Ousmane Dembele Has Endured Nightmare At Barcelona - FOW 24 NEWS

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Ousmane Dembele Has Endured Nightmare At Barcelona


Ousmane Dembele has seen his dream £97m move to Barcelona turn into an injury nightmare but he could still be their secret weapon against Chelsea.....

It's not the first trick Ousmane Dembele would have wanted to pull at Barcelona – turn up as the most expensive player in the club's history and just six months later have become something of a forgotten man.



But that has been the trajectory for Dembele – signed for an initial £96.8m (potentially rising to £135.5m) and yet barely mentioned in the build-up to the biggest game of Barcelona's season so far.

Ernesto Valverde was questioned about Andre Gomes and Paulinho in his pre-match press conference on Monday and if the Barcelona coach ignores those two options and puts the 20-year-old French winger in from the start against Chelsea it will come as a major surprise.



Dembele's dream move has been something of a nightmare so far. There is no questioning his talent. Real Madrid tried to sign him last summer before they realised that Barcelona were willing to break their transfer record to take him to Catalonia.

But things did not start well. The weeks of speculation about his imminent move to Spain wrecked his pre-season.

There was a mini-strike as he tried to force the German club's hand in selling him. When he turned up on August 28 he looked mentally exhausted and perhaps also physically under-prepared.



It was heartbreaking for him, but not necessarily surprising, that he soon picked up an injury. At first it looked like a hamstring tear when he pulled up in a game against Getafe in September but there was tendon damage too and he had to miss three months.

He had played very little football in the Barcelona shirt – with just one assist for Luis Suarez to his name – and he was back on the sidelines.

When he came back the anxiety still seemed to be there and he suffered a relapse with three more weeks out.

His second comeback has so far been injury-free but there was torment of a different sort when he came on as a substitute against Getafe and gave the ball away 13 times in 27 minutes – unforgiveable for any Barcelona player, especially one who cost so much.

There was one moment in that half-an-hour horror show last month when he had Lionel Messi in space on the edge of the area and instead of passing to the No 10 – the golden rule for any new recruit – he crossed to the far post where there was no Barcelona player in sight and the ball ran into touch. 

Messi turned and, head-down, headed back to the halfway line.

Despite all this the club still believe they made the right call signing Dembele. They had pursued him a year earlier before they knew they were losing Neymar.

His campaign at Dortmund last year only strengthened their resolve and now they have him they are not about to cut their losses with a quick sale.

Ousmane Dembele Has Endured Nightmare At Barcelona Reviewed by FOW 24 News on February 20, 2018 Rating: 5 Ousmane Dembele has seen his dream £97m move to Barcelona turn into an injury nightmare but he could still be their secret weapon against...

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