Former Everton manager Ronald Koeman has only been in his new job at Barcelona for a week, but he is already making his presence known.
Just days after reportedly telling former Liverpool star Luis Suarez that his services were no longer required at the Camp Nou, he is believed to have dropped another bombshell at the feet of Lionel Messi.
The Argentine superstar was not told like his teammate that his services were no longer required, but he was informed, according to reports, that his privileges in the Barca squad were over.
"The privileges in this squad are over, you have to do everything for the team," Koeman is believed to have told Messi via Deportes Cuatro.“I'm going to be inflexible; you must only be thinking about the team.”
Messi is said to have taken exception to Koeman’s reportedly stern approach having not had that type of relationship with any of his coaches at Barcelona in the past.
Following on from those conversations Messi is believed to have informed the club he wishes to depart this summer.
The La Liga side then announced a couple of hours after reports emerged that the Argentine has requested to leave the Nou Camp.
The six-time Ballon d'Or winner has endured a tumultuous season that saw his Barca side lose out to Real Madrid in the La Liga title race.
While the Argentine’s season culminated in an embarrassing defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals.
But it appears that Koeman’s reported comments have pushed Messi over the edge and on the brink of leaving the Spanish giants.
Plenty has made of Koeman’s comments and the whole issue of Messi possibly departing one of the biggest clubs in world football.
But fans of Everton have seen this all before. Back in the summer of 2016, the Dutchman moved to Goodison Park on a three-year deal after two seasons at Southampton.
He arrived on Merseyside with a rich reputation. As a player he won the European Cup with Barcelona and the UEFA European Championship with the Netherlands.
While he was also named Premier League manager of the month three times during his time on the south coast and had enjoyed success as a coach at Ajax and Feyenoord.
But it didn't take long for Koeman to make his presence known.
Within weeks of his arrival as Blues boss in the summer of 2016, Oumar Niasse was told he had no future at the club after struggling to impress following his £13.5m move from Lokomotiv Moscow in January that year.
Niasse was subsequently dispatched to the Under-23s by Koeman before he was offloaded on loan to Hull City in the January of the Dutchman’s first season.
"When Koeman arrived I was a real good target to destroy," Niasse told the BBC in November 2017. "He tried, but I was strong enough to stay. I worked so hard to come to the Premier League so I had to stay in the Premier League."
Niasse was famously not provided with a locker at Everton's Finch Farm training complex under Koeman and described the whole situation as 'difficult'.
"For him (Koeman), he worked so hard to let me go. He tried to a do a lot of things that were not nice," he said.
"Having taken my locker, my shirt number, he took me out of the dining room where we eat and took me to the Under-23s without no locker there.
"It was very difficult. You need a very strong mindset to deal with that because you don't have any respect at the club.
"Using the word 'slavery' is too much, but it was very difficult. That's all I can say."
While in Koeman’s second season with the club he appeared to isolate Ross Barkley from all first-team affairs after he stalled on committing his long-term future to the club.
Koeman was sacked in the October of that season so we’ll never know if Barkley would have made it back into his plans, but the fact that the boyhood Blue was very nearly pushed out the door of the club that summer could speak volumes about his relationship with the manager.
And it was a relationship that was never patched up and eventually saw Barkley seal a move to Chelsea just a few months later.
So while the rest of the footballing world comes to terms with the way Messi is reportedly being treated by his new boss, it is something Evertonians have already seen first hand with their own eyes.
And if experience is anything to go by, then Barcelona fans should prepare themselves for the worst, because some Blues fans are still having nightmares about Ronald Koeman’s time as Everton manager.
