Rijkaard-Dinho’s Days Numbered?

When a team is strug­gling performance-wise, there are var­i­ous guilty cul­prits. In the end, the one that has to take the brunt of the blame and could be even­tu­ally be the fall guy come the end of the first semes­ter of La Liga.

Barcelona’s lack of con­sis­tency in the domes­tic tour­na­ment led to pres­i­dent Joan Laporta to come out and say that his team’ s prob­lems are of an the ¨tech­ni­cal¨ ilk. Accord­ing to some sources, indi­vid­u­als wthin the Cata­lan club are already look­ing for a replace­ment for Rijkaard. Names like Marco Van Bas­ten, Fabio Capello, Javier Clemente, and of course their beloved ¨trans­la­tor¨ José Mour­inho.

…Our stars are the ones that need to lead by exam­ple on the pitch. I am not talk­ing about phys­i­cally, I am talk­ing about men­tally. When we lose balls, not every­one works the same. On the road, there are play­ers per­form­ing below their at a sub­par rate.

Rijkaard held meet­ings with three indi­vid­u­als– Laporta, Beguiris­tain, and cap­tain Car­les Puyol and it is obvi­ous that there is an ever-growing rift in the club. His com­ments and the meet­ings directed pointed at none other than Ronald­inho, whose per­for­mance this sea­son and com­mit­ment has been spotty at best for the blau­grana, espe­cially on the road.

Ronald­inho, who was at the epi­cen­ter of var­i­ous trans­fer rumors for the past few months, left right after Saturday’s loss to Getafe to join the Brazil­ian national team for World Cup qual­i­fiers. In Rijkaard’s meet­ing with Puyol, accord­ing to sources, the cap­tain pointed the fin­ger directly at the for­ward for not putting his two cents in like evry one else has dur­ing this ¨crisis¨.

So is there a solu­tion? For Rijkaard, yes? One of the solu­tions is to take Ronald­inho out of the start­ing lineup and make room for play­ers like Andrés Ini­esta and Deco as well as young­ster Gio­vani Dos San­tos and Boran Krkic and atti­tude to the pitch play.

Will he be given the time to imple­ment these changes? Yes. They bet­ter work, espe­cially by the time Decem­ber 23rd rolls around. Real Madrid won’t be as forgiving.