Premier League quartet linked with Barcelona star
It has become virtually impossible for a day of transfer speculation to go by without one Premier League team or another being linked with a “Barcelona starlet”.
A product of the famed La Masia academy, a precocious talent, a “nino prodigio” to give them their correct Spanish name, whilst also demonstrating that I can type “wunderkind in Spanish” into Google search.
The latest apparently set to be tossed onto the conveyor belt are Thiago Alcantara 22, linked strongly with Man United, Sergi Roberto 21, reportedly a Tottenham target, Julio Pleguezuelo just 16 and being chased by Arsenal, there are more but you get my point.
Bojan Krkic was another superstar in waiting and according to Talksport he is interesting Newcastle and Liverpool along with obviously the ubiquitous North London duo.
The attacker joined Roma in a complicated, convoluted deal in July 2011, from what I can make out it was part loan, part £10m fee, part buy-back option, part if you shake my hand now I’ll throw in a tub of boot polish.
The 22-year-old was then loaned to Milan last season from…well either Roma or Barcelona and having failed to impress, the Rossoneri declined the kind offer of paying £12.5m to make the three goal striker’s move permanent.
Talksport suggests that the player will now return to Barca, I’ll take their word for it, I’m way too confused to debate.
So the player who was once predicted to be better than Messi is struggling to make his way at the top of the game.
He joins among others, the likes of Giovani Dos Santos and Gai Assulin who have not quite gone on to hit the heights expected of them after departing the Camp Nou.
I think some clubs just need to mindful that they are not signing these ex Barca products purely on the basis that they are ex Barca products; the association alone is clearly no guarantee of success.
Allen Whyte
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