Barcelona summer plan comes into focus with finances on the up

Following the approval of the sale of assets earlier in the week at an assembly, Barcelona can continue to move forward with their summer plans operating on a little more certainty.

Now that they have permission to execute the financial levers as President Joan Laporta called them, Barcelona can once again operate on a normal level if all goes well.

That leaves it up to Sporting Director Mateu Alemany to try and bring fresh blood into the club. According to Marca, there’s a defined list of players the Blaugrana want, in addition to the already signed Franck Kessie and Andreas Christensen.

The top priority is Robert Lewandowski. The Polish striker has made it clear that he wants to join Barcelona and the matter at hand is whether the Catalans can thrash out a deal with Bayern Munich. It would leave Xavi Hernandez well-stocked in the forward department, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ansu Fati both capable of taking up a forward role.

With Ousmane Dembele’s departure seemingly imminent, Xavi also wants a replacement and their first choice to be that substitute is Raphinha. That too comes with an inherent difficulty in that Leeds United seem unlikely to lower their asking price to an acceptable level for Barcelona.

Perhaps the trickiest deal to get done would be Jules Kounde. The 23-year-old Sevilla defender has been courted for at least a year by Chelsea and would be a statement signing if Barcelona can fork out the cash Sevilla will demand.

The final two on their list would be Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso. The latter provides competition and an opportunity to rest for Jordi Alba, while the former would likely solidify Barcelona’s defence from right-back as a starter.

Whether Barcelona do actually have the resources, even with their financial levers, to carry out all 7 of these deals seems unlikely. Even the first three deals on that list, Kounde, Raphinha and Lewandowski, look as if they may cost north of €150m to bring in.

Tags Andreas Christensen Barcelona Bayern Munich Cesar Azpilicueta Chelsea Franck Kessie Jules Kounde Marcos Alonso Raphinha Robert Lewandowski Sevilla
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