- It’s another weird week in Barcelona.
- Messi wants to stay, but he’s looking for changes at the club.
- Club brings in an ex-Middlesborough flop after being short on attacking options.
It’s hard to know what’s going on at Barcelona these days.
The week started with the news that the club directors employ an Argentinian firm to attack its own players over social media.
Lionel Messi then gave an extensive interview in which he called this news “weird”.
And the week ended with the signing of Martin Braithwaite. An ex-Middlesborough flop who was playing for lowly Leganes.
A Club At War
The news that the club directors employ a company to attack its own players and perceived enemies would have been a massive story at any other point in recent years.
The reality this week was that it wasn’t all that surprising.
The disconnect between the club directors and the playing staff is huge and it’s almost certain that things will get worse before anything changes for the better.
Paranoid President Bartomeu is a dead man walking. Still, with elections not planned until the summer of 2021, the short-term future for the club looks bleak.
Messi At Home, But There Are Plenty of Buts
Leo Messi does not give many interviews. This week he gave a wide-ranging one that will have reassured many fans of his desire to stay in Barcelona.
Read between the lines, however, and that could change if things don’t change quickly.
Messi wants the return of his great friend Neymar. Instead, Barcelona brought in the journeyman Braithwaite.
This is obviously a stop-gap solution, but how happy will Messi be to stay in the summer if big moves are not made and the soap opera rumbles on?
Barcelona Abused the System
The fact that Barcelona was allowed to bring in Braithwaite is an absolute joke.
Eric Abidal made a complete mess of the transfer window and then this was compounded by yet another injury to Ousmane Dembele.
Barcelona claimed this injury meant they should be allowed to make an emergency signing. Dembele is not even a 9.
How can a club of Barcelona’s resources claim such poverty and be given special dispensation like this?
The irony is that the club then uses this free pass to sign a journeyman from Leganes who was a massive flop at Middlesborough.
The club is in a complete mess and the fans know it.
A poll conducted in Mundo Deportivo asked the fans what they thought of the new signing and over 80% were unhappy.
Perhaps the positive 20% came from the fake accounts the club is paying the Argentinian firm to run.
Strange, strange times in Barcelona.
This is not going to end well.
This article was edited by Samburaj Das.
