At the end of the summer window, several reports from Spain claimed Barcelona were trying to sell Ousmane Dembélé.
Working to overcome their financial situation, the Catalan side saw the Frenchman as a good chance of making money, but his departure was never agreed.
Now although that seemed to be a story left behind, there’s now some claims from the Catalan media which state Manchester City had been involved in talks.
TV3 (via Sport) says that Barcelona offered Dembele to the Premier League side, with club director Mateu Alemany personally working on the talks. Due to Financial Fair Play, the English club couldn’t accept the deal.
That seems a strange claim given they were chasing Harry Kane at the time.
Anyway, now comes the most interesting part. TV3 claims that Manchester City then tried to make a multiple swap with Barcelona. Pep Guardiola’s side would receive Dembélé and Ronald Araujo, while Aymeric Laporte and Raheem Sterling would go the other way.
That was turned down by Barcelona. Then the clubs tried to work on a deal only involving Dembélé and Sterling, and since the English player didn’t want to leave his club at the time, the deal collapsed.
Now under a new situation, the Frenchman is expected to be ‘one of the important players’ for new manager Xavi Hernandez.
