Another day, another sign that all is not right at Barcelona
While many clubs would scoff at the ‘crisis’ that Barcelona are reportedly in, even a cursory look at the Catalan giants shows that things are a little awry.
Yesterday there was major upheaval at Camp Nou as director of football Andoni Zubizarreta was dismissed. This was followed about 15 minutes later by the news that club legend Carlos Puyol had quit his role as assistant to Zubizarreta.
Newish boss Luis Enrique seems to be struggling to find a pattern of play with the team and it appears that the heads had to roll, especially after the result on Sunday.
At the weekend they lost to Real Sociedad, 1-0, after a Jordi Alba own goal after just two minutes. For that game, Enrique left stars Lionel Messi and Neymar on the bench as both had just returned from a winter ‘break’ in which they packed in lots of travelling and commercial business.
Now footage of the two chatting on the bench has emerged, with Neymar joking with Messi that he should start to ‘warm up’ just after Alba’s own goal put Barca behind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kbiW9Kvr0A
Messi appears to smile at the line and on top of the gossip yesterday that Chelsea may make a bid to take the Argentinian from Spain – fuelled mainly by his decision to follow Cesc Fabregas and the London club on Instagram – it will only fuel the sense that Messi is not too happy under the Enrique regime.
Leo Messi starts following Chelsea & Cesc on Instagram on same day as rumours of move to club http://t.co/xCB0oGX31c pic.twitter.com/Y7zi7BeByh
— B/R Football (@brfootball) January 6, 2015
Things are far from terrible for Enrique, with Barca just a point behind Real at the top of La Liga and they have a Champions League knockout phase clash with Manchester City to come. But Messi is the jewel in their very studded crown and he must be kept happy at all costs.
One to watch…
