Lewandowski is not the player he once was, the decline is very clear which is no knock as he’s 36 now
His legs have gone, isn’t mobile anymore and a good deal of his goals have been the poacher type or tap ins
A different profile at CF especially and one that has high athleticism and speed could really make that attack pop even more which would be insane considering how dangerous it is already.
If they had Haaland for example or just a class CF in general then they’d be unstoppable as an attack
He’s still a great goalscorer but father time is father time.
Had a couple injuries this season and he dropped off in the second half of the season.
At times they looked better with Torres up front, and Torres isn’t a particularly great player.
Frankly, Barca as a whole are that good going forward currently that you could stick current Chamakh up front and he’ll get 10+ goals.
I get Williams wanting to go to Barca, but makes no sense for Barca to spend that sort of money on a player when they already have Raphinha, unless Raphinha was leaving. Given he has just signed a new contract, the whole thing to me is a bit bizarre!
It does feel as though Williams is wanting and waiting for this move to happen and just twerking at other clubs. I think we need to pivot and focus 100% of our attention on Rodrygo this summer.
You invest to become a top team, and you invest to stay there.
Barca have an opportunity to assemble yet another super team to go head to head with Madrid, recruiting one of the best Spanish talents is in their best interests, same with Garcia.
Signing players in positions they don’t need has never stopped Barca or Madrid. Let them compete for a starting spot, in the end the better player will prevail and odds are they’ll sell whoever doesn’t for good money.
Rodrygo could be the best example of that.
Raph is also 28
It’s smart future proofing and also they have some sellable assets to balance the books if need be
Barcelona, like Real Madrid sign players because they can.
I guess you are both right from a Barca perspective, but why would Williams go and sit on the bench to be No.2 to Raphinha? I guess if they are willing to pay his wages, he will be happy to wait his turn.
Who knows that’s the case, and who knows whether Nico is backing himself to earn his way into the first team?
It’s Barca we’re talking about here btw, we’ve seen plenty of top talents go there when there wasn’t a clear pathway to the first team and the move didn’t really make sense to begin with.
Raphinha did that himself when he was at Leeds. Had us, Chelsea and Spurs desperate to get him, Chelsea even agreed a fee with Leeds and had zero problem paying him the wages he wanted, all for him to block the move because he wanted to go to Barca.
Fair. So guess we can cross Nico off the list now.
Do you favour any other options? (I know you are a fan of Nico)
They stockpile attackers like we stockpile GKs CBs and LBs it seems
Rodrygo makes a lot of sense as a market opportunity.
Selfishly, I would also love us to have a look at Barcola now that Williams has finally made a decision (and it doesn’t seem to be us).
Beyond that I’m not sure. Leao more than fits the bill from a talent perspective but he doesn’t have the mentality to play in our team.
You also got some options where their potential isn’t that high but they’re of a high enough level currently where they would at least improve the squad quality and depth.
Players like Lookman or Semenyo for example. Cunha(now off the market) and Mbeumo are others.
Then there’s the choice on investing on some unproven youngster like Nusa, Gittens, Yildiz, Fofana, etc.
To be honest, in that scenario I would be uncomfortable with losing either Trossard or Martinelli. Think it’d be too big a risk to take to rely on one of them plus an unproven youngster, could easily end up worsening our forward depth.
I think Rogrygo is the opportunity. I can’t see Barcola being sold by PSG this summer. Leao doesn’t fit the mould as you say. I really like Semenyo but I don’t think he moves us forward enough this summer on his own…I’d like him as a third attacker.
Hopefully, we can make some progress this week with either LW or striker.
I do fear with Williams off the market, and Gordon unavailable, it’s gonna be Rodrygo or bust, unless some other market opportunity pops up.
Maybe that’s where those Morgan Rogers links come into play. A market opportunity due to Villa’s financial situation.
The ideal is always to have other players still available in the market when you are bidding for a player. The risk as you say with Rodrygo is it becomes him or bust, and the price goes up. One of the reasons I hope we get the striker situation resolved sooner rather than later.
I think with Rodrygo there is an opportunity and we need to be aggressive in making a bid for him. He could really explode at Arsenal if he makes the move.
Fabrizio has dropped Chelsea from all his Nico Williams tweets but still includes us on there. I think its something we will still pursue and try to do. If he does move abroad you have to think theres a lot of reasons he’d chose us over Bayern considering our spanish connections.
I haven’t seen anything that presents it as a foregone conclusion that he’s going to Barcelona.
Huh? Arsenal have made an offer for him that matches/might be lower than his current salary and Bilbao apparently can’t match that?
Do these guys even try sometimes?
Lol. Didn’t take it too seriously, but that was a BAD effort.
Ffs, yeah, just checked, he has €10,4M per year.
Lol 