Barcelona Transfer News: Signing Antoine Griezmann a 'Major Goal' for Blaugrana

Barcelona have recently made some high-quality additions to their front line but they are reportedly still eager to sign Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid.

According to Marca's Luis F. Rojo, signing Griezmann is a "major goal" for Barca and he is now more affordable for the Catalan giants as his release clause has dropped from €200 million to €100 million.

Rojo added that Barca will need to sell three players in order to afford the French forward, with the potential candidates for offload including Rafinha, Paco Alcacer, Denis Suarez, Arda Turan, Andre Gomes and Aleix Vidal.

Both Rafinha and Turan are currently out on loan—at Inter Milan and Istanbul Basaksehir, respectively—so are obvious candidates for the exit door at the Camp Nou. 

Gomes, 24, has been a disappointment ever since joining the Blaugrana from Valencia in 2016 and Alcacer would be surplus to requirements should Griezmann move to Barca.

After a slightly underwhelming first half of 2017-18 Griezmann has hit top form recently, netting eight goals in his last five La Liga appearances, per WhoScored.com:

He is one of the most consistently creative forwards in La Liga and the prospect of him joining up with Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi, Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele at Barca is an exciting one. 

France international Griezmann has been at Atletico since 2014 and would be a major loss for the Madrid outfit.

However, there seems a certain inevitability about his departure from Atleti.

He would likely be attracted by the almost guaranteed silverware on offer at Barcelona and the chance to play in such a quality-packed side.