Thibaut Courtois

El Gato

Villarato!
They are not favorites for the CL anymore. Their main player now is Bale who is a great player, but injury prone and unreliable. They have less quality depth and their core is aging. They lost their main goalscorer that has been on fire in the CL. They still have the great FBs and midfield, but they have no reliable goalscorer now.

Can agree with us not being favourites for the CL, but the rest? All up in the air. A lot of gambling and taking chances on the younger folk, error margin is bigger, but we can still finish anywhere between 1-4th in the league and get to CL semis.
 

DonAK

President of FC Barcelona
Can agree with us not being favourites for the CL, but the rest? All up in the air. A lot of gambling and taking chances on the younger folk, error margin is bigger, but we can still finish anywhere between 1-4th in the league and get to CL semis.

Might just be my expectations, but I would consider it a failure if Barca don't win the league this season or at least finishes above Madrid. Atletico strengthened their team considerably too. You guys seem to have gotten worse with a manager that got a pretty poor record in club football, but perhaps it will work out.

I would certainly put Barca and Atletico above Real Madrid when it comes to the League Race right now.

You could get to the CL semis or QFs, but don't think you have the goalscorer needed to win it. Need Bale to be healthy and Benzema to stop shitting his pants in front of the goal.
 

El Gato

Villarato!
You guys seem to have gotten worse with a manager that got a pretty poor record in club football, but perhaps it will work out.

I would certainly put Barca and Atletico above Real Madrid when it comes to the League Race right now.

You could get to the CL semis or QFs, but don't think you have the goalscorer needed to win it. Need Bale to be healthy and Benzema to stop shitting his pants in front of the goal.

Only worse on paper with less established names. It's just a very unusual situation for everyone to see Madrid not have a huge name upfront. Nor is it certain one will not join in August, but it'll only happen if Perez balks at a bad result in the first few fixtures and the Super Cup.

[MENTION=1289]Raed[/MENTION] put it well on Twitter
[tw]1027278447389945857[/tw]
 

El Flaco

Active member
I don't believe so, but I think it will be hard to convince Kovacic to come back to uncertainty if he becomes a starter in Chelsea and Sarri plays a style of football that can help him play to his potential.

They are not favorites for the CL anymore. Their main player now is Bale who is a great player, but injury prone and unreliable. They have less quality depth and their core is aging. They lost their main goalscorer that has been on fire in the CL. They still have the great FBs and midfield, but they have no reliable goalscorer now.

They still have Benzema, who's actually a great goalscorer in UCL tbf.

Has delivered 25 UCL-goals in 50 games since 2013-14 season despite being 3rd fiddle in their attacking line.

Scored 5 UCL-goals in 9 games last year. For comparison, Luis Suárez has made 4 UCL-goals in 20 games for the past 2 seasons.

That being said, Cristiano will be missed in LaLiga where they don't have someone who guarantees 20 league goals every year.

Maybe Bale has that capacity if he stays fit.
 

Luftstalag14

Culé de Celestial Empire
I don't believe so, but I think it will be hard to convince Kovacic to come back to uncertainty if he becomes a starter in Chelsea and Sarri plays a style of football that can help him play to his potential.

They are not favorites for the CL anymore. Their main player now is Bale who is a great player, but injury prone and unreliable. They have less quality depth and their core is aging. They lost their main goalscorer that has been on fire in the CL. They still have the great FBs and midfield, but they have no reliable goalscorer now.

Well, the same happened to Morata and he returned when Madrid was calling, as did most of their loanees, you can never say no to them. Hopefully Kovacic will not get much game time at Chelsea. Anyways, bad deal for Chelsea.

I think it is too early to predict that. Perhaps this season they will not accomplish much but they are well on their way to transition from the Ronaldo era to the next phase. Asensio is coming along. I was impressed by Ceballos. Their youngsters looked very good in preseason (our youngsters were dominated by Spurs and struggled against Roma, their youngsters did extremely well against Juventus, even better than their starters and not bad at all against Roma, for example). Not wise to write them off in my opinion.
 

DonAK

President of FC Barcelona
Well, the same happened to Morata and he returned when Madrid was calling, as did most of their loanees, you can never say no to them. Hopefully Kovacic will not get much game time at Chelsea. Anyways, bad deal for Chelsea.

I think it is too early to predict that. Perhaps this season they will not accomplish much but they are well on their way to transition from the Ronaldo era to the next phase. Asensio is coming along. I was impressed by Ceballos. Their youngsters looked very good in preseason (our youngsters were dominated by Spurs and struggled against Roma, their youngsters did extremely well against Juventus, even better than their starters and not bad at all against Roma, for example). Not wise to write them off in my opinion.

A bit unfair to compare their youngsters that are a part of their 1st team or played 1st team football in Brazil or were loaned out to top div teams to our youngsters that played in Juvenil A last season.
 

JamDav1982

Senior Member
Well, the same happened to Morata and he returned when Madrid was calling, as did most of their loanees, you can never say no to them. Hopefully Kovacic will not get much game time at Chelsea. Anyways, bad deal for Chelsea.

I think it is too early to predict that. Perhaps this season they will not accomplish much but they are well on their way to transition from the Ronaldo era to the next phase. Asensio is coming along. I was impressed by Ceballos. Their youngsters looked very good in preseason (our youngsters were dominated by Spurs and struggled against Roma, their youngsters did extremely well against Juventus, even better than their starters and not bad at all against Roma, for example). Not wise to write them off in my opinion.

Not even comparing like with like there with 'youngsters'.
 

Givenchy

Senior Member
pointless signing, Navas is easily good enough.. the guy just won 3x CLs in a row ffs. Messi to score a hattrick of nutmegs in the clasico :coffee:
 

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