Barcelona are still very keen on signing Max Aarons according to respected Spanish football journalist, Guillem Balague.
El pasado barcelonista de Max Aarons. Lo último del interés culé por la figura del @NorwichCityFC
https://t.co/bbKt0vn52L— Guillem Balague (@GuillemBalague) September 21, 2020
Balague is a regular pundit on Sky Sports and he also writes, amongst others, a column for BBC Sport. He is an expert on La Liga and therefore he is well placed to discuss all things Barcelona.
Writing for Barcelona based Sport in this article, he says that despite a link to Ajax right back, Sergino Dest, perhaps favoured by new Barca coach, Ronald Koeman due to the Dutch link, it is actually Max Aarons that has been the subject of a more serious enquiry than Dest.
It seems that Bayern Munich are also interested in both Dest and Aarons and that they would be a serious financial threat to Barca’s ability to sign their number one choice of the two defenders, still thought to be Dest. However, Balague also says that prior to Koeman’s appointment, Aarons was their number one choice and that contact was first made with Norwich prior to Koeman being appointed some weeks ago.
Barca suggested to Norwich a £20m fee plus up to £10m in add-ons, if they decided to make their loan offer permanent at the end of this season, which was rejected. That value they feel, is about right and it now remains to be seen what happens with Dest and Bayern Munich. It sounds like whoever doesn’t sign Dest might well turn to Max Aarons.
Blimey.
This week, Barca are set to off-load Portuguese (naturally) right back, Nelson Semedo to Wolves for a fee thought to be in the region of £30m, Arturo Vidal to Inter Milan and I’ve read that Luis Suarez could be off to Atletico Madrid as Barca exercise some big squad cost cutting.
There is also a thought regarding Brexit and the purchase of British players. After Brexit, it is likely that British players could command a premium due to potential financial implications of signing overseas players. Barca, Balague suggests, feel that selling Aarons back to an English club if it doesn’t work out in La Liga, wouldn’t be a problem and at just 21-years-old, they are unlikely to lose any money on him.
Balague has also managed to find a photo of a seven-year-old Max Aarons in a Barcelona shirt. I bet he could only dream of such a move and here it is, seemingly within touching distance. If you click on the link to Balague’s article you will see that it includes a video highlight reel of Max. Having watched that, I’d buy him!
Watch this space.
OTBC