The transfer window in Spain is closed, so it’s time to draw conclusions. First, about the main thing – who came and how Barcelona’s situation will be shaped by the new transfers.
Big players are coming!
Dani Alves – a free agent with a contract until the end of the season. It is likely that the agreement will be extended for another six months or a year in the summer. The Brazilian needs match practice on the eve of the World Cup, which this time will be in the winter, so looking for a new club in the summer is somehow out of hand. Barcelona will not be difficult to negotiate with Dani on favorable terms for her, if anything. Yes, and Alves in the very first games for the “Blaugrana” showed that there was still enough gunpowder in the powder flasks.
Ferran Torres – from Manchester City for €55m, contract until summer 2027. To tell the truth, quite an expensive and risky transfer in the current crisis at the club.
Attacking line is getting improved
Adama Traore – from Wolverhampton, on loan until the end of the season, with an option to buy for an officially unspecified amount, although the media talk about €30 million. The player went to reduce his monthly salary from €225,000 to €60,000 so that the Catalans could register it.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is a free agent, a 3.5 year contract with an initial salary of a ridiculous €5,000 a week until the end of the season (according to the media), but with a sharp increase in salary from July 1. Such a low amount should not be surprising, because Dembele’s transfer fell through, and the team barely fits into the salary cap set by La Liga.
The contract contains a condition that after 1.5 years, in the summer of 2023, it can be broken. This is beneficial for both sides – the Catalans have protected themselves from repeat situations with contracts like Umtiti or Dembele, when a player refuses to leave the team and becomes an expensive burden; and the Gabonese himself can safely leave Catalonia at the end of the next season, if he doesn’t like something in the team, or some kind of generous offer comes from a club from conditional Qatar. More recently, the striker said that he was not yet ready to end European football, but he could change his mind in a year or two.
Barcelona also determined the amount of compensation – € 100 million. Why not, if, for example, Braithwaite has € 300 million. The Catalan Ara adds to all this the fact that the contract can be terminated by the club if Aubameyang systematically violates discipline, as was the case for him at Arsenal. If this is so, then once again one can only say to Alemany: “Bravo!”. Aubameyang was recently diagnosed with heart complications after suffering Covid, because of which he left the Africa Cup of Nations. A second medical examination showed that he was healthy, but after the situation with Aguero, he immediately became somewhat anxious.