Are More Reinforcements Necessary?

By: Isaiah | July 28th, 2009

Just think a little, it’s not so hard!

Now that Ibrahimovic has been signed, presented, and bum-rushed and Samu is officially an Inter player, the daily rags (Sport and El Mundo Deportivo) are suggesting that our spending spree is not over. In fact, they’re saying we’re going to splash out something in the range of €20-30m for Dmytro Chyhrynskyi, Shaktar’s 22-year old central defender.

So the question has popped up in my mind of exactly what holes we have left to fill, if we have any at all. I’m not particularly interested in the money at this point, not because it’s unimportant, but because this post is aimed at the actual sporting needs with money as the secondary influence. I’ll flesh out more of the financial stuff in a future post.

Our transfer season to date:

IN -
Henrique (CB) Return from loan, cost incorporated into last year’s budget
Maxwell (LB, LM) ~5m
Keirrison (FW) ~15m
Ibrahimovic (FW) ~45m

OUT -
Sylvinho (LB) Free
Eto’o (FW) Cost incorporated into Ibrahimovic deal (value up for debate, list at 20m for Barcelona’s books)
Hleb? (MD)
Keirrison (FW) out on loan, his price will be incorporated into this year’s budget

So, all in all, we are down one midfielder, at least in terms of number of players available. I would rather give Gai Assulin’s little brother’s best friend’s worst opponent on FIFA 09 for Xbox’s uncle’s cousin a shot at the mid than have Hleb around for another year (after all, his shwartz is just as big as mine). But we’re also up a defender in Henrique, who supposedly can both CB and as a functional DM.

What I’m confused about, then, is that we’re linked so heavily to a very expensive defender, who, if the reports are to be trusted, would cost at least near the range of Dani Alves. It’s fairly clear from this that Caceres is gone — not being included in the USA squad list is definitely a very strong hint that he’s gone. Are we looking for a replacement for him? I thought that’s what Henrique was, to be honest. if the idea is to bring in someone else for central defense who will make a bunch of starts throughout the season, does that push Henrique to the very periphery of the squad, to exactly where Caceres was last year? That seems an expensive option to pick up for no particular reason. If Pep wants Chyhrynskyi (whose name I’m spelling the way wikipedia has it, not the way the Spanish media spells it), then we should get us some Chyhrynskyi — that much I am not questioning. What I am questioning is the need for Henrique if we do get Chyhrynskyi or anyone else for the CB position.

Here’s our current list of CBs: Puyol, Marquez, Pique, Henrique, Caceres, with Milito a big question mark. Alberto Botia is on loan at Sporting Gijon (will we see him on Aug 31?) and players like Marc Muniesa and Andreu Fontas aren’t Ready yet. Caceres is probably headed out, but hopefully only for one year on loan — probably to Juventus. Assuming he goes, that leaves us with 4 players for 2 positions, another good defender possibly returning from injury part way through the season, and 2 young guns waiting in the wings for opportunities. And one gigantic Yaya to cover any holes that appear for, say — just to throw something completely made up out there — the Champions League final.

Do we really need to drop 20-30m on a player who will see a small amount of playing time compared to the other members of the squad? The only way it makes sense is if Henrique or Chyhrynskyi is capable of playing defensive mid as well because that would be effectively killing two birds with one very expensive stone. It’s not a bad idea, in theory, to get another good, young defender (Chyhrynskyi, like Henrique is 22) in order to fit him into the system over time, but I find it strange to do so in a year when that player will not receive enough playing time or, if he does, he will create a playing time deficit for someone who is already on the team and has arrived with a solid amount of praise from his time on loan last year. Or do we buy Chyhrynskyi and loan him out to someone else?

My thought is that we’re pretty stacked in that particular position (Botia and Muniesa have both impressed me) so there’s no need to buy anyone else, at least for this year, even if Caceres leaves.

At fullback, we’ve got ourselves Abidal and Maxwell for the left, which is more than adequate coverage; on the right we’ve got Dani Alves, who can be covered by Puyol very adequately, but for how much longer? We need our captain in the middle of the field more than anywhere else, of course, partnering Pique and Marquez. I’ll discuss some of the problems of adding Albert Dalmau (assuming he’s Ready) towards the end of this post. This position definitely remains a question mark for me.

In the middle of the field, we’re talking about Hleb leaving without anyone coming in to replace him, at least for the moment. If we loan out Caceres to Juventus, we might swap him for a loan of Christian Poulsen in order to fill our Yaya-sized hole in defensive midfield during the ACN in January. However, in my esteemed (and oh-so-humble) opinion, Poulsen isn’t good enough for us. He wasn’t really even good enough for Sevilla, though if this included Cronaldo in place of Danny, I might be inclined to vote for him…

Should we even bother to find someone to fill the gap we’ll have? We have Busquets as a direct replacement and Marquez who can step up if need be. And as I mentioned earlier, if we can use Henrique as a DM, I think we’re set in that department; Victor Sanchez could possibly fill in at times, but it’s somewhat doubtful that he would cut the mustard at such a high level with such a slight frame.

The loss of Hleb isn’t, for my money, that large of a loss, though it does leave us one creative midfielder short when we’re looking to provide Iniesta or Xavi with rest. If Guardiola lets Hleb go without much of a fight, I imagine it’s for good reason: either Hleb is useless anyway or one of the younger players is going to step up to fill in. It’s probably unfortunate that Thiago Alcantara won’t be playing for us during the USA tour so that we can see what he’s got to offer. I don’t think any of our youngsters are Ready for the primetime lights, so, as odd as it is for me to say such a thing, the loss of Hleb could be felt rather heavily late in the season. There’s also Victor Vazquez, Jonathan Dos Santos, and Jose Manuel Rueda available, but, again, none of them can really step up enough, I don’t think, to get us victories in some of the tough games we’re likely to have in December and January.

One possible answer to this problem is something that several people have been advocating for a while: moving The Yaya to a more creative role and leaving Busquets to mind the DM position. I like that concept, especially in leading up to January, when we’ll need to get Iniesta and Xavi as much rest as possible. The Yaya is by no means a replacement for either of those players, but he still provides a large amount of offensive firepower, especially if Gudjohnsen can provide crucial minutes in that department, though I see the Icelandic Monument as more of a late-game sub for the forwards than as a creative midfielder.

My thought is that we’re a little crunched here, but we’ll be fine if the kids can step up for a game or two.

Continuing with our forward movement along , we arrive at the front, at our trident of terror. Now that Ibra is in for Eto’o, the dynamic of the offense must change. Both players have, correctly, stated that they are not direct replacements for the other. The tactical changes required by Ibra’s introduction into our system will, I think, allow us to keep teams guessing as to the focal point of our attack. Ibra can drift to the wings, thanks to his technical abilities (though it might take some time, like with Henry, for him to become fully acquainted with the system) and both Messi and Henry can play the “9″ and as the “false 9″. Bojan, then, can swap in at any of the positions in the front since his tactical versatility is growing by the day. Last year alone he played in all three forward positions with a relatively good success rate (feel free to parse Kevin’s ratings for that). To make matters even better, Pedro! can now be swapped in on the right to give Messi a rest or, if Messi is playing in the middle, Henry or Ibra can sit out and super-sub it (or Pedro! can sub on).

So, we’re set up front, but we’re back to where we were before, the question of the right fullback.

Our squad list looks like this:
GK: 3, Valdes, Pinto, Jorquera
DF: 7, Puyol, Pique, Marquez, Henrique, Abidal, Maxwell, Alves
MD: 7, Xavi, Iniesta, Gudjohnsen, Keita, The Yaya, Busquets, VicSan
FW: 5, Messi, Henry, Ibrahimovic, Pedro!, Bojan

This list, which does not include Caceres, Hleb, or Milito, has 22 players on it. That leaves 3 spaces, assuming those three are out of the squad, that we can fill to complete our roster. We can buy players to fill those roster spots (what does Madrid think of that problem?) or we can leave them open for youngsters coming in. If we buy Chyhrynskyi and Poulsen, we’re going to basically be out of roster spots, while still not covering our right flank. That, to me, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense unless we’re deputizing Puyol as the backup right back at all times and even that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if we have the open roster spots. I have no particular suggestion for who to get as the backup right back, but it has always struck me as strange that we haven’t even been linked with anyone for me to consider. Come on, Sport and EMD, dredge something up for us poor bloggin’ folks!

We’ve got a very loaded squad, with proper depth in all but one or two positions, except for that pesky January window when we’re going to be up shit’s creek without a Yaya*. So do we fill that position without regard for the other 8 months of the season? That doesn’t make much sense, but neither does not filling that hole. The ACN sucks!

We shouldn’t be done reinforcing, but I don’t think we need Chyhrynskyi at the moment (especially not at that price). We need an RB and another creative midfielder — someone like an Arshavin would be perfect, but I’d much prefer it if Thiago Alcantara made the jump. He’s just not Ready yet, though, which could put us in the odd position of either over-spending on someone like Arshavin or getting someone who sucks. Like Hleb. Now wouldn’t that be juuust great?

What are your thoughts on all of this? Where do we need the most reinforcement? Where have I gone wrong in my ramblings? What is the square root of 98596? Come on, people!

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*Do you think The Yaya takes up more than one roster spot? I could imagine that being the rule since he takes up more than 3 people’s worth of space on the field.