Barcelona to target Kylian Mbappe

With PSG on the verge of signing Neymar for a world record fee, Barcelona could be looking at Kylian Mbappe as his successor.

In the madness and craziness of one of the most dramatic and over-the-top transfer windows in a very long time with the transfer of the century being pulled off with Paris Saint-Germain being close to smashing the transfer record with a £220 million purchase of Barcelona’s Neymar, might just yet have another turn to it.

The transfer means Barcelona will have to replace Neymar somehow, which is a task that is not going to be easy despite the immense amount of money that is available. How on earth does a club actually manage to replace one of the best players in the world who is just about to enter the prime of their careers? It does seem mind-boggling as to who Barcelona could actually go for, we’ve just entered August and the season is fast approaching, it seems hard to believe that any club would be as so willing to sell their star players to Barcelona as of right now.

Even if Barcelona were able to find a club willing to sell – every club will now know that Barcelona are 200 million richer and will be looking for absurd prices in an attempt to try to fleece Barcelona out of the money that they have received so far. This is even without considering the ridiculous amount of money that they will have to spend on attempting to bring Philippe Coutinho to the club from Liverpool, who are looking at nearly £100 million for him, just to replace Andres Iniesta.

But this is where things begin to get interesting as French newspaper L’Équipe is reporting that Monaco wonderkid Kylian Mbappe has informed the club that he wants to leave and that Barcelona are potentially looking at him. Mbappe is coming off his breakout season at only 18 years of age after guiding Monaco to a Ligue 1 title victory and a semi-final spot in the Champions League.

The youngster is arguably the most talented young player in the world at the moment with Manchester City, Real Madrid and Arsenal all chasing him although the general belief seems to be that he will end up at Real Madrid – whether that is this summer or the next one.

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Monaco have already sold several of their players this season, Bernardo Silva and Benjamin Mendy to Manchester City & Tiemoue Bakayoko to Chelsea, with rumours of Thomas Lemar and Fabinho also potentially leaving. So it is no surprise that Monaco would be looking to keep a hold of Mbappe unless they could potentially gain a lot of money for him – with a £180 million price tag on his head.

Mbappe has said in the past that he’d love to play with Cristiano Ronaldo but could Barcelona be able to turn his head? They have the money to be able to afford what Monaco are demanding and the opportunity to play with a player like Lionel Messi is surely tempting to any player on the planet as well. It would be a huge signal of ambition from Barcelona, who have not endured the best of years so far in 2017 after losing La Liga to Real Madrid, getting demolished 4-0 by PSG and 3-0 by Juventus in the Champions League in another poor campaign and now one of their star players leaving.

The opportunity to be able to sign the most desired young player in the world would be huge, and if Mbappe is able to live up to the potential that many seem to think that he has, it could be the best future replace for Lionel Messi they could get – just as Neymar was thought to be when they signed him back in the summer of 2013.

It is hard to see who else Barcelona could get – Chelsea would never sell Eden Hazard and he seems to be quite like Neymar in relishing the role as the ‘ace’ of his team, Dortmund seem to be holding off on selling Ousmane Dembele this season and Paulo Dybala from Juventus is only after signing a new contract in April and doesn’t seem intent on leaving the Italian champions so soon.

Barcelona will be fine even if they have to wait one more season to sign a proper replacement for Neymar – any team that has one of Lionel Messi or Luis Suarez always would be let alone having both of them but being able to pip their arch rivals to signing somebody who could end up being the best player of their generation would be massive for Barcelona and while it is always near impossible to be able to judge how could a player can be at such an age, Mbappe most certainly looks the real deal and looks to be a very special player.