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This article is part of Football FanCast’s Off the Bench series, which places in-game managerial decisions and squad selections under FFC’s microscope.
Barcelona fell to a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Granada at the weekend and Ernesto Valverde’s decision to bench Arthur Melo might have been his biggest blunder of the game.
On the chalkboard
Barcelona opted to go for a rather mixed lineup for the encounter. The main area of experimentation, indeed, was the middle of the park.
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The trio of Sergio Busquets, Frenkie de Jong and Arthur Melo, that started the game against Borussia Dortmund, was completely dismantled and turned into an Ivan Rakitic, Sergi Roberto and De Jong trident instead.
It’s safe to say that Valverde’s little project failed and the team suffered the consequences.
Granada ran away with the game, scoring twice and leaving Barcelona with just a single shot on target throughout the 90 minutes.
And after his mammoth performance in the clash with Dortmund – he registered 106 touches, one key pass and a 91.7% passing accuracy – Melo’s omission from the lineup is the biggest mystery of them all.
Unrightfully benched
The 23-year-old Brazilian joined Barca with an initial €31m (£27.4m) price tag and the Blaugrana have been getting their money’s worth so far.
Melo was one of the top performers in the clash in Germany mid-week despite a rather poor overall showing for the team.
With such a display under his belt and throughout the season, the decision to suddenly leave him out was a rather strange one.
Whether he actually could’ve saved the game for Barca, we’ll never know but taking into account the impact he managed to muster against Dortmund in front of the Yellow Wall, it’s fairly safe to assume that his skill-set was required on the night.
Quite simply, the Brazilian must be restored to the starting XI as quickly as possible if Barca want to get back to winning ways.
