Chelsea defender Marcos Alonso is set to arrive in Barcelona ‘in the next few hours’ to finalise a move to the Camp Nou.
That’s according to Marca, who say an announcement on his signing is dependent on further departures from Barcelona’s squad.
They explain that the Catalan club need to free up more space on their wage bill to be able to bring in Alonso and as soon as they do so, Alonso will become a Barcelona player.
His signing has been ‘on the table’ for many months but has been hindered by several issues, the first being the change in ownership at Chelsea.
The two clubs have put the deal on track and the player has everything tied up with Barcelona but the wage bill at the Camp Nou forces him to wait.
Joan Laporta has decided that he will not risk any signing without having enough margin in the budget to sign him first and thus wants more departures before finalising the deal for Alonso.
Therefore, the Chelsea man is ‘awaiting the exit operation’ with the likes of Miralem Pjanic, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sergiño Dest and Martin Braithwaite all negotiating departures from Barcelona at the end of the window.
There is a confidence that at least one of those will leave and Alonso himself is ‘confident’ his deal will be completed, and he will ‘arrive in Barcelona shortly’.
In fact, Sport go one step further and say he will fly to Barcelona today ahead of finalising his move.
They say the defender plans to travel to El Prat airport at some point today, likely in the afternoon or evening, but the move is dependent on those departures happening first.
