Signings are not enough, excitement is needed

The cycle of football is not that different to the cycle of life. Each new season, after success and disappointment, there is renewed hope. Ernesto Valverde has now began to work and he is the symbol of a Barcelona looking for new motivation. But to think that a new manager is enough to convince the socios of a return to success would be more than naive, it would be reckless. Because Valverde has found in his first few days at work a transfer market which Barça cannot, for now, find the key to open. The sensation that it is blocked is more suffocating all the time. Marco Verratti is, af of today, a long way away. Hector Bellerin looks unattainable. And even a secondary signing, such as Paulinho, a player in the Chinese league, has not materialised at the expected pace. Gerard Deulofeu and Sergi Samper are back, true, but who knows for how long they will stay and if they will be sold on in the future. 

It's not just incomings, though, and the collapsing sensation is the same with outgoings, where only Jeremy Mathieu and Cristian Tello have left so far. However, the club still hope to raise funds to invest on players. The question is that the difficulties the club are having in making signings are a reflection of the difficulties they're having generating excitement. Because it's evident that eventually they will unblock the market and make new signings, but signing players is no longer enough. The club, in addition, have to make the fans dream, to give them hope ahead of a season full of difficult challenges. Barça fans demand the return of competitiveness, of energy and of joy in a squad that in the last two years has failed in the Champions League and shown they need a shakeup. For now, the market resists and the 'tic-toc' of the clock is beginning. And it's not just about making signings, but signing well. Signings are not necessarily synonymous with excitement.