Nelson Semedo set to leave Barcelona and join Wolverhampton Wanderers
The Barcelona right-back had been the talk of much transfer speculation recently.
Nelson Semedo’s last official game as a Barcelona player will be the 8-2 Champions League defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich.
According to The Guardian, Barcelona are on the verge of completing a deal that would see the Portuguese right-back go to the Premier League and join Wolverhampton Wanderers.
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Semedo is set to sign a five-year deal until 2025 and, more importantly, the Catalans will receive €38 million in the deal.
Nelson #Semedo to Wolves is ‘here we go’ and confirmed. The deal is done and will be signed on next few hours also with Barcelona. Personal terms agreed with Mendes until 2025. Medicals on next week. 👌🏻🐺 #Wolves
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) September 20, 2020
...now it’s time for Dest [but Bayern are confident to sign him].
The report claims that Nuno Espírito Santo sees Semedo as a perfect replacement for Matt Doherty who signed with Tottenham.
Arriving from Benfica back in 2017, he was supposed to be the one to finally solve Barcelona’s right-back problem. They struggled to find someone to replace Dani Alves and Sergi Roberto was plugged in simply because there was no better options.
However, under both Ernesto Valverde and Quique Setien, Roberto kept being the preferred option. Semedo never truly convinced and the criticisms against him kept piling up. It was his poor performance against Bayern that sealed his fate.
With the money Barcelona are receiving from Wolves, the club has once again set their sights on Ajax’s Sergiño Dest. It is also not ruled out that some of the fee will be used to sign Manchester City’s Eric Garcia.
They are a race against time as their season opener against Villarreal is in a week. They cannot afford to start another season with Roberto as their starting right-back. While versatile, he is too often exposed when defending.
Nelson Semedo was not a bad player despite the criticisms aimed against him. He was often on an island in right-back with certain players not tracking back. He was one of the few players on the pitch with pace so he often had to cover for the lack of pace from the rest of the defenders.
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On another Barcelona team he might have performed better and been a better fit. He now gets a chance to start over with a clean slate at Wolves where he is likely penciled in as a starter.