Barcelona and French winger Ousmane Dembele is back in training after another time on the sideline. Still, no return date to match the squad has been fixed for him to return to the pitch ahead of the club’s remaining Champions League fixture.
Since November, the winger had not played for the Catalan club as he was ruled out for six months in February when he was about making a recovery from another injury.
Barcelona coach was asked in his pre-match conference against Napoli ” We have been thinking about including him, but unfortunately, he has had only a few training sessions with the group, and we would have had to take a big risk.
Setien Frustrated with Dembele
“He still hasn’t got great confidence yet, and the best decision is not to take him because we thought he could play some minutes, but we’ll see how he is next week.”
“When we got o Portugal, I’m sure he will come, but I am not sure when or how many minutes he will play.”
Ousmane transferred to Barcelona in a deal worth €138 million making him one of the most expensive players for the Catalan club from German club Borussia Dortmund in 2017/18. He was part of the squad that won the world cup for France in 2018 in Russia. He was also voted the Bundesliga Young Player of the season in 2017.
Dembele started his journey from Rennes U-19 in France and spent over 5-year with them, playing 26 times for the senior squad with 12 goals and 12 assists before his performance earned him a move to Germany in 2016/17 €15 million making over 50 times at the Signal Iguna Park.
However, after a long-drawn battle between the player and the German club, which saw the player go on strike and miss training, he forced a move to Spanish Champions Barcelona for a then world-record fee in 2017/18.
Dembele is still a no show..
Unfortunately, Injuries have seen his chances and performance limited for the Catalan club since his move from the German club. Dembele has been absent for the more nine times with his recent injury been a Hamstring, which has taken up to 175 days to recover from, a bulk of his injury are muscle, ankle, and hamstring related.
He is currently working on his fitness after a long layoff as he pushes to play a part in the remaining portion of the club’s Champions League campaign. The club hopes they can get him back to full fitness and show some of the skills and performance that earned him his record-breaking transfer.
