Barcelona ready to push through Marcos Alonso transfer at ‘less than €10m’ — report

Having pulled a financial lever or two to add some liquidity to their accounts, Barcelona may be ready to make some moves, including finally pushing through their long-expected and supposedly long-agreed move for Marcos Alonso.

The 31-year-old left wing-back all but confirmed his intention to sign with Barca a few months ago already, but with a year left on his contract at Chelsea, we weren’t exactly just going to give him away (see also: César Azpilicueta). Now, according to Barcelona-based Sport (via Mail), the Blaugrana are close to reaching an agreement and a deal around or just below €10m is expected to be finalized soon: maybe next week but certainly before their preseason tour of the US begins in a couple weeks.

(That same report claims the Azpilicueta situation is more complicated, so we’ll see if that follows a similar trajectory eventually.)

If true, this wouldn’t be a bad deal for Chelsea all things considered, both in terms of the finances and in terms of squad planning — though whether it would be Emerson or Ian Maatsen or some other name slated to take over backup duties for Ben Chilwell is not clear at the moment.