Amid speculation of growing tension at Barcelona, it’s claimed that a string of first-team stars want one of their teammates to be axed.
As noted by Sport, summer signing Arturo Vidal has been attracting unwanted attention with his social media activity as he has struggled to establish himself as a regular in coach Ernesto Valverde’s starting line-up so far this season.
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In turn, he’s now publicly admitted his frustration over the situation, as per Football365, which is unlikely to go down well with his teammates or Valverde.
The 31-year-old has made nine appearances in total so far this season, although he came on late against both PSV and Tottenham in the Champions League, totalling just eight minutes, while he’s been left on the bench in two of the last three La Liga games.
As a result, it’s easy to see why he would be frustrated as he’ll be desperate to play a more prominent role, but he could perhaps have gone about expressing that emotion in a better way.
According to Don Balon, it has led to issues with his Barcelona teammates as it’s even claimed that Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique, Philippe Coutinho and Luis Suarez all have reservations over him not fitting in with the culture at the club and it’s added that they want him out.
Given he was seen as a key addition following the departure of Paulinho this past summer in order to bolster the Barca midfield, it hasn’t seemingly worked out as planned thus far.
Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that the reigning La Liga champions will play a lot of games this season and as the campaign progresses, Valverde will have no option but to rotate and give everyone playing time and that could see Vidal land a more prominent role.
For now though, it’s claimed that his actions and attitude off the pitch in expressing his feelings aren’t going down well with the senior stalwarts in the Barcelona squad.