Transfer Rumors

oh boy... rumors of selling cesc after his first fine performance after ages?
that's what the guy needs

I invented the Isco/Cesc rumour to be honest.

What a great player Isco, we left escape a bargain when Malaga signed him for 6 milion!

billy_gr wrote:oh boy... rumors of selling cesc after his first fine performance after ages?
that's what the guy needs

Pep's love for Cesc. How we all hate it now...

Isco surely will be the next great midfielder in Spain...Secret is unfortunately out on the player, would've been perfect for this team

Bartra as good as Hummels.Thats just ridiculous.Hummels is an integral part of the 2 time reigning German champions.He is a German NT starter.
He didnt have a good Euro but that doesnt mean a nobody like Bartra, who has barely played a competitive game is as good.
Hummels is a quality CB and he is talior made for us.If we had the sense to buy him,I am sure he would be a success.

Isco will be playing in the Silva/Iniesta positions soon enough for Spain.

He could be an excellent player for us, but we missed him. He'd cost money now.

In fact Hummels had a fantastic Euro. Even against Italy he played really good, but playing alongside Badstuber, Lahm and Boateng doesn't help at all. Our only reliable players in the defence are Hummels himself and Neuer. Yes he shouldn't have got beaten by Cassano but other than that he was great in Euro 2012. I don't get it why people think he's bad, even at Dortmund he covers all the time for tactically inept Schmelzer.

Exactly.Its a myth that Lahm is some great defender.He is not.He gets beat quite often.And he has gotten progressively worse.
And Badstuber is average as well.
Hummels is class.

Hummels a great euro?

Dude played 4 games and costed germany 2 goals.

Dedé in the winter market!

Dedé will be going to AC Milan I reckon. They have been linked with him a few times. Barcelona on the other hand, apart from a few made-up stories, haven't had any contact with the Brazilian.

The Sanchez wrote:Dede signs extension with Vasco until 2015. Looks like we won't be getting him now... Who the hell now?

I think its normal for a team to give a player an extension right before they plan to sell him. Raise his price

We need to sign him or some one during the winter window. All our other options are cup tied now and Puyol is starting to go the Rio route of getting injured allot as the age creeps up. We arent winning anything against the big teams with a back end that may include Song. Pique and Dede with Mascherno and Song backing them as depth options is solid.

Make up to the idea that song is our 4th CB. We are not signing anyone on winter unless he utterfly flops. He was OK yesterday.

Barca aren't the type of club who spends in January. You guys have to stop dreaming like you're playing Football Manager. We just never do it. Afellay was a real surprise.

We won't sign anyone unless there is a disaster.

Song was quite good today and should improve, but we should use Bartra more. I find it so frustrating how none of our promising CBs have been given a chance.

I have my doubts over this Barcelona team this season. When on fire, they are better than any team offensively but their defensive problems have become more and more exposed since 3-4 years ago. I don't understand their over the top obsession with playing DM as CB.

Song's purchase was a mistake. Even most of you agreed to this when the first rumours of him joining Barcelona emerged. For me, Barcelona don't look the same without Piqué and Puyol at the back and couldn't have gone wrong signing a CB instead.

One of Barcelona's qualities is having fullbacks such as Alves making runs forward but with this backline him going forward will leave the defence in a vulnerable situation.

And contrary to popular belief, Song isn't that great on the ball. Ask an Arsenal fan. His aerial presence is a positive for Barça fans, but on the other hand he gets beaten way too easily, is always caught out of position and generally is a player who likes to go forward. He will certainly choke in big occasions as CB. You don't want to see dí Maria and/or Cristiano against him, trust me.

OK, thanks for your sightseeing.

I agree that beforehand it seems that song wasn't an ideal signing, but I propose a revolutionary idea: let's wait and see.

I may not like him, but Song is not bad with the ball by any means. He's quite good with the ball...

He will certainly choke in big occasions as CB. You don't want to see dí Maria and/or Cristiano against him, trust me.

He's hardly played many games as CB much less big games. Not sure what you're getting at, unless your just calling him a choker.

It's too early to start diagnosing broad overarching problems about Barca IMO, I'll wait to pass judgement. Should have gotten a CB though, that's for sure.

Our problem is depth. And whats worse, we don't make signings that make sense for us. A team like Valencia for example, imo signs players that will perfectly add them depth in positions they need to reinforce. Us? We have been needing a real CB for years now and we have instead kept investing else where. Also our youths are amazing, but also very inexeperienced. Some of them are frankly not even really ready and might not ever be really ready to be a part of the best team in the world. that shows we have depth issues

---------------Valdes (Pinto)

Sooner or later we have to look to actually reinforce this area.

-Alves (Montoya) -Puyol (Mascherano/Barta) - Pique (Song/Fontas/Muniesa) - Alba (Adriano/Abidal)

I hate to say it but we need to find a proper third CB that is on Pique's and Puyol's level. Puyol is getting older and is often injured. Mascherano is solid and I trust him vs the mid to less teams but to say the truth I'd rather him as a back to a true top quality CB. Then you have the B players, Barta Fontas and Muniesa. Are these guys ready? Likely not. Does Tito trust them? Obviously not, he hasn't bothered to really use them even though we have had so many injury problems (I think Muniesa is also injured). Song is imo a tad bit below Mascherano as far as a CB. So again, we are only taking steps backwards as far as reinforcing our defense with these players. Adriano and Alba with a possible Abidal towards the end of the season are sufficient at LB and we are ok there. Same with RB, we are solid with Montoya backing up Alves. It's our center backs that are the nervous area.

-------------Busi (Song/Mascherano/JDS)

At DM we are actually super solid. Busi is one of the best in the world and I love Mascherano and Song as his back ups who are also on a very high top level at this position. JDS seems to be a quality talent but not to the standards to Barcelona and it's become apparent he will be gone sooner than later. With Song, Busi and Mascherano all ahead of him he will also never play ahead of them, and if he wants to be serious about his playing career he would be wise to peace out

------Xavi (Thiago/Sergi) -Inesta (Cesc/JDS)

Thiago and Cesc are more than solid, top back ups. As mentioned earlier I wouldn't be surprised if JDS will be out sooner than later leaving Sergi the only back up to the back ups

--Alexis (Cuenca)--------Messi (Cesc)------------Villa (Tello/Pedro)

Alexis imo just isn't for us. Who knows maybe with time he adapts but Tello has impressed and adapted more to our style than Alexis has in roughly the same amount of time in the first team. And Tello didn't cost a penny. Villa is still a question mark to see if he can regain top form, but the truth is that we bought a striker to play winger on a team full of wingers that might not have the same eye for goal as him but are definitely faster. Pedro is regaining form, which is great news. Cuenca was rumored to be on his way to a loan in the summer before the injury, but was solid pre-injury


So over all I think this is a very lop sided team. Full of Elite players in the starting team and full of back ups that don't quite match up. Not allot of middle ground. That imo is why Real won the league last year, they had back ups that could rotate and keep them going and fresh while Pep tried to play the starting 11 over and over and towards the end when it mattered the most the team was exhausted. We need some depth or the same thing that happend last year will happen again.

Rant over

Don't really agree... This aint football manager of Fifa... you don't have a second XI which can win you a League title. It just doesn't work that way.

In La Liga you get a 7-man bench. The fact that we have potentially a 7-man bench of Pinto, Song, Alba, Thiago, Cesc, Alexis and Tello, and still have players like Masch and Montoya not even in the matchday squad is pretty amazing...

Yes, we all know we could have had 1 more CB, but otherwise we've got more depth than usual.

Here's a question... Alexis looks like he isn't going to be a world-beater, Villa probably only has 2 years in him in the first XI, Deulofeu's attitude is questionable...

Would you go for Neymar for the amount Santos want? Or would you prefer Barca go for Isco?

Pedro - Messi - Isco could be pretty beautiful...

As could a future 4-2-3-1 of:

Minus CB, we have superb depth. No idea what dude is on about.

On Kizz's more intresting point. I think Isco is great, but I personally I dont want to move away from 433 and I dont think Isco has the goals in him to play a forward role in it.

Neymar, Deulofeu, Rafinha, Dongou.....one of these surely will take it up.

Isco is more suited to the CM role Iniesta has at the moment. He would encounter the same difficulties that Iniesta does on the wings.

Isco is a fantastic player and would be a great addition to any team honestly, but I don't see him at Barca. Like Dani, I prefer we stay with the 4-3-3, and I don't see us using Iscos full potential on the wing like Le Sam has pointed out.

I don't think I can call Deulofeu's attitude questionable until he gets to the A team. How he acts in the B team is not really concerning me, once he starts getting consistent minutes in the A team, he'll learn and correct what he needs, IMO. He's still young yet, anyway. I'd hold off on his attitude until we see how he acts with the A team.

If his attitude is still very bad and he doesn't develop properly, I think Neymar would be a better addition than Isco.

Although I do love Isco, honestly.

BarcaKizz wrote:Here's a question... Alexis looks like he isn't going to be a world-beater, Villa probably only has 2 years in him in the first XI, Deulofeu's attitude is questionable...

Would you go for Neymar for the amount Santos want? Or would you prefer Barca go for Isco?

Pedro - Messi - Isco could be pretty beautiful...

As could a future 4-2-3-1 of:

Busquets - Thiago
Deulofeu? - Messi - Isco
Dongou?

lol I could of made my rant allot shorter and made it make sense...

here goes.

We need to stop buying players to play them out of position. You are suggesting the same thing, buy a world class talent and move him to a position in which he isn't at his strongest. Masch and Song are defensive mids playing center back. Vill is a world class striker playing winger. Even Adriano who plays all down the left, is sometimes played at RB and doesn't look good at all. We get a center mid in Isco....to play him on the wing? See what I am saying...it's a trend we have going on. We should go out and get a Center back to lead us in to the future. some on on Pique's level or close to it. Song and Masch are good for covering that area but shouldn't be the solution.

Hopefully in the summer we sign some one

Tbh I'm not suggesting we buy Isco, Ive just heard the rumours that we like him and I'm very fond of him too. I would probably only buy him, as said, if we needed to replace Iniesta.

I really only was asking as his name was brought up a few posts ago and atm I'm pretty hyped on him.

Agree with Dani that him playing as a forward, he'd have trouble with scoring enough and he wouldn't get as much influence but disagree on some of these points that he's a CM or 'like Iniesta on the wing'. He's played plenty as a winger, he's faster and has a much, much better shot than Andres as well. He's an attacking mid, not really a CM.

I rather not buy another midfield with so much talent in our bench, and more coming through.
Buying a defender is a must, a real center back not a midfield lol.