BARCELONA are set to go all out to sign a Manchester City star after missing out on Neymar – but they need to sell TWO players first.
The Brazilian, who left Barca for Paris Saint-Germain for a world-record £198m in 2017, has joined Al-Hilal for an initial £77.6m.
GettyMan City outcast Joao Cancelo has emerged as Barcelona’s new top target[/caption]
AFPThe Catalans failed to bring Neymar back as he completed a mega-money Saudi move[/caption]
And he is to pick up a record salary worth up to £314m over two years.
Both he and Barcelona had hoped to secure a dream reunion, but the LaLiga title holders were unable to compete with the vast sums on offer in the Middle East.
Now Mundo Deportivo have claimed that they have made the signing of Joao Cancelo their “priority objective” to bolster their right hand side.
Cancelo, 29, was loaned out to Bayern Munich in January following a spat with Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola.
He went on to win the Bundesliga but he failed to do enough to secure a permanent transfer and is now in limbo back at the Etihad.
Barcelona have been linked with the wing-back for a number of days now and have been haggling over his fee.
And this fresh update states that they must sort out their financial issues before they can complete any deal.
The Spanish side are still waiting to receive funds from their new Barca Vision business.
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But they must also ensure that they offload unwanted pair Clement Lenglet and Sergino Dest too.
The 28-year-old defender Langlet, who was on loan at Tottenham last year, has been in talks to join Saudi Arabia club Al-Nassr and become a team-mate of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Meanwhile, the 22-year-old USA international Dest was also shipped off to AC Milan for the 2022/23 campaign.
But boss Xavi has deemed him surplus to requirements and they are now desperately trying to get him off their wage bill before the close of the transfer window.
And after a number of issues registering their already completed summer signings, such as Ilkay Gundogan from City, any move for Cancelo rests on being able to offload the pair.
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