Barcelona's Struggles: Pedri Under Fire After Defeats

Barcelona look for oxygen this week. A bruising Champions League exit to Paris Saint-Germain, followed by a home defeat to Real Madrid at the Spotify Camp Nou, has darkened the mood around the club. The next stop is Vitoria and Deportivo Alavés, but the debate in Spain has settled firmly on one name: Pedri.

The midfielder, long treated as one of Barcelona’s untouchables, has found himself in the eye of the storm. On Cadena COPE, veteran commentator Manolo Lama delivered some of the sharpest criticism heard about the Canary Islander since he broke into the elite.

For Lama, the issue is not talent. It is the body.

"To be a top-class player, you have to be at the peak of your physical level," he argued, insisting that Pedri has slipped away from that standard. In his view, everything else unravels from there. The touch, the rhythm, the passing lines that once seemed automatic.

"I have seen that he has a physical problem," Lama said. "When he suffers from a physical problem, his passing is not as accurate as it was before." The verdict was blunt. This is not a dip in form. This is a player whose engine, in Lama’s eyes, is no longer keeping pace with his footballing brain.

He pushed the point further, describing a Pedri who is running on fumes. According to Lama, the midfielder "looks tired after the first ten minutes of the match", a detail he believes explains the lack of spark in the final stretch of games, where Pedri once dictated tempo and killed contests with the ball.

The criticism did not stop at Pedri alone. Lama drew a contrast with one of La Liga’s rising talents, Pablo Barrios, to illustrate what happens when fatigue takes over.

"When feelings of fatigue build up in a player, he loses his energy, and your mind no longer works at the same speed as your legs move, something that shows clearly on you," he said. The message was clear: when the legs go, the decisions follow.

At that point, Juanma Castaño, host of El Partidazo on the same station, widened the lens. He reminded listeners that this is not the first time Pedri has been edged aside. During the World Cup, the midfielder had already lost his guaranteed starting role, a significant moment for a player once considered central for club and country.

Castaño, though, drew a line between that international context and the reality at Barcelona. He does not see the same scenario unfolding at the Camp Nou. In his view, Pedri’s performances for Barça usually justify the faith placed in him, even if the last two defeats have exposed flaws and raised uncomfortable questions about his current condition.

The last word on the panel went to journalist Miguel Rico, who chose to pinpoint a very specific turning point in Pedri’s recent struggles: the duel with Real Madrid. For Rico, the explanation has a face and a name.

"Pedri's problem has a name and a surname, and it is Bernardo Silva, that player who has great experience and is strong when the situation demands it, as well as being a top-class footballer," he said.

In other words, the standard Pedri is now judged against is not just the memory of his own best version, but the level of players like Bernardo Silva: relentless, technically immaculate, and physically ready when the pressure spikes.

Barcelona travel to Alavés needing a reaction. For Pedri, the challenge is harsher and more personal: to prove that the questions over his body do not define his future, and that he still belongs among the game’s reference points in the most demanding nights of the season.