The situation
Every hour that passes seems more difficult for Jules Koundé to play this Sunday at Anoeta against Real Sociedad. The French central defender, who exercised this Saturday with total normality, is still hoping that the club can make a hole in the wage bill to be able to register him . However, time is clearly against him. Today he could not travel to San Sebastián, since the financial ‘fair play’ would take him directly off the plane by having the squad oversaturated in that sense. We will have to wait if a ‘miracle’ occurs in the next few hours and Barcelona manages to lower the wage bill. The two clearest options on the table are the departure of Memphis Depay and Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, which would release almost 13 million euros and would allow not only the registration of Koundé, but also of Marcos Alonso, who has been prepared for a week in suitcases in London. However, neither Juventus nor Chelsea have finalized the operations , so it seems very difficult for an agreement to be reached in just 24 hours. Both Auba and Memphis worked out this Saturday and could even make the list.
The details
The one who will not be in the call for sure is Sergio Busquets, who was sent off in his LaLiga debut for a double yellow card. Nor, Martin Braithwaite and Samuel Umtiti , players discarded by Xavi Hernández for more than three months and who are still ‘leveraged’ in the club. Likewise, tomorrow will be a special day for one of the star signings of this season: Robert Lewandowski will be 34 years old. Without a doubt, the Polish striker is still thinking about the sad incident he experienced this week when his watch was stolen while he was signing autographs at the entrance of the Ciutat Esportiva. Fortunately, everything was left in a scare: they caught the thief and recovered his watch, valued at 70,000 euros. Xavi, who will not give the call until this Sunday before leaving for Donosti, could make several changes with respect to the eleven that jumped out against Rayo Vallecano. A forced one, since the absence of Busquets opens the doors to Miralem Pjanic in the defensive pivot, and others thinking more about the game itself, such as the option of playing with three central defenders, and leaving Jordi Alba on the bench, to populate the midfield, with four men, drawing a manual 3-4-3.