9 Players Barcelona Should Clear out in Summer Transfer Window
Barcelona's transfer machine is already up and running, but so far only outgoing deals have been wrapped up as they plan for defending their La Liga title in 2016-17.
Dani Alves told SportItalia he'll soon join Juventus (h/t ESPN), and Borussia Dortmund opted to activate Marc Bartra's release clause, but there is yet more work ahead for Luis Enrique to prepare his squad for another rigorous season.
Part of our look at the Asturian boss' summer plans involved him rebuilding from the back; now it's time to see exactly why, with Barca having another six players they should be looking to offload in addition to the two already departed.
Courting controversy: Claudio Bravo
It's perhaps a surprising name, and certainly the only first-XI choice on the list, but Barca should be opting to cash in now on Chilean goalkeeper Claudio Bravo.
The 33-year-old is agile, consistent, has strengths that suit Barca's game and has another two years left on his contract...but he is 33.
It's not especially old for a goalkeeper, but the Catalan outfit could get a decent fee in for him this summer after perhaps his best three years in a row—Bravo's final season at Real Sociedad and his two at the Camp Nou, in addition to winning the 2015 Copa America with his national team.
Goalkeepers who fetch a good fee at that age are few and far between, and the time has perhaps come for Luis Enrique to pick an outright No. 1 instead of rotating Bravo for La Liga and Marc-Andre ter Stegen for the cups.
Despite Bravo having done very little wrong, the right choice for now and the future is to back the German.
Ter Stegen has put in some exceptional performances for Barcelona, and though he admittedly has the odd big error in his game, so does pretty much every goalkeeper on the planet.
Allowing Ter Stegen to mature and take on responsibility is the only way to try to remove those errors from his game, and Barca will regret not choosing him in a couple of seasons' time if he is performing at the highest level and they then need to replace an ageing Bravo anyway.
Difficult choices have to be made, and Ter Stegen has everything the team needs to fit their style, as well as relative youth. Aged 24, he has a decade ahead of him, and the best years should now be seen at Barcelona—and that means offloading Bravo and reinvesting the money received from him elsewhere.
The overcrowding in defence
Bartra has gone, yet he barely scratched the surface in terms of making up Barcelona's central defensive options.
Indeed, the Spaniard played the fewest minutes out of the five centre-backs available to Luis Enrique in 2015-16, most of which came in largely irrelevant fixtures where wins came easily, or as a late sub to boost his appearance tally.
Thomas Vermaelen and Jeremy Mathieu remain, both left-footed, left-sided centre-backs in their 30s, and both have failed to show the level of consistency in their performances required at the highest level.
For the Belgian, it has been an issue of fitness; he started the 15-16 season in great form and played an important role in a couple of early games, but another two long-term absences due to injuries have wrecked his second season at the club. Vermaelen needs to be offloaded for his own sake as much as the club's.
Mathieu, on the other hand, suffers when not playing regularly. His form dips when left on the bench, perhaps due to age and taking time to find his rhythm, and it's no coincidence that he has been one of the most error-strewn players in the Barcelona team this season.
Versatility and power, along with perceived aerial dominance, are the big factors he has in his favour, but the former Valencia man doesn't really give the team the assuredness at the back that is required of him.
It's no secret Barcelona are in the market for a new centre-back next season, and all three of the backup defenders should be sold on this summer to make way for the new arrival.
Along with Gerard Pique, Javier Mascherano and the ability of Sergio Busquets to drop in for an emergency, it should be enough. If not and they desperately want a fourth centre-back, youth is always the way forward, not an increasingly immobile Mathieu.
Full-back flops
Dani Alves was a long-serving member of the defence and, even if his form in 15-16 didn't always hit the heights he had previously shown, there's a sense that Barcelona might miss his marauding overlaps down the flank next year.
Two players Barcelona won't miss, though, are Douglas and Adriano.
The Brazilian pair accounted for just 445 minutes of La Liga game time this season, the vast majority of course going to the latter.
Adriano is experienced, versatile and content with being a back-up, but he offers precisely nothing to the first XI in terms of on-the-ball ability, physical exploitation of spaces or creativity against packed defences.
He is only there to grant a rest to first-team players now and then, but even that came rarely last term as Mathieu featured at left-back with more frequency.
Sporting director Robert Fernandez recently remarked in a press conference, per Sport, "I want Douglas to get playing time." Presumably the unspoken end of that sentence was "in a place far, far away from the Camp Nou."
The less said about Douglas' time at Barca the better, and he is a guaranteed departure this summer.
Sandro and three on loan
One member of the 15-16 squad and three who were out on loan make up the remainder of our list.
Alen Halilovic isn't one; after a year on loan at Sporting Gijon, he seems on the verge of joining Valencia, as his agent told Esports COPE (h/t ESPN's Dermot Corrigan), but while it would be a good move for him and for Barca in the long run, it's not a departure we'd advocate as part of the clear-out—he's still a player worth investing in for the future.
However, Alex Song, Cristian Tello and Martin Montoya have no future at Barcelona.
They have time on their contracts still, one year for Song and three for the Spanish duo, but further loans serve little purpose. What money can be made from them should be brought in and reinvested; Montoya impressed at Real Betis in the second half of the season and should fetch a small amount from a mid-table La Liga side, while Song and Tello will likely go for nominal fees.
Finally, there's little question that Sandro Ramirez missed his opportunity in the first team this season. He played in La Liga when Neymar and Lionel Messi were injured, but he failed to score and was a peripheral figure after the turn of the year.
Robert Fernandez has already confirmed he will leave, but the 20-year-old forward should at least bring in a reasonable sum.
It's a lot of work to get through for Barcelona, offloading in one summer enough players to fill an entire playing team—including the already-departed Bartra and exiting Alves—but needing to boost the squad with more recruits and requiring finances to do so, the Catalan club need to get to work.
The retention of the Liga title is at stake, and Luis Enrique needs a capable squad to manage it.
.jpg?w=600 "Shedeur not currently in line for Browns QB1")
.jpg?w=600 "Ranking Every NFL Defense After 2026 Draft 📊")
