Michael Thomas has told both former clubs Arsenal and Liverpool that they should try to sign Ousmane Dembele from Barcelona, but claims the Gunners would be the better option for him.
The forward is expected to leave the Catalan club either this month or for free in the summer, with his current club claiming that he will not play for them again after rejecting their offer of a new deal.
While his next club remains unknown, Thomas admits that he would love for either of his two former clubs Liverpool or Arsenal to land him.
“I think he is an amazing talent who can dazzle and do whatever he wants when he is in the right space,” Thomas told CaughtOffside.
“He is a young boy and needs to play games. He has struggled a lot with injuries and I just feel as though he needs a good run of games in a team to get himself feeling like he can be the player everyone knows he can be.
“I would say Arsenal would be a better fit for him, with all the young talent, but given the contract situations at Liverpool and the age of the front line, he could just as well fit in at Liverpool.
“I would be more than happy for either team to take a chance with him.”
While the player’s talent isn’t in doubt, his injury record and wage demands have to be off-putting somewhat to any potential suitors, although the idea of landing such a huge talent for nothing or a minimal fee could well make the risk manageable.
In an ideal world, he would join us and stay injury-free for the remainder of his career, but realistically he won’t be joining us, nor will he even see out the current campaign without another injury setback.
He will likely have a number of offers come the summer, although it would be beneficial for Barca to offload him from their wage budget this month in order to bring in a replacement, and with us still struggling to land a forward to our frontline, maybe we could well come to some sort of conclusion to sign him. There is no talk of a loan, but if no club is willing to buy him from Barcelona, it could well be an option for both us and Barcelona.
Patrick
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