With Nelson Semedo on his way to Wolves in the Premier League, Sergi Roberto becomes Barcelona’s only right-back. Some Culers have tired of Semedo, and the 26-year-old is probably already the player that he is always going to be. That is still a darn good player, but not one that ever fit in at the Camp Nou.
In defense of Semedo, he was always asked to do too much. Defending his right flank for both himself and Messi was an impossible ask from the start. He is not naturally gifted at joining the attack or making overlapping runs, but asking him to be the right-sided Jordi Alba was certainly never going to happen.
Add to that the shadow that Dani Alves cast on the position and Semedo would always be out of his depth. Alves benefitted not only from his own natural abilities (he is arguably a top-50 La Liga player ever… I’m not kidding), but also a Barcelona that was younger, hungrier, and capable of filling in the space behind him. Alves is still playing first team football and don’t forget that some Culers said that he was no longer up to the level back in 2015. It wasn’t just Alves that was slowing though, it was all those players around him too. Busquets, Messi, and Piqué, the three primary figures that covered for him and pressed hard to win the ball back high up the field, have also lost a step through the years. A team can survive when one or two players are aging (David Silva recently at Man City), but I don’t need to tell you what happens when most of the team slows down.
Semedo is a solid signing for Wolves. They are a team that likes to defend and jump on teams in a hurry, and I’m interested to see what Semedo can do in that system. On top of that, Jorge Mendes has been pulling the strings and the Portuguese full-back will find plenty of his countrymen at the West Midlands side, making for a more comfortable transition.
WARNING: CYNICAL THOUGHT COMING. Semedo’s sale could just as likely be about bringing in money than it was about finding a young right-back who is to be the future of the position at the club. Messi said that there is no sporting project and maybe we should believe him. It’s hard to admit that one of the biggest clubs in the world had a poor grasp of their future and then Covid-19 destroyed any chance of salvaging that “project”, but that very well could be the place we now find ourselves.
In the meantime, Moussa Wagué is on his way to Greece, promoting the notion that there is a plan in place. But who knows?
That leaves Sergi Roberto as Barcelona’s only right-back. The club may have been tipping their hand when Ronald Koeman weirdly said that he “likes Sergi Roberto”, but if a combination of Roberto and Semedo couldn’t get the job done, how is the club better with just Roberto?
Well that means La Masia will finally be used. Not a chance. With the recent sale of Dani Morer to Portugal and Sergi Rosanas, who was promoted from Juvenil A but is currently injured, Barça B currently have ZERO healthy right-backs. Meaning the oldest, healthy, natural (so disqualifying Roberto) right-back at FC Barcelona is 18-year-old Marc Alegre with Juvenil A, a player that is still a few years away from consideration for the first team.
There is no way that the club will try to navigate this season with just one right-back I tell myself. Instead, the club does have some kind of plan but they just needed to sell Semedo to enact it. Last summer when the club moved for Junior Firpo, public knowledge was that the choice was Ferland Mendy from Lyon or Junior from Real Betis, so when Real Madrid won the race for Mendy, Barcelona got their man. This time around the options seem to be one of three – Sergiño Dest of Ajax, Max Aarons of Norwich City, and Emerson of Real Betis.
I have long said that Dest is my pick, and I’ll defend that choice with the reasoning that Bayern Munich agrees with me. He is American so there was bias there, but a player good enough for Bayern is probably good enough for Barcelona. Dest is still a work in progress and not capable of stepping into either side as the starter tomorrow. Heck, he doesn’t even start for Ajax. However, Bayern would have a plan to make him a better player – improvement is essential for talent for the future. Would he get better at Barcelona? Maybe the answer to that question is why some fans are talking themselves out of him.
Max Aarons has been reported as the back-up option, and you could argue that the 20-year-old Englishman should probably be the first option based on current talent. He is better than Dest defensively, with many of the same attacking abilities. Plus, judging by the two rejected offers already, the club may understand where they sit in the Dest “race”. However, English players are expensive and Norwich City has little reason to sell a player under contract during a pandemic when his value would be at an all-time low. It seems that Norwich has financially survived relegation, so it is absolutely necessary that they hang on to their young assets in the hopes of returning to that sweet, sweet promised land of Premier League money; I mean football.
As for Emerson, the club was reportedly willing to sell him, though that would have meant that they found a buyer willing to pay more than the 12 million euros that Barcelona need to pay to make him their player first. *Slaps head*. If the club has changed its tune and now want to keep the player, it’ll still cost 12 million euros now to end his loan to Real Betis, instead of waiting until next summer and getting him for 6 million (another great deal!).
Rumors and leaks have made it so that these three are the only options, but a major club like Barcelona only has so many options. There is a standard expected at the club and until La Masia produces a player at that position or the club shows that it can nurture young talent at first team level, the options are pretty apparent.
I would submit names like Tomás Tavares, a tall but quick right-back for Benfica (currently playing with Benfica B) and Tariq Lamptey, a smaller but spry wing-back from Brighton & Hove that came over from Chelsea in January. These two are both 19 and not at all ready for the bright lights of the Camp Nou, but the club may not have many options. The idea of buying and loaning directly back to those clubs won’t work either because Barcelona needs to fill that position now.
The most likely outcome is that the club finds a player somewhere in La Liga in their mid-20s or late 20s that can serve as Roberto’s back-up until the next board can deal with the mess. Yet, if one of the three options does arrive, this board deserves a quick congratulations on the deal and everyone can go back to approving signatures.
Dan Hilton is an American journalist, broadcaster, and current Editor-in-Chief of BarcaBlog. Extensive work as a play-by-play broadcaster, producer behind the scenes, and quite average player in his younger years has given him a well-rounded and informative perspective on the sport. Alongside BarcaBlog founder Francesc, Dan started The Barcelona Podcast in 2017.
