Although Barcelona weren’t able to bring in Memphis Depay or Eric Garcia on deadline day, arguably the Catalan club won’t be overly disappointed.
Those deals weren’t able to be completed ostensibly because Barca were unable to offload Ousmane Dembele to Manchester United.
The Frenchman’s apparently reluctance to agree to a contract extension with Barca, thereby giving him a better resale value at the end of any loan deal with the Red Devils, appears to be what scuppered the move.
In any event, whilst that’s held up the deals for both Depay and Garcia too, it should actually work out more favourably for the blaugranes in the long term.
That’s because both players will be free to negotiate their exits from Lyon and Man City respectively in January, and they’ll also be able to be signed as free agents according to Mundo Deportivo.
As long as Barcelona do relatively well in the intervening period, then the pair will be joining a side still on the up come January.
Eric Garcia cost Manchester city £1.5m
They would prefer him to stay but in modern football times a £1.5 loss is no big deal!