At the end of last season, there was one position that Barcelona were keen to strengthen – central midfield. They were a year late to the job. With all due respect to Oriol Romeu, asking him to fill the boots of Sergio Busquets was irresponsible, and when Barcelona’s midfield struggled to stem the tide against Real Madrid three times, nobody was allowed to claim it was a surprise.
Reportedly Barcelona tried to sign Amadou Onana from Everton, but were quickly priced out of a deal, and any hope of Joshua Kimmich was extinguished for the same reason. When the time came to move for Mikel Merino, they had already made Nico Williams their top target. Realistically, they would have had to play at 1 Euro deposit casinos in order to be able to afford an ideal fit like Rodri Hernandez.
Draw in by Wiilliams’ excellent season at Athletic Club, and brilliant Euros, he was courted all summer, it looks like unsuccessfully. Whether Onana, Kimmich or Merino were the right fits is another question, but Dani Olmo was very keen on a return to his boyhood club, and Sporting Director Deco made a fair show of being pictured bringing Olmo back from Germany with him.
Any excitement from the Olmo signing dissipated when AS Monaco dismantled Barcelona in the Joan Gamper season opener 3-0, their heaviest defeat for 30 years in the curtain-raiser. The first two goals came Monaco exploiting the middle of midfield.
Youngsters Marc Casado and Marc Bernal are learning, and may turn out to be the gems Hansi Flick wants them to be, but to go into a season relying on two players who have a total of 13 minutes La Liga experience between them is hardly fair on them either.
The alternatives are to use Ilkay Gundogan or Frenkie de Jong as their deepest midfielder, two options that have failed repeatedly in the past, or move Andreas Christensen into the middle of the pitch. He was competent against La Liga’s midtable last season, but suffered against more expert opposition.
Barcelona have known they need a midfielder to anchor the team, to add ballast, since Busquets left. Yet have chosen to simply ignore a need that Xavi had been underlining for the last six months of his tenure. Nothing is absolute in football, and perhaps Barcelona do have a successful season. It will not be down to the planning if they do though – cases of success stories taking a similar path to glory are seldom to say the least.
What title chances?
PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
MC still lives with his mother… pahahahaaha
I salute you MC’s Father, is your son MC seem to be suffering from some type of a syndrome?
Have you tried checking him with hispitals?
At least Check him with speach and language therepist so people can understand half what he says. Pahahahaha