The winter transfer market in European football closed and FC Barcelona did not fulfill one of its main objectives by not being able to finalize the sale of the French winger Ousmane Dembelé to seek to lighten the salary mass of the first team.
During the entire negotiation window that lasted between January 1 and 31 Barcelona hoped to get a club in order to obtain profits and prevent him from leaving the club for free due to Dembelé’s refusal to renew.
Among the options that the club was considering, there was the interest of two English teams, as confirmed by the president Joan Laporta, but in the end neither of the two operations came to fruition.
According to journalist Fabrizio Romano, responsible for covering the source of transfers in football, the two clubs that showed interest in Dembelé were Chelsea and Tottenham.
In the case of the former, although they showed interest, they never opened a formal conversation with Barcelona while Spurs “never came close” to finalizing the signing of the Frenchman.
A third club that in the past asked about Dembelé, Manchester United, was not interested at the moment; unofficially there was also talk of an exchange with Arsenal for Aubameyang -already announced by Romano for Barcelona-.
Finally, Spanish journalists reported a proposal to exchange Dembelé to PSG for the Brazilian Neymar, something that was roundly rejected by those in Paris.
Given the player’s refusal to reach an agreement, the club urged Dembélé to look for an alternative away from the Camp Nou days before the closing of the market. For this reason, coach Xavi Hernández decided not to call him up in the last two games against Athletic Club and Alavés.
Now that Dembélé will continue at Barcelona, we will have to wait to find out how the coaching staff behaves with the winger and if they will allow him to play in the remaining six months of his contract or will they send him to the stands as punishment.