Barcelona are over-dependent on Lionel Messi, says former Blaugrana defender

Former Barcelona defender Albert Ferrer said that the Blaugrana rely too much on their talisman Lionel Messi, and that led to their failure to win La Liga this season.

Ferrer, who played for Barcelona for eight years between 1990 and 1998, told FourFourTwo that the Blaugrana were too reliant on Lionel Messi's brilliance, and lacked the depth to truly compete at the top level of Spanish and European competition.

“It’s a unique situation. No other team can say they depend so much on someone. Barcelona needs to become independent of Leo Messi, but he is still the best..."Ex-Barça man and @LaLigaTV pundit Albert Ferrer talks to FFT about *those* Messi rumourshttps://t.co/S79EAoVGGT #FCB

— FourFourTwo (@FourFourTwo) August 3, 2020

Real Madrid beat Barcelona to the La Liga title by five points this season, as the Catalans were marred by indifferent form as the side led by Messi failed to win their third consecutive La Liga title, despite the Argentine being his inspirational self.

Lionel Messi became the first player to cross 20 assists, while also scoring more than 20 goals in a single La Liga season, as he finished with 25 goals and 21 assists, and claimed the Pichichi Award.

Ferrer said:

“It’s a unique situation. No other team can say they depend so much on someone. Barcelona needs to become independent of Lionel Messi, but he is still the best, and the moment you give him the ball, he does something with it."

“It’s a good sign that Barcelona still have Lionel Messi, but other players need to play more, so not everything has to go through him. It may be difficult to mark Leo, but sometimes he is surrounded, so you need other ways."

Ferrer also said that now is the time for Barcelona to rethink and prompt a change of thinking that enables other players to become important and help Lionel Messi, something he believed could happen especially with young Ansu Fati.

"Barcelona need to make other players very important too, and do something different to help him. But they have some good options with the likes of Ansu Fati now.”

Ferrer, however, believes Quique Setien’s Barcelona squad was perhaps too thin to help Messi and push Real Madrid all the way in the La Liga title race and said that Barcelona’s club strategy should be focused on toppling their eternal rivals next season. He said:

“I think before the lockdown, Barcelona were okay really. But I think the squad is a bit short in terms of numbers and they couldn’t really rotate how they desired, maybe.

“In some of the games, there might have been six or seven players from Barcelona B playing, and while they’re very talented, they still lost games and particularly struggled in defence. So depth on the bench was one reason."

The former Barcelona defender Ferrer also said that he believed Barcelona were going about their current transition in the right way, by bringing in players from the Barcelona B team:

“They also tried to play differently, less predictably. But when there is a game every three days, that is difficult – you are just playing for your lives. It was a strange situation. And you have to also say that the run from Real Madrid [at the end] was fantastic."

“I think what they’re trying to do is the right way. They are trying to make a transition and bring some new players on, and bring in some young players from the academy. It’s difficult to find players when you’ve got those at the level of Lionel Messi and Sergio Busquets, but it is true that new players need to come in and improve the tempos and the levels."

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"Lionel Messi will retire at Barcelona" - Ferrer

After recent questions were raised over Lionel Messi's future at Barcelona, Ferrer echoed Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu's feelings, in saying that he had no doubt that Messi would finish his career at Barcelona.

Albert Ferrer said he believed Lionel Messi would not leave Barcelona

Ferrer, who had also won the European Cup during his stint with Barcelona said:

“I’m not too worried about how Leo has been feeling – we expect that because he is a winner.”

“He wants to compete for everything, and win the Champions League. I think he will be at Barcelona until he retires. He loves Barcelona, the team, the club."

6️⃣ days to go until #BarçaNapoli https://t.co/4gxPPvLJvu

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) August 2, 2020

Lionel Messi and Barcelona are next in action on Saturday night as they face Napoli in the second leg of their UEFA Champions League Round of 16 tie. The tie is intriguingly poised at 1-1 after the first leg, and it is likely that Barcelona will once again look to their genius, Messi, to haul them through to the quarterfinals.