Catalans are in dire need of more defensive reinforcements at the back next season.
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FC Barcelona are to turn their attentions back towards Chelsea defender David Luiz once again in their long-running search for a new centre back after appearing to miss out on AS Roma’s Marquinhos, says the Daily Mirror.
The Liga champions are in desperate need of cover at the back at Camp Nou next season due to the continuing doubts surrounding the fitness of veteran club captain Carles Puyol.
However, Barca had been hoping to bring Roma’s Brazilian central defender Marquinhos to Catalonia next season to replace Puyol, only for the player to appear to be on the verge of joining big-spending Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain instead.
As a result, Barcelona will now try to land Chelsea’s own Brazil international, with Spanish sports daily SPORT even going so far as claiming that Barcelona sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta has already made contact with the player’s agent Giuliano Bertolucci to gauge whether his client would be interested in such a move.
But the Spanish giants may find it hard though to lure the highly rated 26-year-old, who has scored 12 goals in his 109 appearances for the Blues since arriving in west London from Benfica for 25 million euros in January 2011, away from Stamford Bridge this summer given Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho’s recent comments on Luiz’s future at the club.
Only this week the Portuguese insisted that there was “no possibility that David Luiz” would be sold by Chelsea, although Barcelona look set to shortly test the strength of that resolve.