da casino： This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…
da 888casino： Barcelona finally got their big target during last summer’s transfer window when they landed Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid. But now, if the reports coming from El Mundo are true, Blaugrana might be planning another raid on their La Liga rivals.
What’s the word, then?
There was a lot of talk of Barcelona actually going behind Atletico Madrid’s back in order to get Griezmann during the summer.
So much so that there were even whispers of the Rojiblancos suing the Catalans and taking the whole thing to court.
Now, however, it seems that the two giants of Spanish football have come to an agreement and Barcelona will pay €15m (£12.9m) to Atletico as compensation and in order to keep the alleged e-mails that they’ve illegally interchanged with the player out of the public eye, according to El Mundo.
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What they will also get with that deal is the reported first refusal for some of Atletico stars, one of which is a long-lasting Blaugrana target, Saul Niguez. That would basically give them an advantage over other possible suitors in the future.
Seeing how the midfielder has a release clause of €150m (£129.5m) and a contract until 2026, this supposed deal sounds like a cheat code for Barcelona.
A target once again
This is definitely not the first time we’ve heard the rumours of Barcelona targeting Saul and trying to lure him away from Atletico.
In fact, it was actually earlier this year that the Catalans were interested in his services and were reportedly competing with Manchester City to bring him in.
But that’s not nearly the only instance as Barcelona have tried their luck on multiple other occasions.
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In the end, however, Saul remained one of the Rojiblancos and Barcelona bought Frenkie de Jong instead.
But seeing how he is still just 24 and is hugely talented, one has to imagine that we haven’t seen the last of this story, especially given the latest updates.
Saul is a regular starter at Atletico, as he has already accumulated 810 minutes in La Liga, playing in all nine games and warranting a 7.0 rating according to Whoscored.
He has averaged one shot per game and 84.1% passing accuracy with 50.4 passes per game.
And even though he has no goals or assists to his name, Saul is a true box-to-box midfielder who loves to contribute defensively as much as he loves to dictate the tempo of the game.
So far in La Liga, he has averaged two tackles, 1.4 interceptions and two clearances per game, having been dribbled past only 0.9 times on average.
For that reason, Barcelona’s interest is no surprise and considering he has a huge £129.5m release clause stamped on his back, this reported deal the Catalans have mustered with Atletico Madrid might go a long way to avoiding the full fee.
From the looks of things, this love story between the player and the Blaugrana is only heating up.