€1 billion on transfers since 2014 - Barcelona set for another bad deal with Pjanic pursuit
goal.com May 22, 2020 5:07 PM
The cash-strapped Blaugrana are considering a nonsensical swap deal that would weaken their midfield and defence just to get Lautaro Martinez
Everyone connected with Barcelona has an agenda.
For example, Albert Perrin served as a director under former club president Joan Laporta, who is edging ever closer to officially declaring his candidacy for next year's elections.
Therefore, it's hardly surprising that Perrin has publicly criticised the current administration, which is headed by Josep Maria Bartomeu, who recorded a landslide victory over Laporta in 2015.
However, Perrin spoke for a lot of Barcelona fans in March when he told Marca, "The future of the club scares me a lot. There are so many things that they've done badly at Barcelona.
"This board of directors only know how to sell to make the accounts work. They don't think about the sporting side of things."
Bartomeu's bizarre transfer policy would certainly support that claim.
Thirty-six players have arrived at Camp Nou since he succeeded Sandro Rosell as president in 2014, at a cost of approximately €1.067 billion (£955m/$1.16bn).
Only two could be considered unqualified success stories: Luis Suarez and Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
Samuel Umtiti was undoubtedly a fine signing but has now been deemed surplus to requirements having been plagued by knee problems for the past two years.
Ousmane Dembele has obvious world-class potential but is even more injury-prone than his fellow Frenchman, meaning Barca would now accept half of the initial €105m (£92m/€115m) they paid Borussia Dortmund for his services in 2017.
Bartomeu can hardly be blamed for players being blighted by fitness problems, while last summer's two major signings, Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie de Jong, could yet prove value for money.
However, even those deals provoke the same question: why spend big on a player that you're not going to play in his best position?
Griezmann works best in a two-man attack, while De Jong was signed as a replacement for the ageing Sergio Busquets but has yet to be allowed to take control of a midfield so clearly lacking direction. De Jong's time should come but Griezmann still looks like the wrong player at the wrong time.
Not that we should be surprised by the lack of foresight.
Philippe Coutinho, the most expensive player in Barca’s history, was signed even though there was no obvious position for him in the starting line-up, suggesting that Perrin is right and massive deals are done at Camp Nou without any consideration for "the sporting side of things".
Certainly, Barca's pursuit of Juventus midfielder Miralem Pjanic makes no sense in that regard. The Bosnian is a fine player but he is 30 now and clearly in decline, as underlined by his dismal dip in form this year.
When the 2019-20 season began, Pjanic was considered integral to Juve's hopes of success under new coach Maurizio Sarri. He was to be the Old Lady's answer to Jorginho, the metronome midfielder who ran the game for Sarri's wonderful Napoli side.
Pjanic relished the extra responsibility. He was enthused by the idea of having "150 touches a game" and was Juve's best performer during the early stages of the campaign.
However, as the Bianconeri began to struggle in the second half of the season, so too did Pjanic. It became clear that he was not the solution to the ‘Sarriball’ conundrum but part of the problem.
If anything, he was taking too many touches, slowing down the game, making Juve one-dimensional and predictable. The key to Sarri's style of play is rapid movement of the ball, something Jorginho understood perfectly.
As Radja Nainggolan once pointed out, the Italy international was his most frustrating opponent in Serie A, a man almost impossible to press, because by the time you got close to him, the ball was already gone.
Pjanic, though, was proving painfully ponderous in possession and he was vilified by Juve fans after a dismal display in the
