Spanish La Liga: 2021 summer transfer window and the lessons within

The Antoine Griezmann story will forever taint Barcelona's business decisions but there's more to their downfall than their rising debt profile. (Photo credit: Marca)

The La Liga season is up and running and for once in close to two decades, none of Sergio Ramos and Lionel Messi would be a play a part in La Liga, unprecedented, astonishing yet bewildering – A tale of poor communication and shameful management.

The transfer window has ended at least for the summer and we know who ended up where.

It is a trying time for everyone at Barcelona as you will never find a club more poorly run than the Catalan giant with disturbing decisions here and there.

Barcelona paid through their noses to sign Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid, they swapped Arthur with Miralem Pjanic and even paid money to Juventus for the deal, inserted impossible release clauses on players’ contracts and also handed ridiculous wages which bloated their debt profile… it goes on and on.

Away a bit to Real Madrid, the capital club eased Sergio Ramos out of their system but the acquisition of David Alaba from Bayern Munich on a free doesn’t speak of the future.

The Austrian utility player is on the wrong side of 30 by age and ideally doesn’t have more than 3 years at the top on the average;

The options available to Carlo Ancelotti in defence isn’t as luxurious as he left it the last time he was around.

Raphael Varane has been sold to Manchester United and Pepe left a long while ago, Marcelo is ageing and how much trust can you place in the kids around?

Real Madrid announced the signing of Eduardo Camavinga on the final day of transfers, he was the major signing of the summer for the Los Blancos and the ill-fated craze for Kylian Mbappe left much to be desired considering the fact that the player would be free next summer.

Atletico Madrid are the team to beat at the moment, fantastic businesses they did in the just concluded window, adding depth at the right places yet poaching top talents from their direct rivals.

There’s so much depth in the Atletico midfield that they can afford to loan Saul Niguez to Chelsea without flinching.

Matheus Cunha joined after an impressive run at the summer Olympics, Rodrigo De Paul joined from Udinese and as mentioned earlier, a return for Griezmann on loan with an option to buy for €40m, what a steal and that leads us back to Barcelona.

Could Barcelona have sold Messi last summer when he asked to leave, thereby saving themselves the burden of his wages and make €600m+ from the sale?

They lost him for free and even needed players like Sergio Bousquet, Jordi Alba and Gerard Pique to take pay cuts for them to be able to register new signings.

It's so bad at Barcelona that they will need more than Harvard Business graduates to reverse the financial rot at the club, players like Samuel Umtiti will have to be discarded on a free as he has become a massive liability to the club.

La Liga governing body was rumoured to stand behind Real Madrid’s bid for Mbappe, after losing Messi to the French League, it’s important to have another big figure in town, it didn’t work out in the end as PSG refused to blink.

The La Liga title will most likely stay at Atletico as things stand, Real Madrid will blow hot and cold throughout the season and Barcelona’s off-field issues will soon catch up with their on-field showings, for Sevilla, it will be more of what they came up with last season.