X

3 Barcelona Players Who Would Benefit from a Loan Move in 2016-17

Rik Sharma@@riksharma_X.com LogoFeatured ColumnistJuly 23, 2016

FC Barcelona’s Arda Turan from Turkey, Neymar da Silva from Brazil, Aleix Vidal, Munir el Haddadi, Sergio Busquets, Rafael Alcantara from Brazil, from left, celebrate after winning the Spanish League title, at the end of their Spanish La Liga last round soccer match against Granada at Los Carmenes stadium in Granada, Spain, Saturday, May 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Daniel Tejedo
Daniel Tejedor/Associated Press

Breaking into Barcelona's first team is extremely difficult. Even players who come close, like Marc Bartra, eventually give up and drift away.

Beyond the golden generation that includes the likes of Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets, no players from La Masia have been able to hold down a slot in the team.

Sometimes they develop better playing regular football away from Camp Nou before coming back and trying to make a stand, as Denis Suarez will attempt to show.

He learned new skills and more tactical awareness at Sevilla on loan and then Villarreal and has earned a place in Luis Enrique's squad for the season ahead.

There are various players Barcelona don't need around, like Douglas, Thomas Vermaelen and returned loanees Martin Montoya and Cristian Tello.

Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

Obviously those players would in theory benefit from a loan out, but they would benefit more by being sold, and Barcelona would, too. So they have not been included in this list.

There are three main candidates for a loan, two from the current first-team squad and one from Barcelona B.

The latter is Wilfrid Kaptoum, who would thrive if given the chance to play at a Liga side, like Alen Halilovic did at Sporting Gijon last season. The same goes for Sergi Samper, even though he has just been promoted to Barcelona’s main squad.

There is a big problem facing both of those players and it was exacerbated by the club’s capture of Valencia midfielder Andre Gomes, late on Thursday night. There is too much competition for a place in Barcelona’s midfield area.

An incredible 11 players would say their best position at the club is in one of the three midfield slots. They are Sergio Busquets, Javier Mascherano, Rafinha, Arda Turan, Andres Iniesta, Ivan Rakitic, Denis Suarez and Sergi Roberto, on top of Samper and Kaptoum.

Thibault Camus/Associated Press

Although Mascherano will generally be used at centre-back and Roberto, you would imagine, at right-back, there are still too many players blocking the pair’s paths.

Barcelona youth football expert and Diario Sport writer Josep Capdevila thinks Samper will plug away at convincing the coach he is worthy of a place, during the pre-season fixtures and training sessions. He wrote:

The situation could, in theory, hurt Samper's chances of developing after joining the first team squad this year. But the new signing from Valencia has done nothing to alter his attitude. "We continue" he wrote on social media, after finishing Friday's training session. And that's his philosophy. He is calm, believing in his chances and is ready to work as hard as he can to get Luis Enrique's confidence during pre-season.

Nothing has been easy for Samper and he knows nobody is giving anything away for free. But if his work and his quality have served him to get this far, they will not quit now. He will fight and the pre-season will dictate his immediate future.

That may be the case, but coach Luis Enrique has already hinted that the best idea may be for Samper to head out and continue to improve at another club for the time being.

His best position is the deepest midfield role, a spot currently occupied by Busquets, the best in the world at what he does, so opportunities will be few and far between for Samper. Furthermore, Mascherano may be ahead of him in the pecking order, particularly if Lucho wants to play Samuel Umtiti in his position alongside Gerard Pique.

Per Sport, Barcelona’s coach said of Samper: "We will monitor his progress. We have the option to keep him with us, and also of allowing him to join another first division club on loan to get playing time."

Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press

Kaptoum is, in all honesty, likely to stay at the club and be a key part of Barcelona B’s efforts to return to Segunda A, but it would be hugely beneficial for him to get time playing in important matches in Spain’s top flight.

Capdevila told Bleacher Report, regarding the Cameroonian 20-year-old: "He has great vision on the pitch and is good at dribbling and excellent at arriving in the box.

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

"[However] Kaptoum is not excellent defensively; that needs to be worked on. He's always thinking about the attack, rather than having a defensive mind."

Moving to a side that will battle relegation this season in La Liga would be a fine way to force him to think about the defensive aspects of the game.

Finally, the third player who should leave on loan to get more matches and keep developing is Munir El Haddadi. A problem is that currently he is the only back-up for Luis Suarez that Barcelona have.

The young striker played on occasion last season with reasonable levels of success but overall isn’t of the calibre required to lead the line for a string of games.

Lionel Messi could move inside from the right and play as a false nine if Suarez was unavailable, with Rafinha or Denis Suarez filling in out wide, but changing the whole system is far from ideal.

Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

So if Barcelona can sign a forward, then Munir will be freed to go out on loan. He has shown potential, but only a stretch of starts and 90-minute performances will enable him to find his best form and allow Barcelona to truly evaluate his potential.

For a while Munir was battling with Sandro Ramirez to be the first reserve for the MSN, but his competitor left for Malaga.

The temptation for him will be to stay and be ready to capitalise on an injury in the front line, but Barcelona's now-heavy midfield may see Luis Enrique pick someone like Turan to join the attack ahead of Munir.

It may prove that he isn’t loaned out but sold instead, although with the type of deal that the Blaugrana like constructing these days, they are not too different.

Shizuo Kambayashi/Associated Press

Halilovic was recently sold to Hamburg for just €5 million, but he has a buy-back clause that will allow Barcelona to obtain him once again within the next two years for €10m.

Giving the Croatian the chance to imagine his future at a different club, even if his aim is to play for Barcelona, will allow him to play with more freedom and feel a part of Hamburg’s team, instead of just a temporary addition.

Because Munir has played several games for the Barcelona first team, he would also fetch a decent fee should the club decide to sell him, which would make this an even more attractive option.

But regardless of the method, it would be good for Munir, as well as Samper and Kaptoum, to play more games of more importance than they currently are able to.