Do Barcelona need a pure all out striker?

Let’s get something straight, Barcelona’s scoring ability is unquestionable. The Catalan club have the best striker at the moment in Lionel Messi, and from August, the club will be able to count on goals from a certain Neymar. So, in the scoring department there seems to be no problems in this regard at Barca.

However, last season, in a number of games, Tito Vilanova’s team were missing a true number 9 – something that can be seen in other European clubs in the form of Dzeko, Balotelli, Van Persie, Mandzukic and Lewandowski et al. This is something that doesn’t exist at Barca ever since the departure of Ibrahimovic because David Villa was almost never used as a pure number 9, a striker, neither under Guardiola nor Tito.

We could say that the club has five forwards for the upcoming season: Messi, Neymar, Pedro, Alexis and Tello. Barca could even add the name of Cesc to the list, who acts as an offensive player from time to time. Barca could even have added Deulofeu if they hadn’t loaned him out to Everton.

The big problem, at least so far with Barca, is that the absence of this true number 9 has accentuated the cry of ‘Messi dependency’ in the team as was seen in the Champions League against both PSG and Bayern. Neymar would almost certainly alleviate some of this issue, but even the young Brazilian is far from being a true striker, as he has demonstrated with both Santos and Brazil.

Barca is balancing their accounts after saving money with Villa’s high wage bill and also hopes to cash in on the likely transfer of Thiago. FC Barcelona are also focusing their efforts on finding a central defender and at the moment, considering the names that the club has on its list, they are not cheap.

Now, after the departure of Villa, one wonders if the Catalan club will finally look to end their drought of pure strikers or continue to rely on the proven scoring ability of Messi and company. Anyhow, it seems pretty obvious and clear that the shadow cast by Samuel Eto’o, the last real striker that triumphed at Barcelona, is still very long indeed.