Nelson Semedo was rated as a good player when he moved from Benfica to Barcelona in the summer of 2017, and has been perfectly adequate in his 71 first team league starts so far.
But he’s largely been in the background, and nobody would expect him to be the centre of the web of transfer speculation surrounding Europe this summer.
But that’s how it’s shaking out.
Mundo Deportivo’s cover story this morning describes him as a “key piece” for Barcelona in their three main pursuits of the summer – that of Joao Cancelo, of Neymar and of Lautaro Martinez.
As a player who the Blaugrana clearly see as expendable, yet with decent market value, he’s invaluable as a trade piece in this coronavirus stunted summer market.
The Catalan club simply can’t pay the up front fee demanded for any of these targets, so they will have to persuade any buying team that they want the Portugal international in the deal too.
How they hope to cope without their only natural right back in the squad is anyone’s guess.
