Samuel Umtiti’s future at Barcelona is looking increasingly bleak.
The Frenchman has never been completely forgiven for the way his agents went about forcing a renewal out of the Catalan club, and for how he refused an operation on his knee because he wanted to make sure he was available for the national team.
It’s the latter situation which has caused the biggest problem, with the defender’s knee never really recovering since.
The 26 year old has only played twice for Barcelona so far this season, and a lot of that is put down to the knee injury. Whilst there are no doubts at the Camp Nou over the player’s quality, there’s increasingly a feeling he can’t be relied on, which is covered by Marca on Friday.
They report Barcelona are ‘already working’ on signing a central defender next summer, to give them the reliable option they want.
Umtiti’s days at Barca therefore look numbered, but it’s not ruled out the situation could change if his fitness improves.
There’s also the problem of what to do with him should a replacement be brought in, with it unlikely there’ll be a queue of clubs ready to pay the €40-60m that Barcelona would likely be looking for.
