Xavi willing to risk Barca HUMILIATION to reunite Dembele & Aubameyang

Xavi is willing to risk Barcelona HUMILIATION by reuniting Ousmane Dembele and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, but with 10 forwards and no new defenders he will need performances to justify the revamp

  • Barcelona boss Xavi will have a juggling act rotating his plethora of forwards 
  • They now have 10 forwards after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang signed on Monday
  • It sees Aubameyang reunited with ex-Dortmund team-mate Ousmane Dembele
  • Dembele looked set to leave Barca in the January window with his deal expiring
  • However, Xavi will now plan to use him to help Barca’s season finish on a high 

Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez is in favour of the club performing a U-turn on the decision not to play Ousmane Dembele again, so he can reunite new signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with his former Borussia Dortmund team-mate.

In the aftermath of a transfer window in which the player refused to move there are many at the club who feel it would now be humiliating to play Dembele having told him he would be frozen out if he did not sign a new contract or leave.

President Joan Laporta said on Tuesday: ‘Dembele is part of the squad but Xavi has to construct a competitive side with players who have a future at the club. We think Dembele has a contract with another club; that is what’s been insinuated to us. We will defend the interests of the club.’ 


Xavi (left) is set to go against Barcelona’s wishes by continuing to play Ousmane Dembele

Barca threatened to freeze Dembele out if he didn’t sign a new contract or leave last month 

Xavi hopes to pair Dembele with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who has joined from Arsenal

Goalkeeper: Ter Stegen

Defence: Alves, Pique, Araujo, Alba

Midfield: Pedri, Busquets, Gavi/Frenkie de Jong

Attack: Ferran Torres, Aubameyang, Dembele/Ansu Fati

But there is also a feeling within the club that those interests are best served by Dembele playing and that it would be even more ridiculous to pay the player the remaining €5million (£4.2m) of his contract which runs out in June, and not use him.

Xavi has placed himself firmly in the second camp although any U-turn is unlikely to happen immediately. 

Barcelona now have an incredible TEN forwards and there are the options to make a face-saving transition slowly but Xavi is convinced that with a Champions League place at the stake he could make use of the French forward. 

There is no shortage of images of Dembele back in his Dortmund days alongside Aubameyang and one thing stands out from most of them – the French winger is smiling in a way he’s never been seen doing at Barcelona. Aubameyang’s arrival reunites the two former Bundesliga team-mates who scored 37 goals between them under Thomas Tuchel in the 2016-17 season.

Xavi will need all his strikers to perform after Barcelona’s movement in the market failed to do anything to address their defensive problems.

While boasting the attacking options of Ansu Fati, Aubameyang, Ferran Torres, Martin Braithwaite, Luuk de Jong, Adama Traore, Dembele, Ferran Jutgla, Hiroki Abe and Memphis Depay they still have five of the same back six that played the 2015 Champions League final – Marc Andre ter Stegen, Dani Alves, Gerard Pique, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets.

Aubameyang and Dembele enjoyed a good relationship in attack for Borussia Dortmund

BARCELONA’S TOP HEAVY SQUAD 

The threadbare defence

Ter Stegen/Neto

Alves/Dest, Pique/Umtiti, Araujo/Lenglet, Alba/Mingueza

Midfield

Pedri/Gavi, Busquets/Nico, Frenkie de Jong/Sergio Roberto

The abundance of striking options

Dembele/Ferran/Adama, Ansu/ Aubameyang/Luuk de Jong, Braithwaite/Memphis/ Abde/Jutgla

The abundance of options in attack could see Barcelona give Ansu Fati a prolonged spell on the sidelines to properly recover from his injury problems, and send Abde and Jutgla back to the youth team. The signings could also spell a return to the cold for Luuk de Jong.

In the Europa League options could be more limited with only three of the four new Barcelona signings able to be registered. Dani Alves, as the only defender in the new signings, is set to be one of those as well as Ferran Torres. That means it will be a toss up between Adama Traore and Aubameyang. According to Marca, Aubameyang is the more likely to be omitted. 

Aubameyang looks set to play for almost a fifth of the money he was earning at Arsenal but he will be reimbursed for his sacrifice in the second year of his contract.

Spanish radio Cope have reported that Barcelona managed to find €1.7m (£1.4m) worth of wriggle room on deadline day. That would translate as £72,000-a-week wages for the Gabon striker who was on £350,000-a-week at Arsenal.

Barcelona will have a new salary cap at the start of next season and Aubameyang should move back up towards his Arsenal money before his contract runs down in 2023. 

Xavi will have to exclude one of his four January signing from their Europa League squad


Ferran Torres and Dani Alves will most likely feature in Xavi’s squad for the Europa League


Either Adama Traore (left) or Aubameyang qre likely to be left out as result due to rules

After renegotiating Samuel Umtiti’s contract, sending back Yusuf Demir to Rapid Viena and loaning goalkeeper Inaki Pena to Galatasaray, Barcelona were able to bring in Torres from Manchester City and sign Alves and Traore with both players accepting minimal deals.

The failure to sell Dembele meant Barcelona were not able to sign Xavi’s first-choice striker Alvaro Morata. Atletico Madrid were not willing to loan him to a direct rival and Barcelona were left without the money to sign him.

Instead they turned to free transfer Aubameyang and his flexibility over the way he would be paid allowed the deal to go through.

The former Arsenal striker, who scored 92 goals in 163 games for the Gunners, was not registered with the league before midnight but as a free agent that will not prevent the transfer passing.

Xavi now faces a balancing act for the rest of the season with his squad having 10 forwards

Barcelona fans were split in their reaction to the deal. Some were excited about the club signing a goal scorer, but others questioned the wisdom of giving him a contract into next season, and pointed out that the player had not ended his spell at Arsenal well and not been in top form for the last year-and-a-half.

Barcelona supporters were also reminded that the player once committed his future to Real Madrid telling a reporter after one game at the Bernabeu: ‘As I’ve always said I promised to my [Spanish] grandfather that I would play here one day.’

One man backing Aubameyang to be a success was his former international coach Jose Camacho. 

The one-time Spain and Gabon boss told Cope: ‘He’s a good player. He’s quick and a good penalty box finisher. He’s a god in Gabon. His mum is Spanish. And I never had a problem with him. In training he was always a good professional.’




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