Ivan Rakitic, who has been closely linked to a move away from Camp Nou finally seems to come to fruition, with Barcelona being beneficiaries too.
As per Don Balon, Jose Mourinho is looking to orchestrate a squad revamp at Tottenham Hotspur and for now, his priority seems to be in landing Barcelona’s Ivan Rakitic and Real Madrid’s Alvaro Odriozola.
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Mourinho has made decent progress in north London since the sacking of Mauricio Pochettino. The ex-Manchester United seems to have taken up one of his biggest challenges and will live up to completing it to the best of his powers.
Ivan Rakitic, 32, has been out of favour at Barcelona post the start of 2019/20 with the ex-boss Ernesto Valverde displacing the Croatian from his plans. Not to forget, the midfielder has spent most of his time at the club in the past year and a half on the bench.
The management is currently keen on grooming the likes of Frenkie de Jong and Arthur for the future.
While Spain might be the preferred place for Ivan to continue his football, a place for him in the Premier League might just excite him as much. Mourinho is deeply interested in bringing the quality and experience that Rakitic carries with him to Spurs.
The next target on the mastermind’s wish-list is Real Madrid’s Alvaro Odriozola who iss currently out on a loan at Bayern Munich. He was bought for 40 million euros back in 2018 but soon went out of favour with Zinedine Zidane over his lack of playing time.
At the Allianz Arena too, he hasn’t been given enough chances and Real Madrid do not seem to be to interested in keeping him in the near future either. The right-back’s market value is set to be around 30 million euros. While his attacking prowess may have a huge impact in the final-third, the former Real Sociedad player doesn’t bring a lot defensively to the setup.
Barcelona are in need of a major squad revamp as well and they will require funds for the same. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on Barcelona’s war-chest and the only way that the Blaugranes can do something about is by making some good sales.
Moreover, the Croat was one of the club’s heroes in recent times until he was pushed down the pecking order. The 32 year-old isn’t being treated the right way at the club and especially considering the quality and experience that he could bring in to almost any side in the world. Rakitic deserves a chance to prove himself to the world again and the least that could Barcelona do is letting him go.