Mendieta: Barca should have sacked Koeman earlier

Gaizka Mendieta believes Barcelona should have sacked Ronald Koeman earlier to prevent “negative dynamics” from developing at Camp Nou.

Barca parted company with Koeman on Wednesday following a 1-0 LaLiga defeat to Rayo Vallecano, on the back of a home Clasico loss against Real Madrid.

Koeman replaced Quique Setien in August 2020 but has failed to make an impact as he battled with Barca’s dire financial situation, which led to Lionel Messi departing for Paris Saint-Germain.

The Blaugrana were ninth in the table ahead of a clash with Alaves on Saturday and have lost two of their three Champions League Group E matches.

Sergi Barjuan has stepped in as caretaker head coach and club legend Xavi is expected to be named as Koeman’s successor on a permanent basis.

Former Spain midfielder Mendieta thinks the writing was on the wall for Koeman long ago and feels president Joan Laporta would have fired the former Netherlands defender sooner if the club were not so short of funds.

“I think finances are only of the reasons [why he was not sacked earlier]. Although, like we see now, if it has to come to that they will do anyway,” he told Stats Perform.

“So the question is, why they didn’t do it earlier? Because Laporta said he was not the man that he wanted for his project, he couldn’t find anyone else so he stayed.

“That already started some negative dynamics in the club and in the team. So why don’t do it in the first place I think financially was one of the big reasons for them not to do it.

“And then again, you start to generate some sort of bad atmosphere within the team, the club and the fans which is no good for anyone.”

Mendieta has sympathy for Koeman given the off-field issues he had to contend with.

He added: “When you plan having a season as a manager with Messi on the team, and Messi leaves days before they start the season, then publicly the president or the board says that Koeman is not the manager they would like to have, but because they haven’t got any option he stays.

“Then we see these three pillars of the club having different conversations like the board, the managers and the players in kind of everyone trying to save in a way themselves, which is not good for our team, for our club, in any situation.

“And then resources don’t arrive, players injured. So there’s a lot of ingredients in this kind of difficult situation. However, I still think there’s a lot of potential in the team. There have been other players, key players, injured, and they’re slowly coming back, hopefully, but they will need time.

“So it’s a matter of time of where resources arrive and there’s some sort of consistency in the results and the points, because at the moment they win one game, they look like they are in recovery, then they lose the next one, and crisis again.”