Barcelona’s bid to land Raphinha from Leeds United could well be back on after his agent Deco has been spotted alongside Barcelona president Juan Laporta, leaving Arsenal’s chances of signing him in doubt.
It has been reported that we have made an offer to the Yorkshire club this week, with the Catalan club believed to have been drifting away from a potential deal after the Premier League side survived demotion from the top tier of England.
Barca were thought to be ready to meet his relegation release clause, but his current club are now believed to be in want of a much larger fee, which had news sources almost ruling out the chances of the move, despite reports of an agreement on personal terms months ago.
The deal could well be back on now however, with Laporte and Raphinha’s agent Deco having been pictured together in Spain.
While the player may well have agreed personal terms already, I don’t think this transfer is one that will be easy to get over the line for anyone. The player seems mainly focused on ending up at the camp Nou, while the transfer negotiations are likely to be longed out by the Spanish giants finances, and English clubs willingness to pay more than Barcelona may further hamper the move.
Could Leeds be forced to accept the lower offer to allow Raphinha his desired move, or do you think it is more likely that the player himself will have to reassess his options?
Patrick
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I hope this doesn’t turn out to be another waste of time – trying to get a player who, it seems, wants to go elsewhere.
This has to be a distraction for MA and his players.
Surely Edu should have made our initial bid nearer Leeds valuation?
Reading that the club has, to date, not received one single offer for Pepe, perhaps it’s time to give him another chance (not that he really has had one abyway) and concentrate on the areas where we need to bring players in… A LB and CF, putting all our time and effort into getting those deals done and dusted?
You must be joking for suggesting that Pepe hasn’t had any chance under Mikel…
Deco unofficially works for Barca as a scout, so I don’t think that his being picture with Laporta is much of a surprise. If this means that Arsenal won’t be signing Raphina, then we were never going to sign him, because Deco will be permanently around and about Barca officials.
Transfer fees are becoming a bit of a joke in football. What’s the point in paying a fortune for a player if they can just turn down clubs and hold out to go to “the usual suspects”, who can then hold out for a knock-down price?
I actually LOATHE the so-called big clubs, especially Real Madrid and Barcelona. The way players gravitate towards them over the last few years makes me feel ill tbh, to the point that I don’t care who beats those teams, I’ll root for anyone they play against.
I mean, a club that’s £1.5bn in debt when there are supposedly FFP rules? Yeah, right. The other one’s got bells on.
Thank you!! All along I thought I was the only one
City, Man U and the likes of Chelsea and now New Cattsle are milling in that neighbourhood of such clubs …… that clubs that literally buy trophies ….
United have been doing it for decades, chelsea from 2005, city from 2008 while RM are sponsored by the Spanish royal family and Barca by cooking the books.
Nothings going to change, but I agree with IdontKnow.
Lets go the Liverpool way.. The likes of Barcelona, Madrid etc will always be the first choice for most players (particularly South American). They have bult a proper attractive brand that most players can’t resist. It does not matter if you are United, Chelsea, City, Juventus, Bayern etc.. If Madrid or Barcelona come calling for your players then it’s most certainly curtains down, they get what they want in most cases..
Not sure this article has anything to do with the “buying” of titles, as this player has made it well-known that his first preference, club-wise, was Barca…to their credit, when you create a brand of international consequence you will have a significant amount of players who will have you squarely on their professional “bucket” lists, even when you’re in a bit of a organizational funk
we had something similar on offer here until the whole stadium “ruse” reared it’s ugly head, which functionally turned us into a “selling” club and severely damaged our brand…the fact that this happened more than a decade and a half ago means that many younger players have no memory of our once revered club, so we’re not high on their respective priority lists…if only Dein wasn’t forcibly removed from the equation, things could have been vastly different
I believe we will sign Jesus and I believe that makes Tieleman or our midfield our main priority.
Party is injured too often, Xhaka is limited in his ability although still important to our current midfield but this only highlights its shortcomings and Elneny is nothing more than a capable backup. This makes Tielemans crucial to us.
So it is hard to understand why we bought Vieira and why there are so few rumors going around at the moment about us signing a top midfield player. I would have loved Bissouma and I would love Tielemans.
A striker is important and maybe Jesus is the best we can do, but let’s hope we don’t pin our season on Partey staying healthy or Lokonga making a jump.
We need a PL experienced central midfield player of high caliber.