Candidates to interchange Mateu Alemany at Barcelona

Mateu Alemany’s impending Barcelona departure and Aston Villa’s subsequent swoop is indicative of the Premier League’s present monetary may.

The Villans, who’re at the moment on the upsurge below Unai Emery, had been in a position to entice the revered director to Villa Park with a contract provide the Catalans could not come near matching.

The 60-year-old Spaniard has constructed a formidable status because of his work at Valencia and Barcelona amid a mightily troublesome monetary interval for the membership. His exit will permit one other cloud of uncertainty to type over Catalonia forward of the summer season switch window, with the membership needing to maneuver quick to be able to safe a alternative of some type.

Here are three potential candidates.

The former Barcelona star has rapidly emerged because the favorite to interchange Alemany.

Deco, who spent 4 years on the membership as a participant, has retained a powerful relationship with president Joan Laporta since his retirement and he just lately took on the function as Barça’s expertise specialist in Brazil and in Portugal.

However, a lot of his work since he hung up his boots has come within the sports activities company enterprise. Deco performed a vital function in Barcelona securing the signings of Raphinha and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, however he has no prior expertise as a director.

While Laporta clearly has a number of religion within the 45-year-old, it might be an enormous threat to nominate a novice given the membership’s precarious state of affairs.

Many might have anticipated Barcelona to make a transfer for the broadly revered Spanish director Antonio Cordon, who has heaps of expertise and is out there after leaving his function at Real Betis in February.

Barcelona have been linked with the 59-year-old, who was Villarreal’s sporting director for 17 years amid probably the most profitable interval within the membership’s historical past, since his Betis exit, however he is not going to be succeeding Alemany in Catalonia.

According to Sport, Barça have already dominated Cordon out of the race.

Michael Edwards is the identify that each massive membership in want of a sporting director will undoubtedly think about first.

Edwards was the mastermind behind Liverpool’s daring however savvy recruitment technique that helped them evolve right into a juggernaut below Jurgen Klopp. He was in a position to flog fan favorite Philippe Coutinho to Barça for an astronomical price and assist Klopp construct a title-winning outfit with the earnings made.

He departed Liverpool in 2022 and describes himself as being “on a break” on his Linkedin web page. An provide from Barcelona would absolutely be tempting, however on condition that they weren’t interested by bringing in Cordon, it appears unlikely that Laporta would transfer to usher in Edwards given the projected funds concerned.

Thus, if the experiences are true, novice Deco is firmly in pole place to be Barcelona’s subsequent Director of Football.