So with Barcelona now being out of the competition, who do we think will step forward and claim the CL crown? Do you think anyone will ever manage to successfully defend the CL? And did anyone notice during last night's game, Diego Godin's horrible attempt to dislocate Suarez's elbow with his eye socket?
Managers we could have maybe gotten but missed out on in the last few years due to Wenger sticking around: January '13 - Emery Summer '13 - Blanc Summer '14 - Conte Summer '14 - Allegri Summer '15 - Ancelotti Summer '15 - Klopp Summer '16 - Guardiola Summer '16 - Conte Quotes of 'who's available of the right quality?' and 'it takes long planning to replace a manager' are just excusing the cowardly and poor running of the club when sticking with Wenger. There are managers available frequently. And that's just a list of real quality. Wenger is not even close to that bracket anymore. Managers like Bilic (so far), Pochettino, Simeone and Wenger 20 years ago when he joined us show that you don't need to be a big or well known name to make a club perform very well indeed.
How have you guys managed to get on to talking about Wenger in a thread titled 'Barcelona'? Lol. Anyway, bored of the Frenchmen, so please do not ruin this thread as well. As for the op, if Pep's Barca or a Barca with their current front three can't retain the CL, then nope, I honestly can't see a team coming up in the near future that can retain this trophy, and for some clubs, it would just be nice to win it the one time.
Eh?? But seriously no need to bring up Wenger in every thread, ruins the entire board, there is more to football or even Arsenal than Wenger.
I'm with Sanj, I think the only team with the level to do win back to back CL's is Barca and considering the team they have and have had and that they haven't done it then I can't see anyone doing it for quite awhile. It's going to take quite an improvement from any of the teams to get close to back to back wins in the next few years!
it is very interesting how barca have dropped of a bit since the unbeaten run came to an end, very similar to us in 2004, once we lost at old trafford we just never looked the same, be interesting to see how barca end the season in the league.
They were flat as f*ck last night and I took delight in every whingy attempt to win a foul that didn't go their way. All credit to Athletico beating those bells.
They have gone flat for a reason and it is probably stuff going on in the dressing room that we don't get to hear about - at least not for a while. It doesn't take much to cause a mod behind the scenes, just look at how Chelski collapsed as soon as Maureen demoted the players favourite nurse.
Barca is on free fall. Atletico my pick for CL & La Liga double. But could be like couple of years ago - La Liga & CL split between Madrid clubs.
Na Champions League is Bayerns for sure. This Barca collapse is incredible, really they were 11 points clear at the top back in February.
Barcelona actually played well against atletico unlike their 4 previous matches,created hordes of chances but did not put them away,they could still just win all the remaining games and be champions,if they can get a win the next game,they will just go on a run and seal it i guess. Edit:Sorry not against atletico but Valencia.
Bizarre how they've lost so many points, with their front three. Even one of those guys should be able to provide enough firepower up front, to grind out results. I guess they don't like grinding out results....
