Loans, Barcelona’s problem

Barcelona has another year of serious problems with traffic jams for the exit operation. The Barça club urgently needs to sell footballers in order to make new reinforcements, and the job starts with finding a destination for all the players on loan who are returning to the Camp Nou this summer and who in most cases are not counted. Umtiti, Lenglet, Sergiño Dest and Collado, as well as other top-seeded pros such as Abde and Nico, return home and only Trincao is the only one who will not be sure to join Barcelona because the club reached an agreement for his transfer to Sporting de Portugal.

And as Mateu Alemany, the sporting director, said last week after returning from Germany for a summit with Ilkay Gündogan, “this has only just begun.” They know it in Barcelona, ​​where they are preparing for a new frenzied market in which they are again starting to look for destinations for those surpluses that Xavi does not have, starting first with those on loan. Francisco Trincao was the first to be unpacked and will remain at the Lisbon club after Barça accepted an offer of close to €7 million in a deal that sees the Catalans retain 50% of future sales, as well as a progressive buyout option in the €20-25 million range.

It is Barcelona’s first move in this sense, but not the last. Clement Lenglet could be next. In Tottenham, they are satisfied with his performance and are ready to bet on his continuity, but not at any cost. The English are looking for a new loan or a reduction in the price of the player for whom the Catalans intend to get at least 10 million euros, which is a hefty figure for a footballer who currently has too much competition in the team between Araujo, Koundé, Christensen and Eric Garcia.

Other cases, a priori, with an easy solution should be Nico and Abde. The midfielder who played for Valencia last season has attractive offers from Mestalla and Betis, but the final decision will be in the hands of Xavi and the club’s technical secretariat. If Barcelona succeeds in signing a pivot guarantee to replace Busquets, they would look for a way out in the youth system, and if they fail, the Camp Nou door could be wide open. In the case of the Moroccan winger, there are conflicting views between the club and the player’s decision. Abde wants to find a club where he has minutes compared to the competition he has at Barca with Raphinh, Dembélé, Ansu Fati and Ferran Torres, but Xavi believes he is a footballer who can contribute a lot next year and wants him in the pre-season squad to try to convince. It’s a tough decision for Joan Laporte’s entity, as he is currently the most loaned player on the market.

Hard to solve cases

Barcelona also has to find a way out for two footballers who failed to use the transfer for playing time and increasing market value. Sergiño Dest failed to establish himself in Milan, and the Italian club is not willing to pay the 20 million euros that the Catalans expected for the North American. Dest currently has no offers despite the fact that his representative said a month ago that “three Premier League clubs have shown strong interest”. Another case that Barcelona can get stuck in this market is the sale of Álex Collado. He didn’t have continuity in Elche, Xavi doesn’t have it, and the only suitor who knocked on the door was Las Palmas. Gran Canarias want to count on him, but Barca’s terms, which demand three million euros and a percentage of future sales, mean the operation is not as simple as it seems. A new summer is coming, full of work in the culé offices.