Dembélé will not feature in Barcelona Cup tie vs Athletic Bilbao
The final nail in the coffin that is Ousmane Dembélé’s Barcelona career may have just been driven in as the former Borussia Dortmund star was omitted from the squad list that will travel to take on Athletic Bilbao in the Copa del Rey round of 16.
❗️ Dembélé won't travel with the team tomorrow. [tv3]
— barcacentre (@barcacentre) January 19, 2022
Manager Xavi Hernandez was asked about the forward in his pre-match press conference and stated a solution needed to be reached but that he was not planning on leaving Dembélé in the stands as punishment if he did not renew.
Barcelona had set a final deadline for the player to accept or reject their offer and that deadline came and went. Despite reports to the contrary, there was no meeting between the club and Dembélé’s agent Moussa Sissoko, according to ESPN’s Moises Llorens.
The club has shown their hand and now it’s a wait and see if there is any response from his agent or from Dembélé himself who has been relatively quiet throughout the saga. Xavi did say during his press conference that Dembélé told him he was comfortable in Barcelona and wanted to stay.
But the demands set by his agent have apparently made that an impossibility as Barcelona are not going to pay the wages and the signing bonus they are seeking. Not for a player who has struggled to remain healthy since arriving in 2017.
With only a couple of weeks left in the January transfer window, Barcelona is going to have to move fast if the plan now is to move him now rather than risk losing him as a free agent at the end of the season.
As for Dembélé, he is well within his rights to ask for what he believes he is worth. If this is it for him in Barcelona, he will be a “what could have been” as he simply could not stay healthy. If he manages to get past all the injuries, then betting on himself will have been the right way to go.