FC Barcelona: 3 reasons why Ernesto Valverde should be sacked by Barca

#2 Player treatment bias

Plays in spite of being out of form

The thing with Valverde is that if you're in his good book he will play you no matter how bad you play, but if you rub him the wrong way there is almost no going back.

Take for example Ivan Rakitic. No doubt he has been a great player since his arrival from Sevilla, and he played a key role as Barcelona won the second treble under Luis Enrique. But a lot has changed since then.

Rakitic is thirty now, and signs of ageing are clearly visible on the field. He's capable of scoring screamers no doubt, but the team needs someone to control the midfield even more than the goals he gets.

A perennial side-pass merchant, Rakitic now slows down play, and kills counter attacks with his lack of pace and safety first approach. The likes of Alena and Denis see their game time reduced to few minute cameos as Valverde insists on playing him every match he is available.

On the flip side, the story of Malcolm is just unfortunate. Having signed him after hijacking Roma's move for him, the player was on cloud nine having gotten the move to his dream club, but what followed has turned this into a nightmare.

Valverde for some reason seemingly hates Malcolm. For some reason, after the match against Valladolid, Valverde started dropping Malcolm from the matchday squads. For close to ten matches this season, Malcolm has not even made it into the squad, and when he does, he gets a few minutes here and there where he is supposed to impress the boss enough to get more game time.

His treatment at the club has been so bad that when he scored his first goal for the club, he broke down, instead of celebrating his goal.

Players need to treated well if they're expected to perform on the field. The club has invested a lot into the current crop of players, and this kind of player management is going to have an adverse effect on the players as well as results of the side.