We wrote a little yesterday about how Chelsea ended up with a pretty clean run to sign Estevao Willian, who looks without doubt like one of the best young players in the world.
The focus yesterday was on PSG and why they hadn’t ended up getting seriously involved in a bidding war for Willian. Now the attention has turned to Barcelona, with Fabrizio Romano’s column for Caughtoffside revealing all.
It was more than just a financial decision in the end for the Catalan club. Despite their ongoing issues off the field, they have been able to continue to sign some big names. However Estevao wasn’t among them, nor were the Catalans ever linked too closely. Top transfer insider Romano explained why.
Romano reveals all on Yamal – Estevao connection
“Chelsea were one of several clubs interested in Estevao, but in reality all of the top European clubs were very attentive to his situation,” Romano said.
“He was on Barcelona’s list for example, and they wanted him before Lamine Yamal started to show what an exceptional talent he is. For sure Chelsea believe they’ve signed a top player for the present and future, and one who they believe can play as right winger but also as a number 10.”
So every time we watch Yamal doing incredible things for Barcelona, we can at least take comfort in the fact that that same talent delivered Estevao into our hands.
Clearly Barcelona are more worried about an overstock of talent than we are – not only did we buy Estevao, w also bought Kendry Paez, a player in the same position in the same age group. And that’s before you even get to the established first team talent we’ve got in wide positions in the squad.
Barcelona aren’t worried about an “overstock of talent.” They’re flat broke, lol!
They massively overspent on transfers for years, wound up having to mortgage their future by selling their TV rights for a decade to cover present expenses and its left them struggling in recent seasons just to register the players they’ve got—let alone the newest South American starlet!
La Liga is well behind the Premier League in developing its brand in new and extremely lucrative markets like the States, and, even with the incredible brand Barcelona possess, they’re cash strapped and are going to struggle to remain a top club unless they can produce another golden generation through La Masia. The days of spending hundreds of millions on the likes of Neymar and Suarez are over and it’s why we’ve seen them shrink from a bidding war on an, as yet, unproven talent like Estevao and it’s why so many of their incoming players are veterans on free transfers.