5 reasons why Barcelona should not sack Ronald Koeman
Not so long ago, it looked like Barcelona were well placed to go ahead and win the La Liga title as Ronald Koeman guided the team through a resurgent spell. The jury is out on whether Koeman is the right person to take Barcelona forward but there are suggestions that the board is already looking for replacements.
While Barcelona's form in recent weeks has seen them capitulate and relinquish their chances of winning the La Liga title, showing Ronald Koeman the exit door for that reason would be quite a hasty move.
The Dutch manager was tasked with improving or at least maintaining the levels of a team that was going through one of its toughest phases in history. Koeman has largely succeeded at doing so and here, we take a look at five reasons why Barcelona should not sack him.
#5 Sacking Ronald Koeman will lead to more instability
Barcelona have not had any stability at the top in recent times. Ernesto Valverde was sacked despite winning two back-to-back La Liga titles. His successor Quique Setien proved to not be good enough to be at the helm for long.
In addition to that, Josep Maria Bartomeu was still club president. It has been a turbulent couple of years for the Catalans and sacking Ronald Koeman right now will lead to yet another period of instability.
Barcelona can do without another shake-up right now. Also, it is not a good cycle to repeat. Clubs that buy into the sacking culture end up putting extra pressure on managers and short-term results are becoming far more important than they should be. That is certainly not what Barcelona want for themselves.
#4 Young players have broken through at Barcelona under Ronald Koeman
One of the main criticisms that has been aired against Koeman is that Riqui Puig seems to have become a non-entity at the club. But otherwise, the Barcelona manager has done well with the youngsters at the club.
Pedri has become a regular feature in the starting XI and he is only 18-years-old. Ansu Fati enjoyed a stellar start to life at Camp Nou before being sidelined with a bad knee injury. In the absence of Gerard Pique and Samuel Umtiti, Ronald Araujo and Oscar Mingueza have stepped up and delivered and have shown a lot of promise.
20-year-old right-back Sergino Dest has played well and has been used across multiple positions including defensive midfield and the left flank. Ousmane Dembele has enjoyed arguably his best season since joining Barcelona.
Ilaix Moriba has impressed in the short time that he has featured since breaking onto the scene. All of this goes to show that there is a renewed focus on developing young players at the club and it has come at a crucial time given how Barcelona's main players have all crossed over to their 30s.