Ernesto Valverde

[serghei]

Setien is a joke. The same shit as Valverde. I would rather keep Valverde for 6 months and save the money. We all know this season is lost so save the money and start planing 2020/21 season together with our new manager (whoever that is).

He's better than Valverde.

 

[bismp]

IMO Xavi should have stepped in right now. No one is ever ready to coach Barcelona to be honest. And like [MENTION=15262]serghei[/MENTION] said,Xavi won't find another club to implement his ideas and tactics like Barca. People say that we should wait until 2022,2023 etc,but truth is that Xavi probably won't be a top manager until then.

Besides, let's say that we hire a good coach in the next 1-2 years(which is doubtful with the current board,but bear with me).If this happens,then Xavi's window for coaching Barca will probably close for many years,maybe even forever.

-If Xavi becomes a top coach in another club,he won't be able to easily abandon the club for Barca
-If Barca becomes a good team again under a decent coach,they won't fire him to get Xavi(who will probably never be able to reach his true potential unless he coaches a top team.Which top team will give him a chance other than Barca?)

Xavi has basically nothing to lose if he comes right now.

-Even though we tend to shit on the squad,it is still one of the best in Europe.Plus we have an old but still lethal Messi. If he is truly good,he can end up with a CL within the next 1-2 years,which would further immortalize him.On the other hand,no one knows how the squad will be in 2-3-4-5+ years from now.
-Even if we fail dramatically and end up throphyless,no one will blame him.
-If he turns out to be Valverde 2.0 and gets sacked after a couple of years,he still has a chance to coach Barca again in the future because of his legendary club status.

 

[Tackle]

Setien is a joke. The same shit as Valverde. I would rather keep Valverde for 6 months and save the money. We all know this season is lost so save the money and plan 2020/21 season with a new manager.

We could have easily kept Valverde until the end of the season. Too bad the board had to go out and humiliate the lad while weakening whatever pull he had left in the dressing room. Now he's an exposed lame duck the board is going to be forced into sacking to prevent further disarray.

 

[KingLeo10]

We could have easily kept Valverde until the end of the season. Too bad the board had to go out and humiliate the lad while weakening whatever pull he had left in the dressing room. Now he's an exposed lame duck the board is going to be forced into sacking to prevent further disarray.

Don't you think he humiliated Barca in the way he approached and reacted to the Roma/Anfield losses. Players were responsible too, of course, but he took little to no responsibility for either.

He deserved this and it's almost karmic it's happening.

 

[serghei]

We could have easily kept Valverde until the end of the season. Too bad the board had to go out and humiliate the lad while weakening whatever pull he had left in the dressing room. Now he's an exposed lame duck the board is going to be forced into sacking to prevent further disarray.

Once again a proof that the board sees Valverde as a puppet. The board sees Ernie as a puppet, the veterans see him as a puppet. The man has no authority whatsoever. He's made his own bed and now he's sleeping in it.

 

[mc_lovin]

We could have easily kept Valverde until the end of the season. Too bad the board had to go out and humiliate the lad while weakening whatever pull he had left in the dressing room. Now he's an exposed lame duck the board is going to be forced into sacking to prevent further disarray.

No. We badly need a change for mentality alone. Valverde drained us, a fresh start could at least partially salvage this season. Im not the biggest fan of Setien (hes kind of uninspiring), but hes probably the best available coach.

 

[serghei]

No. We badly need a change for mentality alone. Valverde drained us, a fresh start could at least partially salvage this season. Im not the biggest fan of Setien (hes kind of uninspiring), but hes probably the best available coach.

Yea, good manager, but not one you can't part ways with at the end of the season. I really want Xavi as late as next summer.

 

[Raketa10]

He's better than Valverde.

I honestly don't think he is.

 

[serghei]

I honestly don't think he is.

I've never seen Valverde build sides who dominated (not just won against, but dominated as in playing better football) the way his Betis and Las Palmas did vs some of the best versions of Barca and Madrid.

 

[mc_lovin]

I honestly don't think he is.

And again, it really doesnt matter. We are mentally dead under Valverde.

 

[El Gato]

I don't think I'm reading your relative league strengths/positions right. You seem to argue 15/16 was a closer league but I would argue the league was closer in 18/19 (4 point difference to the 6 in 15/16 as you pointed out, BOTH teams being below par) and Perez likely pulled the trigger on Lope following the Clasico drubbing because he thought the 7 point swing was surmountable. I think that speaks to the importance of the Clasico result, does it not? In the case of Benitez, there's also the factor that he was a CL winning coach and one of the best coaches of the 00s, managing to win the league with Valencia. Maybe he'd earned a little more dignity but I find it hard to believe the 0-4 loss at home without a fit Messi didn't tank his cache/credibility at Madrid.

15/16 was closer IMO because RM could have recovered point gaps far more easily than they did in 18/19, 6 points then is not nearly as impossible with the squad we had, because we weren't as prone to losing other games. Proven even by us being able to cut the huge 10-12 point lead to 2-3 that same season once Zidane took over and started that massive ~50 game streak without a loss until we lost to Sampaoli's Seville. But lose any points outside of Clasicos and you're guaranteed to lose the league with this squad as demonstrated by how it is under Zidane right now.

After CR had gone we needed hopefuls to make a step up as they indicated they wanted to (i.e. Asensio who said so in the press after asking for a transfer if he hadn't received a bigger chunk of playing time). But that did not happen, players still made the same mistakes and shunned responsibility, and hence it's an automatic gaping hole between us and you. Given even a shit Suarez will guarantee you stay top with 40-50 goals between all your forwards and circa 30 between all of ours...

The Clasico did matter inasmuch as it showed Lopetegui doesn't hold enough respect from the locker room to inspire a special performance against the team's form, even when facing a perennial rival, and allowed us to pull the trigger on a bad manager fit early. He would have stayed if he showed he can produce a good performance against a somewhat vulnerable Barcelona. He did the opposite. And if he can't do it against Barcelona, he wouldn't be able to do it against poorer sides where incentive to listen to the coach's team talk is even lesser.
And Clasicos under Solari were good in terms of overall performance - what made us lose those games is the personnel, not the tactics or the management. And this is not to blame Vinicius, because he did well. People as well as the management saw that. If management wanted to sack him based on lack of the 'IT' factor, they would have done so just like they did with Lope. Except Solari proved he does have something, for example by brave necessary squad decisions and beating good Ajax team away.

 

[Raketa10]

And again, it really doesnt matter. We are mentally dead under Valverde.

That doesn't mean we should burn our money on another mediocre manager. Anyone half decent wouldn't accept 6 months job. Just save the money and start planing 2020/21 season.

We should have fired this clown after Lpool game and appointed a new manager during last summer but we made a huge mistake that can't be fixed in January. This season is lost in either way.

IMHO we should make an agreement with the new manager (Xavi, Koeman, Ten Hag or someone else) that he'll take over in summer and start making plans for 2020/21 roaster together with him. Our new manager should also be the one who decides who our transfer targets will be. So forget about 6 months managers, they are just a waste of money and time and concentrate on a long term plan!

 

[Richard.H]

Anyone else is better than EV right now. He is limp as fuk. I get more inspired looking at a corpse than EV.


Setien, Pimienta, Henry (my personal choice), anyone else. Just someone that can be confident, a caretaker until Xavi comes in.

 

[Tackle]

Don't you think he humiliated Barca in the way he approached and reacted to the Roma/Anfield losses. Players were responsible too, of course, but he took little to no responsibility for either.

He deserved this and it's almost karmic it's happening.

You can certainly argue that we were humiliated in Rome and at Anfield and EV had a large part to with those monumental failures in consecutive seasons. What I am sure of though is that Valverde gave it his all in those matches despite the horrific outcomes. Say what you want about him, but he is a model professional. If the board felt he was inept they had plenty of chances to sack him at more opportune moments and do it on more considerate terms.

Jetting around half the globe to meet with a candidate for a managerial position already occupied is the epitome of classless. Not to mention everything leaking out hours after the fact. As for Valverde's post-match comments they were nothing disrespectful or anything out of the ordinary. Whether he wins or loses he is a reserved man in public and recites the least controversial quotes possible. Nothing shocking about that.

You think EV was the worst coach ever, I get it mate. But at this level of football there is a certain level of professionalism expected. Valverde has always been impeccable in that regard and the board humiliated him in the worst possible way in return after spending the last 2.5 years singing his praises. What you think about his managerial abilities is beside the point.

 

[mc_lovin]

That doesn't mean we should burn our money on another mediocre manager. Anyone half decent wouldn't accept 6 months job. Just save the money and start planing 2020/21 season.

We should have fired this clown after Lpool game and appointed a new manager during last summer but we made a huge mistake that can't be fixed in January. This season is lost in either way.

IMHO we should make an agreement with the new manager (Xavi, Koeman, Ten Hag or someone else) that he'll take over in summer and start making plans for 2020/21 roaster together with him. Our new manager should also be the one who decides who our transfer targets will be. So forget about 6 months managers, they are just a waste of money and time and concentrate on a long term plan!

Really depends on how much money we burn. If we pay out Valverdes contract and hire a coach like Setien it should be pretty insignificant. I agree with the rest.