FC Barcelona’s big signings, bad signings and youth players

For years, Barcelona have been famed for the amount of home-grown players that feature in their starting team and have gone on to become incredible players and, of course, be part of an incredible team. The picture below shows an eleven from the game vs Levante in November 2012 of only La Masia graduates. These players are no pushovers and the majority of them have played a vital role in winning La Liga titles, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League. Fast forward to now. There is an ongoing case questioning the price of Neymar and who the money went to, 81.25 million euros spent on a soon to be 28-year-old Luis Suárez and to top it off the ridiculous 4 million euro signing of Douglas Pereira.

The reality is, whether you think these are smart signings or not, they are hindering the development of youth team players. Gerard Deulofeu, who had seemed to be part of the first team plans when he came back from a loan spell with Everton, posing in photos with Rafinha as if he was a new signing, is now spending most of his time sitting on the Sevilla bench whilst multi-million pound signings Neymar and Suárez are guaranteed starters back in Barcelona. In my opinion, most of these signings were necessary, but when you look at the way Pedro is playing, now he is over his start of the season slump, you can’t help but wonder if the signing of Luis Suárez and the sale of Alexis Sánchez was the correct choice.

Barça B stars Sandro Ramírez, Adama Traoré, Sergi Samper, Alejandro Grimaldo and Munir El Haddadi all look more than ready to be fully promoted to the first team in the 15/16 or 16/17 season, but with rumours suggesting that loans away are possible, it seems that developing youth players is no longer the number one priority in Barcelona.

I am not claiming that every signing we made last summer was wrong or that the signings or Neymar and Luis Suárez were bad, Ivan Rakitić was a great signing considering his qualities and price. Others such as Marc-André ter Stegen, who will no doubt be a major part of the Barça squad in the next 10-15 years, and Jérémy Mathieu have proven to been good buys.

Needless amounts of money thrown at big names is what annoys me most about the current transfer policy. I have no doubt in the abilities of Suárez or Neymar and like them a lot as players, but I feel that La Masia players also have a lot to offer to the first team and have the chance to follow the footsteps of Xavi, Pedro and Busquets, to name a couple, in the coming years if they’re given the right opportunities. Of course there are other factors that could hinder the development of our youth, like Eusebio, the undoubtedly questionable coach of Barça B (bare in mind the 7-0 humiliation vs Valladolid last weekend, that’s all you need to know.) and of course the players themselves could not reach their full potential for whatever reason.

These are just my opinions, sorry for any bad grammar or typos and maybe wrong transfer fees, thanks for reading 🙂

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