Time to play Bartra.

Is there a Center-Back in the house? Barça’s great start to the season has suffered the disappointing news of losing both starting Centre Backs Puyol and Pique to injuries. Even though there was a need to sign another centre-back this summer, the club opted to sign another Defensive Midfielder who could play the role of a centre-back. Well, there is a young talented player on the bench waiting for his moment. The moment is now and it’s about time that the club played Marc Bartra.

First it was Puyol and then it was Pique. Barça fans have been accustomed to seeing their best players suffer an injury here and there over the years. However, we were not ready to see both our centre-backs out with injuries so soon. We went from a club that had two starting centre-backs and one young centre-back to basically one young centre-back in need of minutes with defensive midfielders sharing the load in the back. Marc Bartra has been patiently waiting for his chance to prove himself and the time has come.

I have never been a fan of Pep’s decision to rely on the likes of Yaya, Mascherano and Busquets playing in the centre-back position. Those were great ideas for a quick fix but not for the long term. As much as I enjoy watching Mascherano play, I think his time as centre-back should come to an end. The warning signs were there last season in the big matches where he was shown to be a liability such as his poor header clearance in the San Siro that lead to Prince’s goal against Milan; Ronaldo sprinting past him to scoring the game winning goal in the Camp Nou, not picking up Drogba during the counter attack that lead to Chelsea’s only goal of the game, his poor tackle on Lampard that resulted in a counter attack goal for Ramires; and more recently his poor clearance attempt in the second leg of the Supercopa. Just watching him partner Song against Spartak Moscow on Wednesday showed us that the club should have bought defenders to re-enforce the back four.

Mascherano has been a great player and person for Barça but he is not a centre-back. I don’t care that he helped the club win the Champions League when he started against Manchester United. A few good games do not wipe out a recent string of bad displays in big games. If his name was Oleguer or Rafa Marquez, fans would be all over him. The club should have bought a centre-back and I don’t believe the talk that the club never wanted to buy one because they have Mascherano so that’s why they bought Song. They wanted to get Thiago Silva or Javi Martinez but were scared off by the price tag. Unfortunately, they could have signed Botia, who is a former youth player currently on loan with Sevilla, Chico, former Barça B player who played for Pep and played a key part in helping the B team gain promotion and is currently playing for Swansea City, and Jan Vertonghen, former Ajax player who just went to Spurs for €12.5 million, for maybe half of the cost of one of those big named stars.

What’s been done has been done. Perhaps the club will sign someone when the winter transfer window opens or wait till next season when they go after the likes of Dortmund’s Hummels.  I hope the club does eventually sign a centre-back. I am tired of watching Barça repeat history by suffering from some dreadful defending too. We saw it during the final days of the “Dream Team” when Koeman was past it and it hurt this team. Rijkaard's last 2 years saw a lot of poor defenders around Puyol and now we are subjected to watching history repeat itself as we watch this team concede silly goals from poor defending. Pique still has his head in the clouds from time to time and Mascherano can't clear with his head and will get burned by a speedy forward.

If you think that this team wins on its offense alone, then look back at their triumphant Champions League titles and see how many blowouts they had in the semi-final stage, 0-1, 0-0 against Milan; 0-0, 1-1 against Chelsea; 0-2; 1-1 against Real Madrid. They relied on keeping clean sheets when they won those titles and not by winning 4-3 or 3-2 every game.

Barça’s legacy has always been on relying on their academy products. We have already seen that Montoya is ready to compete for the right-back position and in my opinion is the heir apparent to Dani Alves. Puyol was thrown in as a right back when he was young and he turned out alright. Chapi Ferrer, Pep, and Sergi were all thrown in as youngsters too and the “Dream Team” benefitted from it. Puyol was 21. Chapi was 20. Sergi was 22. Montoya is 21. I'm not saying bench Alves but I prefer to see Montoya start ahead of Adriano in that position and rotate with Dani Alves to give the Brazilian fullback some rest.

We have had a history of giving young players a chance. Xavi and Iniesta turned out alright. Messi turned out alright. Valdés turned out alright even with his odd brain farts. Busquets was how old again when he got to play ahead of Yaya? So it’s time to give minutes to Bartra. We've seen him play in Champions League games and Copa del Rey games before. He is a promising 6'0 centre-back who was also the captain of Spain’s national team at the 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup. More importantly, he showed us that he's no Fontas with his decisions and his thinking. He deserves to be playing and he deserves playing minutes now that the club is without any centre-backs. Unfortunately, we will never know unless we see him out there on the pitch getting the minutes in matches. Today, Barça host Granada and this is the perfect moment to get him out there and gain some experience and shake off some rust. The moment is now and it’s about time that the club played Marc Bartra and not another defensive midfielder in the heart of the defense.

 

Barça Must Learn From Early Season Errors.

FC Barcelona have kicked off their new season to mixed results. Losing out the Supercopa was disappointing but the club currently finds itself atop of the league standings with a five point lead over arch rivals Real Madrid. Nevertheless, after just five matches, there is some cause for concern and hopefully Barça learn from their errors as they contend for three competitions.

Barça kicked off their season in fine gear with an impressive 5-1 victory over Sociedad along with a first leg 3-2 win in the Supercopa against Real Madrid. However, that 3-2 victory in the Camp Nou over Real Madrid provided us with a warning sign. It could have easily been 4-1 but in a matter of seconds, a sure golden chance for Barça resulted in a lucky scoring chance for Madrid. Adriano’s back pass to Valdés had a bit too much power on it but Valdés’s decision to take an extra touch instead of just kicking it down the pitch resulted in a cheap but valuable goal for Madrid.

What followed after those two victories were two wins with a loss tossed in between. Unfortunately, the loss was against Real Madrid in the second leg of the Supercopa that saw Barça lose out on its first trophy of the season. However, what these three matches revealed were deeper concerns about the team’s approach to the games.

There’s no need to revisit the errors that occurred in Madrid. Mistakes were made and the team paid the price for it. Additionally, Barça’s two victories were not that impressive with players not converting on their chances to put the game away. Thus, what we have learned after these five games is that the players need to be focused from here on in. Defenders need to wake up and be careful in how they mark their players and not get beat by long balls while other players need to start working on their finishing and convert on their scoring chances. Now I know that playing the likes of Madrid and Osasuna away along with a home game against Valencia are no walks in the park. However, those results would have been in Barça’s favor if they were more focused.

Tito now has to wait till most of his team return from international duty before he continues where the team left off. Hopefully he has realized although the players have great talent and skill, it’s their lack of focus that has to be addressed.  His job now will be to make sure his men are focused and ready to play 90 minutes without any momentary lapses. There has been talk in the Barcelona press that Tito is even thinking about playing a 4-2-3-1 formation with Song and Busquets playing as defensive midfielders to assist the back four. Barça have a five point lead and their chances of extending that lead atop of the standings rests largely with the players. Hopefully they learned from their errors this season as they get ready to compete for the league, domestic cup and Champions League.