“Now it’s time to work on defense.” That’s how resounding Joan Laporta was in Miami , where he gave an interview to Hristo Stoichkov . Once the signings of Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha and the renewal of Ousmane Dembélé have been resolved, the president of Barcelona turns his cannons towards behind. The Danish Andreas Christensen has already arrived from Chelsea and now he aspires to turn the English club into a regular fishing ground, since the next names he has on his agenda are César Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso .
In the case of the former, Laporta aspires not to pay a transfer euro, as he has already achieved with Christensen himself and with the Ivorian Frank Kessié , in his case from AC Milan . Taking into account that Azpilicueta will turn 33 next month and that he only has one year left on his contract with Chelsea , his transfer figure would be necessarily low, but at Barça he hopes to reduce it to zero.
Your main argument? Trust that Chelsea have a benevolent gesture with their captain, a model player during the decade he has been in London since he arrived from Olympique de Marseille . It goes without saying that the only beneficiary of this move would be Barcelona , which would save paying a transfer fee, since the player would not get any benefit from terminating his contract.
A lot of money… for others
This desire to save a few million contrasts with the joy that Barcelona is showing in this transfer market, where it has already spent around 60 million on Raphina and another 50 for Lewandowski . In addition, he also has a similar amount prepared to undertake the signing of another defender, Jules Koundé . All these operations are watered by the rain of millions that the famous levers are generating, although Barcelona has only executed one of them at the moment.
While he eagerly awaits the moment to return to Spanish football, Azpilicueta continues without expressing himself publicly and working normally in the Chelsea preseason. In fact, the Navarrese had minutes in the first summer friendly of the team coached by Thomas Tuchel in the United States , where they beat the Mexican América (2-1).
