[Fabrizio Romano] Mikel Merino, concrete option now on Barça list for the new midfielder as @tjuanmarti reported. Deco appreciates him, Merino will be one of the names considered.

11 comments

1. **Media reliability report:**

   – **Tier 2**: Toni Juanmartí ([@tjuanmarti](https://twitter.com/tjuanmarti)) – reliable

   – **Aggregator**: Fabrizio Romano ([@FabrizioRomano](https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano))

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2. This makes so much more sense than Kimmich. He will be our Goretzka

3. Makes too much sense for our board to actually execute on

4. 50 million release clause for a player whose contract is up next year. So should be able to bring it significantly down. Not sure if he is the one we need. But he is experienced and Flick might be able to integrate into the double pivot.

5. Finally, an attempt to close one of our holes in terms of profile in this midfield ! We don’t lack creativity. We create plenty, even this season. We lack toughness and duelist/ ball winners.

   Bernardo, Kimmich, Zubimendi, etc. They only make sense if we get rid of De Jong. Otherwise, they are redundant in terms of profile. Now, we just have to hope that Gavi comes back good and our midfield may be way less easy to run through with him and Merino in the team.

6. Warra W

7. is sociedad willing to negotiate 50M euro release clause

8. Flick is gonna have a blessing of a problem juggling all our midfielders if we do sign Merino.

   De Jong, Gavi, Pedri, Fermin, Gundogan, Merino, Christensen.

   It’ll be interesting

9. Love how quickly this deal is moving.

10. Fabrizio is Tier 2 lol. 😭😭

11. Good one.

    But the emphasis should be that if Flick appreciates him and not Deco.