goal. The 2nd leg vs Inter was even worse since this time around we succeed with our approach but our defense was just too incompetent to keep the result. All of that led to us being mentally broken once again when we faced Madrid in the league and lost 3-1. Xavi worked on that aspect, optimized how we attack and make use of space to help our defense more. and what do you know? we currently have the best defense in Europe.

Then the United game we were favourites in, Christensen who happens to be our buildup from the back just like Alaba is for Madrid, or Upamecano is for Bayern, or Stones for City, or Saliba for Arsenal ... you get the point, we lost that build up potential due to discomfort. I'll admit, we weren't as good as we should have been, but then again, Pedri was injured before half-time and we were missing our best wide man as well as Busquets. 2nd leg was an odd game and I'll give United that win. They deserved it.


Today, we have record attendance averages this season, we've beaten Madrid 3 times in 5 games, the Copa 2nd leg was just unfortunate if you actually saw the game, we are about to win the league some of you on here were sure of that we wouldn't win, and by quite a margin as well.

We are perfectly managed for a team in a rebuild. We will be competing for every trophy by the time we return to the Camp Nou in 2024/25. patience is key.