Marca<\/a>, Barcelona have wrestled with the problem and reached a decision: if Julian does not arrive, there will be no alternative.<\/p>\nTheir backup plan involves no new signings at all. Hansi Flick and sporting director Deco have decided against bringing in a striker this summer.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Barring a late chance in the final days of the window, Barcelona will stand pat. Club officials know that chance is unlikely with just one week left before the deadline, because only a top-class player would tempt them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The sporting management will not sign a mid-level option. Any arrival must be a genuine number nine, and no club will part with one of its best players this late, with no time left to find a replacement. So Barcelona stay as they are.<\/p>\n
Part of the reasoning traces back to what Flick saw in pre-season and in the opening game against Elche. The German is happy with his attacking options. His players can fill several forward roles, as both those matches made plain, and Raphinha was outstanding against Elche.<\/p>\n
Take the centre-forward berth the Brazilian occupied in that game. Several others can do the same job. Gordon and Adeyemi, the two new signings, are wingers by trade but can operate through the middle, and the German has already tried it in pre-season.<\/p>\n
Dani Olmo is another option there. Nor should the youngsters be forgotten. Hamza Abdelkarim finished as the team’s top scorer through pre-season and looks a real prospect. Bessiou, too, has flashed his scoring instinct despite limited minutes.<\/p>\n
You can discuss topics and news in greater depth in the “Kooora” forums<\/p>\n
Content with his current squad, Flick sees no need for a new striker. And should things go wrong, Barcelona can always return to the market in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Atletico Madrid will not budge. They remain adamant that Julian Alvarez is not for sale to Barcelona…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[179,92,331,6458,85,265],"class_list":["post-75636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-atletico-madrid","tag-barcelona","tag-deco","tag-j-alvarez","tag-laliga","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}