Barcelona are in absolute ruins – where does the club go from here?

Barcelona need to get back to the status they belong in.

For the casual viewer of Barcelona, they still seem like dangerous club. Arthur may have gone, but Pjanic has arrived, a player proven his worth at the top level for a number of years now.

The club also has arguably the greatest player to ever grace the football pitch alongside Antoine Griezmann, Luis Suarez, Ousmanne Dembele and so many more top level players. Why then is there such a sudden hue and cry about the state of affairs at the club, and this hullaballoo about Lionel Messi’s last years being ruined at Barcelona?

The cold hard truth is that Messi alone has papered over giant canyon like cracks. Messi’s stats over the last 3-4 years combined with Real Madrid prioritizing the Champions League and Atletico Madrid going through a rebuild has allowed Barcelona to waltz to multiple La Liga titles. This has led to the wider perception that the club is still doing well.

This season is the first one in a long time we have witnessed Real Madrid re-focusing on the La Liga. They are now two points ahead of Barcelona and have a stronger head-to-head record. Barca play Atletico tonight. The odds are stacked heavily in Real’s favour.

When this season ends, it is likely that Real will be kings of Spain again, and look likely to stay on top for years to come. This is an ominous sign for the Blaugrana. 

While Real have brought in young attacking talent and combined that with experience on the team, Barcelona have shot and missed in the transfer market for years now.

Frenkie De Jong is the only signing who looks like it will pan out, but the players that have failed aren’t solely to blame. Coutinho, Dembele, Arthur and Griezmann were brought in with no foresight into how they would all combine into the team. That burden fell on the manager (Valverde and now Setien), and when the manager couldn’t deliver, he was sacked.

The complete lack of unity between the board’s actions and the team’s needs has set Barcelona back years, and it might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back with Messi, cruelly symbolized when he called out his former teammate Eric Abidal earlier in the year.

There has been no contingency planning for life beyond Leo.

For all the talk of Mes Que Un Club, and singing praises on La Masia from within, Barcelona have continued to sell their prospects; Carlez Perez, and Abel Ruiz were sold out of the blue in January in the bid to balance the books.

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Carles Alena, a player touted to be the next Iniesta, is sitting on the bench at Real Betis, wondering what his life would have been like had he been born a few years earlier and played under Pep Guardiola. Marc Cucurella, Juan Miranda – two players who should’ve been given the chance to fight for the left back spot against Jordi Alba – are at Getafe and Schalke respectively.

Every day players at the youth level continue to look elsewhere for their future seeing no clear path to the first team.

The exception to the rule of course is Ansu Fati. Alongside him, we are slowly seeing the rise of Riqui Puig. But the danger is that too heavy a responsibility will be placed on these two. Both players need to be groomed and bled in over time, and need stability at the club with a manager who knows how to get the best out of them. Setien is doing it, yet there is talk of the sack. Xavi might be the answer, but he doesn’t want to come anywhere close this Barcelona team with Josep Maria Bartomeu as club president.

But the problems are Barcelona run even deeper. They have an aging squad, with players like Alba and Pique facing almost no competition for places.

Their midfield now has 4 players over the age of 30, and just one under 25, not including Puig.

When Alena does eventually return from loan, will he be allowed to settle in the squad and play, or will he join the roster of talent shipped off somewhere else?

Barcelona under Luis Enrique in 2015 were an actual team. There were players (Neymar, Suarez) who could take the pressure off Messi. Neymar was sold, Suarez is older, has had his injury troubles and is nowhere near as fit as he was 5 years ago.

The team lacks creativity and has thus resorted to passing to Messi and hoping he can pull off his Messi magic.

This is no longer Barcelona, it is the Argentina team in Blaugrana colours.

The buck stops at the board. Valverde should have been relieved of his duties at the start of the season, not midway through this one. Players should have been signed with a clear goal, rather than just to expand the brand of the club.

Bartomeu has one more year left at the helm, and if he continues to lead the club down this road, it is a scary thought what lies ahead.

The club has to go through a dramatic overhaul. And fast. Barcelona are running out of time with Messi and one thing is clear: Barcelona are in a dark place, and it is hard to see how Messi alone will lead them out.