Barcelona plan to axe manager Quique Setien on Monday
Barcelona will end the season without a trophy after finishing second in La Liga, were eliminated from the Copa del Ray in the last eight and bowed out of the Champions League.
Quique Setien’s days as Barcelona manager are numbered according to Camp Nou insiders.
The coach has overseen a disappointing season and to add insult to injury saw his team humiliated 8-2 by Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals. The worst defeat for the club in recent history.
Setien on the Barcelona chopping block
Barcelona will end the season without a trophy after finishing second in La Liga, were eliminated from the Copa del Ray in the last eight and bowed out of the Champions League.
Setien took charge of the team in January after Barca parted ways with Ernesto Valverde and initially helped Blaugrana return to the summit of La Liga by the time the coronavirus forced a suspension of the season. After the resumption of the season Barca couldn’t find their best form, and their title race ended with one match to spare.
The 8-2 defeat has made Setien’s position with the Barcelonistas untenable, with the players taking an absolute pasting for their spectacular capitulation and decidedly flat performance.
Such was the all-encompassing malaise that the manager would have to expect to be on the chopping block.
Spanish football media have reported that Setien has been summoned by Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, with a decision already made before the evisceration in Lisbon.
Bartomeu stopped short of announcing Setien’s axing immediately after the Champions League but intimated that the trainer’s fate was already sealed before the humiliation.
“I prefer not to say anything about the coach,” Bartomeu told Movistar+.
“Many decisions were already made before playing the Champions League, but today is not the day.”
Barcelona’s designated ‘third captain’ Gerard Pique called for sweeping changes to the structure of the club after the defeat to Bayern.
“We feel devastated, although shame is the real word I’m looking for. We cannot afford to compete like this because it’s not the first, the second or the third time that something like this has happened,” he told reporters in quotes carried by Reuters.
“This is very painful but I hope it serves some purpose… We all need to reflect deeply, the club needs lots of changes, I’m not talking about the coach, players – I don’t want to point the finger at anyone but the club needs changes on a structural level.
“If new blood needs to come for the club to change course then I’m not untouchable and I’ll be the first to leave if needs be, because it seems as if we’ve hit rock bottom.
“We all have to reflect about what is the best thing for the club and for Barca.”