Barcelona have a number of objectives this summer, chief among them bringing Lionel Messi back, but the route map to do so reads like a particularly long Leo Tolstoy novel.
With the blowback from the summer of economic levers hitting the club hard, the Blaugrana are required to make €180m in sales and savings this summer before they can start registering new players, with the likes of Gavi, Ronald Araujo and Marcos Alonso all waiting on their contracts to be registered.
Where those sales come from, is as good a guess as any. While Barcelona have a number of assets they are content with leaving behind, finding significant fees for them is a trickier task.
According to recent reports, Eric Garcia, Franck Kessie, Ansu Fati, Ferran Torres and Raphinha are all players that the club will look at selling, with price obviously being a factor.
Now Fichajes say that super-agent Jorge Mendes, who represents Fati, has told the club he will bring in a major offer for the frustrated forward. The offer would be around €70m from a Premier League side, which is as of yet unknown according to their report. Others have highlighted Tottenham Hotspur as a potential destination.
Ansu has remained adamant that he wants to triumph at Barcelona, despite his father’s questioning of Xavi Hernandez last month. Whether Mendes could persuade Fati to move is another question.
If Mendes can deliver on his promise, then the Blaugrana should no doubt do what they can to make a move happen. Ansu is a player with remarkably high ceiling, with the added bonus of being from La Masia. If he does fulfil his early potential, then Barcelona would likely be unable to afford a player like him on the market.
Yet his route to being that player seems almost impossible at the same time. Xavi has preferred to use Gavi on the left side of attack, the most natural position for him, while Ansu is now behind Ferran Torres in the pecking order, and presumably would be behind Yannick Carrasco too, if the Belgian does arrive in the summer.
In order to reach his potential, he would need a long run of starts that he has not had under Xavi, and seems highly unlikely to get. With no certainty of whether he can get to his pre-injury levels, it would be surprising if a club were willing to risk so much capital on a player short of confidence and fitness.
Hence if Mendes can come up with that offer, it would be a no-brainer for Barcelona to accept it. In another era, with Barcelona already successful and Ansu as a luxury, they could perhaps afford to bet on his long-term development. But with financial pressure, a lack of performing forwards and the potential for the number 10 before him to return, Xavi and Joan Laporta are better off pursuing ‘certainties’ rather than pure potential in that position.
