3 reasons why FC Barcelona are struggling this season

Barcelona continue to struggling under Ronald Koeman.

It is a clear fact that Barcelona have not been at their best for quite a while now and it looks like they are on their way to hit rock bottom this season. With four losses already in the league so far and with the disappointing performance in the 3-0 loss against Juventus this week, the Catalan giants are showing no sign of improvement or hope.

After the 8-2 Bayern Munich trashing in last year’s Champions League campaign along with the major Lionel Messi saga, things were finally taking a positive turn for the Blaugranas. Youngsters like Riqui Puig and Ansu Fati were seen dominating opponents while struggling stars like Antoine Griezmann, Ousmane Dembele and Martin Braithwaite showed signs of improvement.

Things, however, only went downhill from there after close to the entire Barca defense got sidelined due to various injuries. Gerard Pique, Ronald Araujo, and Samuel Umtiti all missing for a major duration of the campaign. Barca B’s Óscar Mingueza got the opportunity to take over Pique’s role and while the youngster showed immense potential, his performance against Cadiz raised some questions. The 21-year-old made many mistakes while also looking uncomfortable on the ball.

Meanwhile, regular Clement Lenglet was struggling to keep up with the opposition without Pique’s leadership and support. The defense was not the only concern for the Catalans as Ansu Fati picked up a long-term injury against Real Betis, while Dembele was sidelined once again with a hamstring issue.

Having said that, the club cannot simply blame their disappointing performances on injuries, and thus here are three reasons why Barcelona are struggling this season.

Financial Problems at Barcelona

Blaugrana have had major financial problems since the coronavirus pandemic hit the world. The problems were in such a negative state that the club had to offload players in masses in order to balance the books and free up wages. The horrible money problems have led the club to reach an impasse where they had to sell players in order to afford any new signings. There is no extra source of money. 

However, after the resignation of Josep Maria Bartomeu, a new board is set to take over which may improve the financial conditions of the club, given that the current set of players have agreed to a wage-cut.

Most Pivotal Players Sold

The La Liga giants sold Luis Suarez to Atletico Madrid and failed to get a replacement for him. They sold Arthur Melo to Juventus in exchange of Miralem Pjanic which is an extremely poor deal as they exchanged a talented 24-year-old with an ageing midfielder. 

They also sold Arturo Vidal to Inter Milan, Nelson Semedo to Nuno’s Wolverhampton wanderers and club veteran Ivan Rakitic back to his former club Sevilla. While all these players’ sales allowed Barca to recover their financial strength, not being able to replace them with reliable and consistent reinforcements is costing the club heavily. 

While youngsters like Pedri, Francisco Trincao, and Ronald Araujo are getting ample time under Koeman, they are yet to fully develop and the overall squad is lacking consistancy.

Lack of Tactics

Koeman looks clueless at times just like during his tenures at Everton and Southampton. He seems tactically inept. The team tends to keep possession throughout the game without having a major impact. The movements look repeated and hardly anything creative comes out. The number of players that the Blaugrana sold, they failed to land proper replacements as they could not afford it due to the financial problems. 

However Koeman looks to have been poor on man management as he’s keeping talents like Riqui Puig on the bench. Another major flaw of the former Netherland boss is him being adament about the 4-2-3-1 formation when it is clear that the tactic isn’t working at times with the current set of players.

These problems are not going to go away anytime soon as the team is in a process of a complete transition. Without financial improvement there will not be any new signings, atleast big names. Lionel Messi too may well be out of the club soon as the 33-year-old is heavily linked to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City and Thomas Tuchel’s Paris Saint-Germain as his contract nears it’s end.