Barcelona are set to do their part in unblocking negotiations for French central defender Clement Lenglet, after several months without movement.
Lenglet is one of the players Barcelona want to leave the club this summer, with his large salary a financial burden, and his place well-covered in the first team.
Spending last season on loan at Tottenham Hotspur, he was initially expected to return to Spurs, but Ange Postecoglou’s side have been unwilling to pay the €15m asking price Barcelona were asking.
🚨 Barça are open to negotiating the loan of Lenglet to Tottenham. The club is actively working on to save his salary. @sport
— barcacentre (@barcacentre) August 21, 2023
Saudi Arabia had emerged as a potential destination happy to meet that asking price, but Lenglet is keen to remain in Europe. According to Sport, with negotiations deadlocked with Spurs, Barcelona are now open loaning Lenglet out.
Their priority is now to get his salary off the books, in hopes of registering the incoming Joao Cancelo. They have also had discussions with Milan and Juventus, but neither are willing to take on his whole salary. Hence, at the time of writing, a loan to Spurs looks most likely.
This has been a common problem for Barcelona over recent years. With constant overhaul of sporting directors and managers, until Xavi Hernandez and Mateu Alemany, they have a backlog of unwanted players that they have struggled to move on, or have had to eat major losses on. That in part is down to the over-paying for players that was commonplace under previous President Josep Maria Bartomeu.
