The prospect of Neymar arriving in Barcelona via a swap deal has increased after a player from the Catalans’ roster wants to head to Paris Saint-Germain.
Barcelona’s central defender Samuel Umtiti is on the list of transferable players going into the transfer window. Clement Lenglet has overtaken his compatriot to the first-choice role amid injuries and Umtiti wants to play more often, so his best choice would be to do so outside the Camp Nou if he wants to make the French squad for next year’s European Championship.
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Samuel Umtiti has been at crossroads with the Barca board since a while over two main reasons, the first being that he has felt that the club didn’t help him in the injury rehab processes and secondly, they didn’t value him enough in the past to fulfil his wage demands without the player’s representatives threatening interesting from Real Madrid.
Ideally, the World Cup winner did not want to leave the club but all things point towards an exit sooner or later. Having said that, Paris Saint-Germain looks like the most attractive destination for the former Olympique Lyon defender. Kylian Mbappe has now convinced the 26-year-old to join him in the capital of France, Don Balon has said.
Paris Saint-Germain will make the most out of Samuel Umtiti because he is most probably going to be a regular at the Parc des Princes. If not immediately, the centre-back would get into the team once Thiago Silva, who is already 35 will be allowed to leave. Barca value their star man at 60 million euros and it is a sum that the Ligue 1 champions will certainly be able to afford.
Umtiti’s imminent transfer means that the Blaugrana would need to look at signing a replacement for him and as such, they have shown interest in signing Kalidou Koulibaly, Milan Skriniar and Matthijs de Ligt over the last few months. However, it looks like they are more inclined towards bringing in a forward this summer and that may complicate things.
Who do you think Barca must prioritize on between a defender and a forward?