Marca are taking a few well aimed shots at Barcelona on their Saturday back-page, and one of those involves Tottenham Hotspur.
Having had a near complete failure of a transfer window, according to many, Barcelona have been the subject of much criticism. Apart from the Neymar farce and the failure to get Philippe Coutinho, the Catalan club also failed to sell a whole string of players they’ve been looking to offload.
One of those is Andre Gomes, and Marca say he was offered ‘almost free’ to Tottenham towards the end of the transfer window. There’s no explanation of that, whether it was a loan or a permanent transfer, and no clarification of what ‘almost free’ would have meant for Tottenham.
Towards the end of the window, Gomes to Tottenham provided different things for different media outlets, but it was useful for all. Regardless of whether there was any truth in the rumour, and whether it was Mauricio Pochettino being interested or Barcelona desperate to get rid, there was an angle suitable for all.
For the grumbling Barcelona press it was another example of poor transfer activity, for the optimistic side of the Barcelona press it provided a new spur for Gomes to do well, and in Madrid they’ve mocked.
Marca say that despite the offer to Tottenham, Barcelona weren’t able to get rid of a player who they’d turned €45m down for earlier in the summer.
That’s the least believable part. It was claimed earlier in the summer that an unnamed club, or clubs, had offered such an amount, but it wasn’t believable then and it’s certainly not now.
