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Cesc Fabregas (Reuters)
It’s no secret that this is Sergio Busquets’ last season in Barcelona and the Catalan club is already thinking a lot about alternatives to the veteran Spanish midfielder. Meanwhile, former Blaugrana midfielder Cesc Fabregas has revealed that he recommended Real Madrid’s rising star Orléan Tchoumani to the club’s bosses even before he joined the Blancos last summer.
Cesc said in an interview that when Barca began the process of searching for a long-term successor to Busquets, he recommended Tshoumani with whom he played together at the time in Monaco. “I spoke with Barca because they were looking for a replacement for Busquets. I talked about Orleans with Barca, they wanted to start preparing for the ‘inheritance’ of Sergio Busquets and for me he was the perfect player”, he shared Fabregas.
However, the source revealed that Barcelona’s financial constraints at the time prevented any chance of the 22-year-old player moving to the Camp Nou and said: “It was at a time when Barca was short of money and I think they couldn’t have offered more than €40 million.” As a result, Real Madrid acquired the French star, in a deal that is worth 2 times the amount that Barcelona could afford and the Catalans missed one of the biggest stars in the football world today.
It was also reported in AS that Martin Sovimendi, whom Barca marked as the successor of Busquets in its central link, is receiving a lot of interest from Manchester United, who are going to fight in Spain for his services. The Red Devils have joined the race for the midfielder from Real Sociedad, who only signed a contract extension with a €60 million release clause last October.
According to the report, United is ready to activate the release clause of the 23-year-old midfielder and is “studying the possibility of his inclusion”. At the same time, despite the interest from the English luxury club, the Basques are calm and expect Sovimendi to stay at the club much longer after extending his contract.
Erik ten Haah is not only thinking about strengthening his team’s central midfield, as he has also marked himself with a number of targets in attack, including Cody Gakpo from PSV Eindhoven, who is starring in the World Cup in Qatar, and his Dutch teammate, Memphis Depay, who has not ruled out a return to Old Trafford after already saying that he feels that the episode His time in the group did not end in a complete way.
