It was probably a good thing that the Barcelona match against Bayern Munich was played behind closed doors. Had it been played in front of a full Nou Camp, the white handkerchiefs would have been out after half an hour, and who knows how bad it could have been at the full-time whistle.
Gerard Pique was right when he said Barcelona had hit rock bottom, but this has been coming for a few years now, and the cracks have been getting bigger. The 3-0 defeat to Roma showed weakness, the 4-0 loss to Liverpool last year exposed some real problems, but losing 8-2 to Bayern Munich was humiliating. If Barcelona are going to come back from this, it’s going to take an awfully long time.
Changes at Barcelona Are Needed
An 8-2 Defeat in the Champions League
Quique Setien is gone, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Yes, he didn’t get it right, and his efforts to try and fit four centre midfielders into the side against Bayern didn’t help, but he hasn’t been working with the same level of squad Barca had five years ago. Whatever side he put out, it shouldn’t have lost by six goals.
Of course, this Bayern side could have torn any side in Europe to shreds. Yet, you get the feeling that this wasn’t the best of them either. They played some fabulous football at times, in particular, the link-up play between Thomas Muller and Robert Lewandowksi for the first goal, and the run from Alphonso Davies for the fifth, but you still feel there is more to come.
The same can’t be said for Barcelona. As a team, they were woeful, while some of the individual performances were simply shocking. Nelson Semedo was left horribly exposed at right-back, Clement Lenglet will be seeing Bayern players running past him in his nightmares, while Arturo Vidal’s performance, and attitude as a whole, bordered on a joke.
The Club Needs to Rebuild
There will have to be big changes to the playing staff, but given some of the transfer dealings over the last few years, it’s hard to believe that they will get this one right. Since the start of the 2016/17 transfer window, Barcelona have spent in the region of £750 million on players. Just four of them were in the starting XI against Bayern.
Three times in their history, Barcelona have broken the £100 million barrier for a player. Two of them started on their bench – Antoine Griezmann came on at half time, while Ousmane Dembele wasn’t used at all. However, the saddest indictment of their transfer activity came when their most expensive player, Philippe Coutinho, came off the bench for Bayern, where he is on loan this season, and scored twice while making another for Lewandowski.
There seems to be little forward-thinking with the new signings who are made. The likes of Martin Brathwaite and Arturo Vidal were hardly additions made for the long-term, and they haven’t exactly improved the side in the short-term either. There hasn’t been much of a change this summer either. 24-year-old midfielder Arthur was sold to Juventus for £70 million, with 30-year-old Miralem Pjanic moving in the other direction for £60 million. It makes very little sense.
There will need to be a massive change both on and off the pitch at Barcelona. The manager will obviously be changing this summer. Mauricio Pochettino, Ronald Koeman and Xavi have all been linked with the post, but it seems unlikely that someone as inexperienced in management as Xavi would be a good pick right now. Club president Josep Maria Bartomeu’s reign will come to an end next summer, and that could spell another huge change.
But this change will take time. The changes off-field won’t happen quickly, and neither will those on the pitch. The coronavirus pandemic may hamper Barcelona’s finances, even more, meaning they have to be slightly restrained in the transfer market.
On the field, the life span of this side has come to an end. However, simply signing new players won’t reverse the trend. You can’t simply go out and buy players of the calibre of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Gerard Pique. All three of them are 33, and coming towards the end of their career. Replacing them will almost be an impossible task.
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