Barcelona lack character and resolve as Granada defeat puts Ernesto Valverde at risk as crisis deepens

The Blaugrana are now four points off top spot and eternal rivals Real Madrid after falling 2-0 to their newly-promoted opponents

Lionel Messi was unable to inspire Barcelona against Granada (Getty)

Barcelona’s 2019/20 campaign, and Ernesto Valverde’s future prospects as blaugrana coach, took a big turn for the worse at Granada on Saturday evening.

Within the opening minute new Barca left-back Junior Firpo twice slipped over and Gerard Pique was then unable to stop Nigerian midfielder Ramon Azeez putting Granada ahead.

Normally it is dangerous to score so early against one of La Liga’s big two, but strange things are happening this season. Valverde’s unrecognisable side never recovered from the early blow, and were full value for the 0-2 defeat which means the Catalan club’s worst start after five La Liga games since 1994/95.

Barca were bad everywhere – defence, midfield and attack. Junior had a nightmare debut – with his low confidence appearing at least in part due to Valverde having not trusted him at all until first-choice Jordi Alba got injured midweek. But the team have been leaking goals all season – their nine conceded so far is the joint-worst of all 20 Primera Division teams.

Midfield has been an even bigger mess, something which borders on unforgivable for blaugrana purists. Valverde again rotated his central three on Saturday – and while Frenkie De Jong impressed in the deepest role, both Ivan Rakitic and Sergi Roberto looked exactly like players who had not been regularly involved so far this season. Up front Luis Suarez was completely swamped by the home defence, while Antoine Griezmann again struggled to get involved from the wing.

Valverde tried to shake things up by sending on Lionel Messi and 16-year-old Ansu Fati at the break, but Granada still looked incredibly comfortable. Arturo Vidal entered as a third substitute on the hour mark, and almost immediately his silly handball brought a penalty converted by Alvaro Vadillo for the killer 2-0.

At that stage Barca had not even managed one shot on target. As usual everyone looked to Messi to perform a miracle, but he is clearly still not 100 per cent over the calf injury which disrupted his pre-season. The blaugrana talisman drew one decent save from Granada keeper Rui Silva in the 83rd minute, but created little else in a performance in keeping with how Valverde’s side generally have begun the new campaign.

“It is a defeat with hurts, it is worrying, and we have to be self critical,” said Suarez on Movistar TV afterwards. “We’ve got a long and difficult season ahead of us.”

Barca’s only two wins so far this season have been at the Camp Nou, where they have scored five on both occasions against overwhelmed opponents Real Betis and Valencia. Away from home they have one point from games at Athletic Bilbao and two newly-promoted clubs Osasuna and Granada. Add their results at the end of last season, including the Champions League semi-final second leg collapse at Liverpool, and it is seven away games without a victory for the first time since 2001.

That points to a lack of character and resolve in the team – something which is usually blamed on the manager. “You always feel responsible for what happens,” Valverde said at the post-game news conference. “The players are the actors on the pitch, but at the end of the day, it’s the coach who is responsible. You can lose a game, but when you lose, you need to do so deserving more. That wasn’t the case today. But credit to Granada. They were intense. They made it uncomfortable for us.”

Messi was unable to inspire Barcelona (Getty)

Saturday evening was also uncomfortable for Barca’s board, who made a surprise decision to back Valverde last summer even when the Anfield disaster was followed by a shock Copa del Rey final defeat to Valencia. The story then was that senior dressing room figures [ie Messi] were happy for him to stay, and confident that this season the team could again retain the La Liga title and also regain the Champions League for the first time in five years.

As always at Barca, Messi’s situation is the most critical. A calf injury interrupted his pre-season and saw him miss the first four La Liga games. So the club captain’s biggest contribution so far has been an interview with Catalan daily Sport, where he publicly voiced disappointment that Neymar had not returned from Paris Saint-Germain last summer. Speaking just after it had leaked out that his current contract allows him to leave next summer if he chooses to, the 32-year-old said he was fully committed to the Barca cause but then added how important it was to “see that we have a winning project.”

Suarez looks on as Granada shock Barcelona (Getty)

On that point, new accounts released last week trumpeted Barca’s record revenues of €990 million for 2018/19, and projected that next season they would become the first sports club ever to pass the €1 billion turnover barrier. However, a deeper look at the numbers showed just why Neymar’s return last summer was never really financially feasible. And suggested that far from being able to add to the squad in January, they must sell players to balance the books.

Meaning the only big short-term change possible is on the bench. Sunday morning unsurprisingly brought briefings from inside the Camp Nou claiming that a number of unnamed players have ‘begun to lose confidence’ in Valverde. More than a sign of dressing room unrest, it seemed the notoriously leaky blaugrana board were making sure fans and pundits knew who to blame for the bad start to the season.

Unlike Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, Barca’s hierarchy do not like to sack their managers. The last blaugrana coach turfed out mid-season was Louis Van Gaal, all the way back in 2003, when Joan Gaspart was still president. The policy since then has been against snap decisions, with even a clearly out of his depth Tata Martino allowed to finish the 2013/14 campaign.

Granada applaud their fans after downing Barcelona (EPA)

Current president Josep Bartomeu does have form in taking hasty decisions, with the firing of sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta in January 2015. One reading of blaugrana history has that brave call as a catalyst for that season’s ‘Messi, Suarez, Neymar’ side winning the treble. Although another has Zubizarreta as the architect of the team’s last Champions League-winning squad, and points to erratic transfer decisions as the main reason for their European failures ever since.

Europe remains the main focus for 2019/20. While Barca’s performance was not good in their UCL opener at Dortmund midweek, the 0-0 result was very useful in the immediate objective of getting through a potentially difficult group, which also includes Antonio Conte’s very dangerous-looking Inter Milan.

An insight into the thinking within the ‘entorno’ around the Camp Nou came on Spain’s El Transistor radio show Saturday night, when Sport editor Ernest Folch pointed out that “Despite everything, Real Madrid are in an even worse state than Barca.”

Benzema scores the winner for Real Madrid in Seville (Getty)

Los Blancos’ stubborn 1-0 victory at Sevilla on Sunday evening to move level on points with surprise leaders Athletic Bilbao was a blow for that perspective. Barca are now down in eighth position, four points off the top, and that is a situation which cannot be allowed to continue.

The tight top of the La Liga table, with four teams a point behind Athletic and Madrid, means that nothing has yet been decided. Barca have been lucky in that their really poor start has not yet cost them. But Valverde needs results and performances to pick up immediately, starting at home to an in-form Villarreal team on Tuesday night at the Camp Nou.