After signing their primary target, Robert Lewandowski, Barcelona president Joan Laporta has insisted that his team is not done in the summer transfer market.
The Spanish La Liga giants signed the striker after reaching a £42.5 million agreement with the Bundesliga champions, Bayern Munich, making him the club’s fourth acquisition of the transfer window.
From the commencement of this summer transfer window, Barca had placed a high priority on the 33-year-old Polish striker. Now that Barcelona president Joan Laporta has landed his top target, the focus has switched from attackers to defenders.
With the addition of Andreas Christensen from Chelsea, the Blaugrana have already strengthened their defense, but it seems that they have other plans as well. Jules Kounde of Sevilla and Cesar Azpilicueta of Chelsea are two players who have been strongly linked with moves to the Nou Camp.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta admitted that the club will continue to buy players in order to improve their squad before the current summer transfer window closes on September 1.
During an interview with former Barcelona icon Hristo Stoichkov, Joan Laporta said: “We want to make a competitive team, give Xavi the tools to have a good team and I think we are on the right track.
“My dream is for Barca to become a world reference again and we are working for it. If the economy doesn’t recover it will be very difficult.”
🗣️ Joan Laporta: “I can’t give you names, but we will now strengthen our defense – Xavi has given us six names.”
— infosfcb (@infosfcb) July 19, 2022
– “I hope Culers will enjoy them.” pic.twitter.com/uvucKTttPF
He added that they are still in the rebuilding process and they have to work even harder because football doesn’t wait for anybody.
He acknowledged that their executives Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff are doing a good job in helping them to bring in Ousmane Dembele, Raphinha, Robert Lewandowski, Franck Kessie, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and Ferran Torres.
However, these players are not defenders which made him to say that it’s time to work on defense. According to him, current head coach Xavi Hernandez has given the club a list of defenders he wants to work with and he hopes they will sign them this summer.
Lewandowski finally finished his stretched transfer, despite Barca’s terrible financial circumstances, and traveled to Miami this week to meet his new teammates for the first time.
The Spanish team is still trying to offset a sizable portion of their summer expenditure and is pressuring Frenkie de Jong to sign with Manchester United, but the Dutch midfielder is proving difficult, especially given the amount of cash he feels he is still owed. The Netherlands international has also revealed that he’s not interested in leaving Barcelona this summer but Man United are still pushing to secure his services.
