Barcelona have signed goalkeeper Joan Garcia for £21m and are on the verge of sealing a deal for Athletic Club’s Nico Williams for £50m. Like a man in debt patting his pockets, they don’t have the money on them, and are making those signings in the desperate hope that they can later balance the books by selling some ‘sacrifices’.
They’re not exactly hard up for talented footballers, which means there are some quality players reportedly up for grabs.
It’s been claimed by various outlets – both dependable and otherwise – that Barcelona are willing to listen to offers for these eight surplus stars, whom we’ve reassigned to Premier League suitors ahead of next season.
Marc-Andre ter Stegen – Manchester United
The 33-year-old has been told to find a new club as Wojciech Szczesny showed during Ter Stegen’s injury absence last season that he can quite capably be the back-up to new goalkeeper Garcia, and Barcelona reportedly believe they can break even by selling the German for around £21m.
That feels more than a tad optimistic given Ter Stegen’s age and a Transfermarkt value of €12m [£10.2m] and surely rules out a move to Chelsea, who baulked at AC Milan’s £20m asking price for Mike Maignan, who’s significantly younger (29) and arguably better, albeit with just one year left to run on his current deal compared to Ter Stegen’s three.
But Barcelona need not search for a transfer patsy as Manchester United are also keen on Ter Stegen as an upgrade on Onana. Having already overpaid for Matheus Cunha and looking as though they will do again to sign Bryan Mbeumo, United could well be Barcelona’s knight in gold-encrusted armour.
MAILBOX: Is Bryan Mbeumo ‘worth’ £63m? Well he is to Brentford…
Andreas Christensen – Newcastle
The 29-year-old has supposedly told his close circle that “next season I’m going to play for FC Barcelona”, as though he’s Eden Hazard breaking social media by announcing his move to Chelsea from Lille in 2012, but reports suggest the Catalan bean counters would much rather he wasn’t going to play for Barcelona next season.
We’re very much here for a footballer digging their heels in and refusing to leave while under contract, and we totally get the desire to stay in Barcelona even without any sort of guarantee of game time, but we also think footballers should be playing football and we can see Christensen playing a pretty significant role at Newcastle as Fabian Schar turns 34 in December.
Eddie Howe was keen on signing Christensen in January and with Champions League football back at St James’ Park next term, a guy with 45 appearances in Europe’s showcase competition who played a key role in Chelsea winning it in 2021 is surely worth more to Newcastle than what they would have to pay – around £15m.
Ronald Araujo – Manchester United
Araujo’s release clause take an ever-so-slight dip between July 1 and July 15 from €1bn [£860m] to €70m [£60m]. Why? It’s claimed the Barcelona bosses see this window ‘as an opportunity to either keep a motivated Araujo fit and ready for the season or receive a substantial transfer fee that would help balance the wage bill and fund other squad signings’.
We strongly suspect they would much rather the latter as that’s an absurdly risky motivational tool for a player you want to keep at your football club.
The club captain missed a good chunk of last season through injuries but only played about half the games after returning to fitness thanks to the ascension of teenager Pau Cubarsi.
Araujo wants to stay (spoiler: they all do) but Bayern have made noises over a move and so too have United amid reports that Barcelona may actually accept offers of £38m, which makes more sense for a good but not great centre-back.
Marc Casado – Arsenal
We’re guessing Brentford’s Christian Norgaard wasn’t on too many Gooners’ transfer wish lists this summer, though the wholly predictable He’s Actually Very Underrated chatter has arrived in force. We don’t necessarily disagree, and as a back-up? Fine.
But he’s not about to provide too many midfield headaches for Mikel Arteta and knowing without doubt which three players will start in midfield for Arsenal at the start of next season isn’t necessarily a good thing.
That would also be the case if their slightly dubious interest in Casado becomes more concrete and they land the 21-year-old, but at least he could usurp Martin Zubimendi in that defensive midfield role in time, whereas that’s just not going to happen for Norgaard unless Zubimendi is laughably unsuited to the Premier League.
Casado enjoyed a breakout season for Barcelona in 2024/2025 but faces a rather more difficult fight for game time next term following Marc Bernal’s return from injury to compete with Frenkie de Jong for a starting spot alongside Pedri, and Barcelona are reportedly open to cashing in on their academy graduate.
Fermin Lopez – Manchester City
A report claiming that Barcelona, while not actively pushing Fermin out, are open to his sale ‘if a great offer arrives’ cites Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United as the Premier League clubs interested. We have absolutely no idea why as we can’t see how he fits into any of them.
Playing ahead of Cole Palmer or Florian Wirtz? Not going to happen. And Ruben Amorim already has one square peg in a round hole in Bruno Fernandes; he doesn’t need another one. But we could see him at City.
Pep Guardiola responded to Rayan Cherki’s frankly awful debut for Manchester City at the Club World Cup by revealing “the club decided” to sign him, and although he caveated that shirking of responsibility by claiming “I am really pleased he’s here”, the City boss could be placated by a signing for him in Fermin – who was thought to be near the top of his list to replace Kevin De Bruyne – after Cherki was one for them.
Ferran Torres – Aston Villa
Torres got 19 goals and seven assists in comfortably his best season for Barcelona in 2024/2025, scoring those goals at an impressive rate of one every 101 minutes.
It can’t feel great then to have a €50m [£43m] price tag slapped on your head as Barcelona welcome all-comers to take you off their hands and for Aston Villa to then baulk at that price tag and walk away from negotiations that you’re not privy to and have no interest in as you don’t want to join them anyway.
We imagine Unai Emery’s a very hard man to say no to though. All we need is for the pair to be in a confined space for an hour and for Barcelona to drop that asking price by £10m or so for the deal to go through.
Pau Victor – Everton
Torres’ self esteem hasn’t taken the same battering as that of Victor, who’s reportedly had his €20m [£17m] asking price slashed to €5m [£4.2m] by Barcelona to ensure they can find a buyer for him. Predictably, as many as eight La Liga clubs have reportedly approached them over a move for the 23-year-old at that price.
We’ve gone with Everton for no reason other than them needing a striker after Dominic Calvert-Lewin dropped the very quiet bombshell that he’s leaving this summer,
Robert Lewandowski – Liverpool
“There’s no difference between a few years ago and now in terms of my stats,” Lewandowski said in March, insisting “I want to play at the top level for a few more years” amid reports Barcelona may be in the market for a younger model.
They’re not – they can’t afford one – but they’re also not in a position to turn down decent offers for a 36-year-old, and we’re pretty convinced he would score a bundle for Liverpool, because Lewandowski’s right, he’s not all that different a player to what we saw from him in his prime on the back of 42 goals in 52 games last term.
With Mohamed Salah, Florian Wirtz and whichever other forwards Arne Slot opts to play alongside his central striker, all he really needs is someone to put the ball in the back of the net.
