Things had been going reasonably well for Barcelona during the current transfer window.
Despite being over a billion euros in debt, some financial wizardry allowed the club to sign Ferran Torres and register Dani Alves, as well as promoting a number of young Barca B players into the first-team.
Joan Laporta and his board were, and are, well on the way to lifting the club out of the huge mess that they found themselves in after the horrendous mismanagement of the previous regime.
There hadn’t really been a bad decision made by the current board… until now.
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Barca’s apparent loan deal for former player, Adama Traore, as reported by The Guardian, is a strange one indeed, and means that Tottenham have certainly dodged a bullet in this window.
The oiled-up, rapid wide men has pace to burn and that’s really about it.
His scoring and assist stats are abysmal for a Premier League player, and although he was much younger when he left Barcelona, Traore managed only four first-team appearances before being sold.
What seems to be a need to get the band back together, and recreate the Guardiola years, or as near as possible to them, is surely going to hinder more than help Xavi Hernandez.
The other thing to consider of course is that do Barca even need Traore?
Registering Alves as a right-wing back has covered all bases down that channel until the end of the campaign, so a loan for the same period for Traore doesn’t appear to make too much sense.