Can Antoine Griezmann prove he fits better at Barcelona than Coutinho did?

Antoine Griezmann has struggled to fit in so far at Barcelona. Can the Frenchman find a role for himself alongside Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez?

Having just scored his first Barcelona goal at the Camp Nou, Antoine Griezmann celebrated by throwing blue and red – Blaugrana – confetti into the air, LeBron James style. The Frenchman had arrived in a €120 million deal from Atletico Madrid weeks before, but this was his true arrival and the confetti gave him the perfect Instagram picture to mark it.

There has, however, been no more confetti since then. In fact, Griezmann has only found the net three more times in 15 appearances since that brace in the August win over Real Betis. Worse than that, the 28-year-old has looked something of a misfit. In a front line dominated by Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, Griezmann is a spare part.

This has been illustrated almost to comedic effect at times, with Messi and Suarez effectively playing around Griezmann on their way to goal. “Barcelona is not the easiest place [to play],” the player himself admitted in an interview given recently. “It’s a new team, a different club, new tactics and a new position and role for me. But it is what it is and it’s time to work. Trust me and everything will be good.”

Indeed, it is still early days for Griezmann at the Camp Nou. It’s true that there can often be a period of education and adaption for new Barcelona players, so entrenched is the soccer philosophy at the club, but this isn’t Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona. It’s not even Luis Enrique’s Barcelona. Ernesto Valverde is more of a pragmatist than either of these two and yet Griezmann has still struggled.

The purpose of Griezmann’s signing, most assumed, would become clear over the early part of the season. Early on, the Frenchman gave Barcelona a way to play without Messi, who spent the first few weeks of the campaign on the sidelines with a calf injury. This worked to a certain extent, but when Messi returned he occupied the area on the pitch where Griezmann works best.

Griezmann also played the central figure in Valverde’s front line when Suarez was injured. With Suarez now 32 and entering the twilight of his career it would have been reasonable to assume Griezmann had been signed to replace the Uruguayan. That would at least demonstrate some foresight and forward planning. But Suarez remains a key figure under Valverde and Griezmann has had to find whatever role he can around him.

The comparison might be a lazy one, but there are more than a few parallels to be drawn between Griezmann’s current struggles and what Philippe Coutinho experienced as a Barca player. Just like Coutinho, Griezmann has been signed without an apparent role to perform. And just like Coutinho, he has been shoe-horned into positions that don’t suit him – most notably on the left wing – because that’s where Barcelona’s greatest squad deficiency, not because that’s where they will get the most out of the player.

“I’m still trying to read the runs and off the ball movement from the likes of Luis Suarez, Leo Messi and Ousmane Dembele along with the midfielders,” Griezmann also confessed, perhaps being a little too candid about his troubles in bedding in at Barca. “It’s my intention to get to grips with this as soon as possible so I can offer my all to the team but at times it’s tricky.”

As Coutinho found out, though, mega-money signings failing to make an impression aren’t given much time to prove themselves at Barcelona, with the Brazilian playmaker now out on loan at Bayern Munich. All the while, Neymar remains the ex Barca just can’t forget about. The longer Griezmann’s situation continues, the more speculation linking Neymar with a return to Catalonia will intensify.

Griezmann’s troubles can in fact he traced back to the moment Neymar left Barcelona in the summer of 2017. Of course, Griezmann was still at Atleti back then, but Barca have twice failed to mold players as Neymar’s replacement rather than sign someone already in that mold.

Griezmann isn’t entirely to blame for his early season struggles, but as Barcelona take on Atleti this weekend, he might already regret joining a club where he was never set up to succeed.