Rumour Mongering: Barcelona Target Liverpool’s Diaz to Replace Raphina
The transfer chatter out of Spain has Barcelona looking to upgrade their left wing with Luis Diaz the top option.
In recent years, Barcelona’s fortunes have rather faltered. The La Liga giants having found themselves falling further and further back of rivals Madrid domestically and in Europe and scrambling to find levers to pull as they continue to spend big in an effort to close the gap despite financial difficulties.
It seems unsustainable from the outside, but the current dominance of Madrid along with the need to be perceived at least to be their genuine competitors is something Barcelona appear unable to back away from and it is again driving them to seek out creative ways to try to keep up with Los Blancos.
To that end, Mundo Deportivo claim that the Catalans will be looking to upgrade at the left wing position by selling Raphina to the Saudi Pro League and then reinvesting in Liverpool left winger Luis Diaz, with the England-based Colombian seen as an upgrade on Barca’s current Brazilian wide man.
Given Barcelona’s financials, the appeal is based in Diaz being seen as an improvement on Raphina, who they believe they can sell to Saudi for around €45M plus £20M in add-ons, the same fee Liverpool paid Porto for Diaz in 2022—and that the Reds would then be willing to sell Diaz on at that price.
Upgrade on the left while treading water on the fees. I might well be the approach needed for Barcelona at the moment. But it leaves out that Liverpool are likely to seek at least some profit were they to sell Diaz. And that the Reds won’t want to leave any big sales late while Barca get their cards in order.
It might all be a plausible contraption of a transfer rumour being cobbled together by the rumour mongers in Spain, but the number of moving parts that would need to click into place in order to make it happen and the seeming indifference to Liverpool’s potential priorities make us skeptical.
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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