Who will be the next Barcelona manager?

Luis Enrique announces he will leave Barcelona at end of season

• Manager confirms departure after 6-1 win over Sporting Gijón
• ‘I won’t be at Barcelona next season. I need to rest’

So, who is getting the job?

WillHill odds:

Next permanent Barcelona manager: 11/4 Jorge Sampaoli, 5/1 Ronald Koeman, 8/1 Mauricio Pochettino, 9/1 Ernesto Valderde, 11/1 Oscar Garcia.

Expecting Jorge Sampaoli, he's got Sevilla competing with the two big sides in Spain, he plays an exciting brand of football and supposedly has Lionel Messi's support which has got to help.


It would be interesting if Pochettino would give up the Tottenham job for Barcelona. Logic says that he would as it's a much bigger job with much better players, but he is building a team at Tottenham in his own image and that has also got to be tempting.

Can't see them going after Koeman, but if they do, I expect he would jump at the chance to manage Barca. 

Convenient excuse from Enrique, it has to be one of the easiest jobs in football.

Brendo Rogers

Wins for fun

Hammersmith harrier wrote:Convenient excuse from Enrique, it has to be one of the easiest jobs in football.

Total rubbish.

They have fantastic players and structure and lots of money, but the amount of pressure is pretty much only comparable to Real Madrid at this stage. This is now the second manager in ten years who have had to quit because they needed a break after the Barcelona job. When you have to be the best team in the world every year that is a ridiculous level of pressure and responsibility put on the manager's shoulders, whether they have brilliant players or not, because the other teams have brilliant players to! 

When it's considered a disappointment that you don't win the Champions League every year, that's a level of scrutiny on a job that would be hard for any manager to take. 

I suspect it'll be a long time before we ever see a really long-term manager in charge of Barcelona, even Guardiola who was perfectly suited to Barcelona and someone who generally looks pretty calm under pressure couldn't take it.

Also apart from the front 3 a lot going to need a rebuild sooner then later. Iniesta near the end at 32. Pique & Mascherano in their 30's so need a couple CB's in the next few years still haven't found a good successor to Dani Alves & 2 midfielders to accompany Busquets. Even the goalkeepers are fairly meh

Even Messi and Suarez aren't going to last forever. I think Suarez should be okay as he's super fit, I don't think he missed a single game with an injury at Liverpool and he doesn't rely on pace but already Messi has started to break down a lot more often. 

Neymar will be the player they build around, but I don't think there are any really great prospects in La Masia right now so it might need heavy investment.

Sorry but I simply don't agree, the success that Enrique has had shows how easy the job is and lets be honest Guardiola has shown himself to be anything but calm this season, he's a petulant child who expects the football world to conform to him.

Obviously been pushed, but he probably knows that the golden generation is on it's last legs anyway, or heading in that direction.

Enrique, in two and half years, has two La Liga's, two Copa Del Rey, one Spanish Super Cup, One Champions League & a World Club cup. By the time he leaves, he would of added another Copa Del Rey vs Alaves & they are still top of the league, so could complete a hattrick of league titles.

Barcelona provides a platform to build impressive CV's in short periods.

IMO it will be Wenger..out of contract at Arsenal, his last managerial job maybe?

People say that Wenger should have been sacked sometime ago because he no longer has Arsenal challenging for the Premiership title and he hasn't made much of an impact at European level. He also has a poor record against the very top managers and teams.

But what about Wenger himself - is he satisfied at Arsenal? He seems to be the paragon of consistency but consistently "failing" in terms of premiership title challenging and winning as well as at European Champions League level consistently failing at the last 16 or last 8 stage. But he consistently finishes in the top four and consistently gets out of the group stages in the Champions League. It seems that Arsene Wenger is stagnating, and has been stagnating for some time. Doesn't Arsene Wenger have any hunger to manage a top European side like Barcelona? But maybe Wenger is "past it", maybe there is a younger generation of managers that have now surpassed him for managerial hunger and ability.

wisden wrote:IMO it will be Wenger..out of contract at Arsenal, his last managerial job maybe?

This wouldn't surprise me at all. He would be a decent stop gap if they couldn't get any of the younger big name managers like Simone to join them.