Striker Hunt Is Barcelona's Biggest Area of Concern Ahead of 2016/17 Season

The area of concern that is getting the most column inches in the Catalunya media is the battle between Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Claudio Bravo for Barcelona’s main goalkeeping position.

"Earthquake Ter Stegen," was Sport's headline (in Spanish) on Wednesday, with the newspaper claiming that the goalkeeper has told Barcelona he has an offer on the table from Manchester City.

However, it isn’t the problem that needs to be solved most urgently. Even though both goalkeepers have threatened to leave the club if they don’t get the nod from Luis Enrique, per Catalunya Radio (h/t Sport), Barcelona will be left with a world-class goalkeeper no matter what happens.

As back-up they would have Jordi Masip, a player who Luis Enrique always backs when speaking about his goalkeeping options, so it wouldn’t prove to be too troublesome.

Losing Ter Stegen would sting, because he has the quality and potential to be the club’s goalkeeper for the next 10 years, but for the time being Bravo is still extremely reliable.

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The bigger problem is at the other end of the field. That’s not something many would say, considering Barcelona have three of the best strikers in the world, in Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez.

But what they want is the fourth. They need a forward who can play back-up to those three while being good enough to come in and make a difference on a regular basis.

Pedro Rodriguez played that role until the start of last season when he went to Chelsea. Since then, there’s been a gap.

Luis Enrique tried Munir El Haddadi and Sandro Ramirez. The latter didn’t cut it and was sent packing to Malaga, while the former is still around and looked half decent by the end of last season. However, that is not enough of an option to be a reliable back-up for one of the MSN trident.

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This is particularly true of the "S" part of the trio. While new midfield signing Denis Suarez, Arda Turan, Rafinha and even Mr. Versatile, Sergi Roberto, can play in the wide forward roles, Barcelona would love a trustworthy centre-forward.

And according to Sport’s Esther Blasco, the date Luis Enrique wanted him in the squad by is fast approaching with no firm progress in sight.

Blasco wrote:

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The FC Barcelona sporting director, Robert Fernandez, is working to sign a fourth forward to complete the squad. Despite having plenty of time to do so at the start of the summer, now the clock is ticking.

Coach Luis Enrique Martinez made it clear, in one of their earliest meetings, that he wanted the No. 9 in the squad ahead of the Spanish Super Cup, taking into account that competition will be the 14th and 17th of August. The technical team are starting to resign themselves to the fact that they will not have this fourth striker by the time these games come around.

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It’s not for want of trying though. Barcelona have been linked with several players. By Twitter user Questra's calculations, 76 forwards have been touted as potential signings for Barcelona by the media:

Obviously, that reflects the desire to create interesting stories and newspapers publishing any information that comes their way, even if the end result is unlikely, but it also shows how Barcelona’s search has become increasingly non-specific.

At the start of the summer there were targets, individual players. Hatem Ben Arfa, Nolito, Ousmane Dembele and Luciano Vietto were four attempted signings which failed, per Sport.

It would have been painful for Barcelona fans to see Vietto score a delightful debut goal for Sevilla in a friendly against Granada on Tuesday night. After all, he could have been scoring it for Barcelona against Leicester City on Wednesday, if things had gone a little differently.

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Now, with sporting director Robert Fernandez in Brazil, Barcelona are scrabbling around to find someone who fits the bill.

Ignasi Oliva and Ben Hayward of Goal suggested three further options:

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Barca continues to scour the market, with the club considering three forwards now: Lyon's Alexandre Lacazette, Fenerbahce's veteran Dutch attacker Robin van Persie and Fiorentina's German international Mario Gomez.

Lacazette is the most attractive of the three, but Arsenal has already seen a substantial offer turned down for the 25-year-old (who recently followed Barca on Twitter) and Lyon does not want or need to sell after Umtiti left the French club for the Catalan capital earlier this month.

"

However, since that story was published a week ago, nothing more on any of those three targets has emerged.

Sport reported Barcelona were focusing on trying to sign Luan Guilherme, who is at the Olympic Games with Neymar and Rafinha in Brazil's squad, but Gremio's president tried to warn them off.

If there is no bolt from the blue, it all means Barcelona may end up with no additional striker or a last-minute buy, and if it’s the latter, serious questions will be asked as to whether it might have been better just to trust Munir.

Another option would be to use Messi as a false nine if Suarez is absent or needs a rest, but the Barcelona boss will not want to reshuffle his whole system just to rest a player.

Then again, Luis Enrique did not want to be waiting until now to fill in the final piece of the puzzle in his squad.