Sergi Roberto is a perfectly good Barcelona player. That’s pretty much what you think when you see him play. He isn’t a rare and gifted talent like Lionel Messi or the now-departed Neymar, but he has continued to improve and made great inroads into establishing himself as a regular fixture in the first-team under Luis Enrique. Lucho shifted Roberto from midfield to the right side of defence and the results it produced were extremely encouraging.
However, the wind of change at the Camp Nou this summer has not been kind to Roberto. Enrique is gone and his replacement, Ernesto Valverde, has signed Nelson Semedo from Benfica as the team’s new first-choice right-back. Where the 25-year-old stands now is unclear, which goes some way in explaining why Manchester United have this week been linked with a move.
From a United perspective, the pursuit makes sense. Yes, Jose Mourinho has a definitive first-choice in Roberto’s position in the muscular shape of Antonio Valencia but, at 32, it’s reasonable for his manager to be shopping for long-term replacements. Roberto has shown enough evidence to suggest that his trajectory is on an upward curve, which makes an attractive proposition for the Premier League club.
Signing a player of Roberto’s versatility and craft may well be the final piece in the puzzle Mourinho has been seeking. For a long time, it looked as though that United’s fourth – and probably final – acquisition this summer would be Inter Milan’s Ivan Perisic, but recent comments from Mourinho indicate that any potential deal is dead in the water.
Given the Croatian’s natural ability as a winger, that came as a blow to supporters, but Roberto would be an excellent alternative – and for a similar price. In 26 La Liga appearances last season, Roberto notched six assists and averaged 1.1 key passes per game, highlighting his influence as a creative outlet at Barca.
Roberto’s admirable trait is that he has taken his natural creative guile and craft, honed from starting his career as an attack-minded midfielder, and combined it with a heightened perception of how to play the game from a wide area.
There is a YouTube video of him which portrays a willingness to get the ball and drive forward, either down the flank or through the middle (yes, they’re obviously edited highlight reels designed to paint an immaculate portrait of the player, but the talent is clearly there). And, of course, there was that unforgettably swashbuckling dash across the length of the pitch in April’s El Clasico, leading to Messi’s last-gasp winner.
He produced a last-gasp winner of his own, too, scoring in the 95th-minute to complete one of the great comebacks against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. He certainly doesn’t shy away from the big occasion.
Tellingly, a lot of the clips end with Roberto finding Messi, Neymar or Suarez. That is perhaps key to United’s purported interest in him. Although Mourinho has an eclectic range of attacking talents, ranging from the pace of Marcus Rashford to the jinking creativity of Juan Mata, but poor decision-making and a lack of cutting edge in the final third has plagued the Portuguese’s tenure at Old Trafford thus far.
The manager addressed last season’s major issue of failing to put the ball in the back of the net by signing Romelu Lukaku (who, unsurprisingly, put the ball in the back of the net against Real Madrid on Tuesday evening), but it’s understandable that he would want to find a player with the instinct and imagination from which the Belgian striker could really profit.
Of course, Valencia is not for giving up his spot in Mourinho’s starting line-up but, if Roberto were to arrive, it would create an interesting battle for that position with the Spain international’s Barca-schooled ideas certainly of great value. The Super Cup defeat was by no means catastrophic for United, performance or result, but Valencia – captaining the side with Michael Carrick on the bench –acquitted himself admirably and continued to be one of United’s more reliable attacking threats.
United are not grasping at draws when it comes to the transfer market at this stage, but it would be an exciting injection of fresh ideas and enterprise if they were to sign Roberto, a perfectly good Barcelona player who could become a great Manchester United player.
