It has not always been an easy time for Ousmane Dembele at Barcelona since joining the club in the summer of 2017.
The Frenchman’s first three seasons at the Camp Nou were derailed by multiple injury issues – suffering eight different muscular injuries in that time.
The worst was suffered in November 2019, when he sat out 11 months of action with a thigh muscle rupture.
The 23-year-old has however featured 35 times this campaign and has enjoyed an injury-free run this current calendar year – starting 15 times since the start of January.
Now he is a regular for Ronald Koeman’s side in Barcelona news and he is one of the first names on the team sheet with his versatility in the front line highly valued.
Dembele scored in this weekend’s 6-1 demolition at Real Sociedad to continue his resurgence and he has now explained how he has physically grown this year and now feels stronger.
“I want to give a lot of thanks to my teammates, but honestly since 2017 I was very weak,” Dembele told Telefoot, as per El Mundo Deportivo.
“Now I have physically changed and I feel better prepared for the games.
“This year is going better, I have improved a lot in Barcelona, with the physical trainers, the way of training, the way of preparing for the games, everything has changed.
“Now I feel good about myself, even though I have struggled with all these physical problems for 3 years.
“These are life experiences that must be taken with a smile.”
