Barcelona are looking for a new striker for next season, and they’d prefer one who’s not only good at the whole goalscoring thing, but is also young so he can be good at the whole goalscoring thing for a while — just like Luis Suárez, now 33 and creaky, had been for the past decade and a half.
Thus, enter one Lautaro Martínez. But the Inter standout carries a €111m release clause, from which Inter don’t seem too keen to budge. And while Barcelona are trying every which way to negotiate around it, they might have to end up looking at alternatives.
That’s where the latest report from local paper (though like seemingly all Spanish media, not to be taken completely seriously) Mundo Deportivo comes in. They claim that alongside RB Leipzig’s Timo Werner, Lille’s Victor Osimhen, Real Sociedad’s Alexander Isak, and Gent’s Jonathan David, Tammy Abraham is also one such alternative target for a “Plan B”. (Incidentally, Werner and Osimhen have also been linked with Chelsea this year.)
Abraham already earned praise from Luis Suárez, after his hot start to the season, which has seen him lead the Chelsea goalscoring charts and breaking the Curse of the No.9 Shirt. Interest from other big clubs is a nice validation of his success so far.
Obviously, that doesn’t mean that Tammy’s going anywhere this summer, though it does put more pressure on Chelsea to wrap up his contract extension negotiations, which have been ongoing seemingly forever. The 22-year-old will have two more years left on his current deal after this season, and is very much due a sizable bump in earnings.
Let’s get it done and then we can laugh off such rumors with even greater ease!