\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span>fter waving Robert Lewandowski off into the sunset at the end of last season, Barcelona<\/strong> are in need of a new striker. The only one on their books scored the winner in the World Cup final. Julian Alvarez<\/strong> is at the centre of a Spanish tug of war this summer \u2013 he wants to leave Atl\u00e9tico Madrid and is wanted by Barcelona and Real Madrid<\/strong>who had a \u00a3129m bid roundly rejected in June. With Atl\u00e9tico suits so far refusing to sit down with Joan Laporta for talks in a fashionable Catalan restaurant, the Bar\u00e7a president is beginning to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n Naturally, Laporta\u2019s attention has turned to Bournemouth. That is, Junior Kroupi<\/strong> had an outstanding first season in English football and is said to be the basis of Barcelona\u2019s Plan B up front. Bournemouth insist the 20-year-old is not for sale and, according to reports, value the striker at \u00a3110m anyway \u2013 about the going rate for a good young player in the Premier League. Other European heavyweights such as Paris Saint-Germain<\/strong>, Arsenal<\/strong> and, is, Tottenham<\/strong> are circling. Chelsea\u2019s John Pedro<\/strong> is said to be an unrealistic Plan C for Bar\u00e7a. Maybe Plan D was Danny Welbeck.<\/p>\n Sticking with Spurs, Savinho<\/strong> has been keeping a keen eye on their big spending in this window and apparently wants to ditch the silverware at Manchester City for the golden cockerel of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Meanwhile, Jack Grealish<\/strong> has been left out of City\u2019s party for their pre-season tour of Asia, with the 30-year-old\u2019s future well up in the air. \u201cAt the moment, he is here,\u201d said the very non-committal new City manager, Enzo Maresca, last week.<\/p>\n In other transfer tussle news, Crystal Palace<\/strong> are reportedly weighing up a bid for the Lens midfielder Mamadou Sangare<\/strong> \u2013 but they will have to be quick. Brentford<\/strong> are said to be in advanced talks over a \u00a341m move for the 24-year-old Mali international, who could fill a Jordan Henderson-sized hold in their squad. Palace haven\u2019t spent a penny this summer, with free agent \u00d3scar Mingueza their only incoming so far. Former Arsenal defender Takehiro Tomiyasu<\/strong> is training with the Conference League winners with a view to another free transfer.<\/p>\n Fulham<\/strong> are still interested in making Gonzalo Garcia<\/strong> their marquee summer signing but \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa\u2019s desire to be reunited with the Real Madrid striker could be scuppered by the asking price, said to be upwards of \u00a350m. Madrid\u2019s Franco Mastantuono<\/strong> and Fran Garcia<\/strong> are also said to be on their shortlist. It might be worth widening your search terms, \u00c1lvaro.<\/p>\n And as Barcelona continue to scramble around for a striker, their next pre-season opponents have added to their forward ranks. Luis Vasquez<\/strong> is through the door at Birmingham<\/strong>who host Bar\u00e7a at St Andrew\u2019s on Friday. Oh, the glamour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After waving Robert Lewandowski off into the sunset at the end of last season, Barcelona…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}