Barcelona are reportedly at risk of losing promising young defender Ronald Araujo, partly due to their transfer pursuit of Chelsea star Antonio Rudiger.
Araujo is yet to sign a new contract at the Nou Camp, and Sport suggest that Barca simply haven’t done enough to improve their offer to the Uruguay international.
The report adds that this hasn’t gone down well with Araujo, particularly because the Catalan giants seem ready to make a big-money contract offer to Rudiger, who is set to be available as a free agent this summer.
The Germany international is undoubtedly one of the finest players in Europe in his position, so it seems worth targeting him, but this perhaps could’ve been handled better by Barcelona.
Araujo is clearly a big talent and would be well worth keeping around for the long-term, but the club seem to be clearly indicating that they don’t value him that highly.
This could really backfire if Rudiger ends up staying at Chelsea or choosing a move to another club, as Barcelona will have pursued him with big-money offers for nothing, leaving them even more reliant on keeping Araujo happy and convincing him to stay.