#3 Central midfield
The uncanny similarities between Barcelona’s two humiliating losses of last season – against PSG and Juventus – was that they were overrun in midfield. Simply put, as of now, the Blaugrana’s midfield is one of the weakest in recent memory and struggles against better, more technical opponents, while also being hustled away ever so easily.
The arrival of Andre Gomes and Denis Suarez haven’t had the desired impact, with the former struggling immensely since his move from Valencia, so much so that he has been booed by the fans and there are calls from some sect of the fans for him to be sold. Suarez has impressed in patches but even he falls short of the desired quality that is expected from a Barcelona midfielder.
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The injury issues of captain Andres Iniesta coupled with him slowly entering the twilight of his career has not helped either, nor has the dip in form of Ivan Rakitic and Sergio Busquets. With Barcelona not playing tiki-taka football anymore, Busquets has struggled especially and it is time the Spaniard is asked to adapt his game to the changing style and either let him sit deep shielding the back four or move him slightly further up the field in central midfield.
In either case, the Catalan giants need to find either a combative midfielder able to break up attacks or one who can orchestrate play from deep. It is encouraging to see that Barcelona have seemingly identified this weakness and are pursuing Marco Verratti. Whether they will succeed in this pursuit or not, remains to be seen.
