Xavi’s first signing! The talented striker from Manchester City is set to join Barcelona this winter

Manchester City’s talented Spanish striker Ferrán Torres is very likely to become the first shopping commodity of Barcelona’s new coach Xavi Hernandez. The Catalan club wants to buy him for around 60 million euros in January. However, in order to afford the purchase, he would have to reconsider his stance on the deal between investor group CVC and La Liga.

Barcelona is going through an extraordinary crisis in all respects. It is drowning in debt, it is overhauling its squad from the ground up, for the first time in many years it will play only in the Europa League in the spring and it is only seventh in the domestic competition. The club’s legend Xavi Hernandez, who over a month ago gave the nod to become the new head coach of the famous club, is expected to help.

In the upcoming January transfer window, he can at least start to adapt the squad to his liking. Although nothing special is expected given the difficult economic situation, one big purchase is imminent. It is to be Manchester City’s 21-year-old striker Ferran Torres.

He went to Pep Guardiola only a year and a half ago, when the reigning English champion bought him from Valencia for 28 million euros. His sale is expected to pay the club up to double, with talk of a transfer fee of around 60 million euros.

It cannot be said, however, that Torres has been completely successful in the sky blue jersey. He never became one of the cornerstones of the squad, was mainly deployed in less demanding and more important matches and rarely played more than 70 minutes.

In total, he has played 43 games for Manchester City so far, scoring 16 goals and notching 5 assists. In addition, he has been nursing a broken leg for nearly three months. So it’s not too surprising that Guardiola just kind of waved his hand at the news of his departure.

“Yes, the departure of Ferran Torres is close. He is from Spain, Barcelona want to get him, he admitted he would like to leave, so I told him to go. I want the players to be happy. We are not like some other clubs whose president will tell you no if you plan to leave. If Ferran wants to move to Barcelona, no problem. I’m happy for him,” journalist Fabrizio Romano quoted the Spanish coach as saying.

For the island club, this is of course a very good deal. The Citizens will earn about 30 million euros on Torres, which they will now apparently save for the planned summer super-transfer of one of the world’s greatest strikers, probably Erling Haaland.

How can Barcelona afford such a purchase?

One of the big problems the Catalan team has been running into lately is the La Liga salary cap. According to a number of media reports, it is currently very just below it and even if the end of Sergio Agüero, who was receiving 10 million euros a year, frees up some space, according to the rules Barcelona can only use 25% on new players due to debts.

The same applies if the club would like to help itself by selling Philippe Coutinho or Samuel Umtiti, to whom it has to pay exorbitant fees, or already slightly better marketable fighters such as Frenkie de Jong and Clement Lenglet.

The key to the whole affair will be the agreement with the investor company CVC. The latter is keen to pump huge amounts of money into La Liga to help cushion the Spanish clubs from the severe effects of the coronavirus pandemic. However, Barcelona president Joan Laporta has publicly criticised the English company’s efforts on several occasions.

If the club’s management were to change its mind, it would mean an immediate vacancy already for January transfers. In that case, Xavi would most likely be able to rejoice in his first signing.

How would Torres even fit into Barcelona?

I probably don’t need to elaborate too much on Barcelona’s need for a top-class, uncompromising striker with consistent performances. Xavi, or his predecessors, needed someone like that long before Sergio Agüero officially ended his football career last week.

Martin Braithwaite has been plagued by injuries and moreover, he doesn’t seem to be quite the type of striker for the new Blaugranas coach. The same can be said for Luuk de Jong, who is running a one-year loan spell at Camp Nou from Sevilla.

Memphis Depay, on the other hand, hasn’t been doing so well there since his arrival from Lyon and his ability to lead the attack of such a big club has been questioned quite a bit. The immensely talented Ansu Fati has been hampered by frequent health problems.

Torres already carries some of Barcelona’s DNA in him, having passed under the hands of their two former coaches – Pep Guardiola at Manchester City and Luis Enrique in the Spanish national team.

In addition, he can also create a number of attacking actions thanks to his bravura technical skills, and the ability to play both from the side and from the middle of the attacking line is a considerable plus. Barcelona can thus sharpen up another Spanish talent and make him their number 1 striker.

Source: The Athletic, Fabrizio Romano