Barcelona need to create more cap space after failing to register Jules Koundé

The registration deadline for this weekend’s opening round of matches in La Liga has come and gone, and Barcelona managed to finagle their finances to the point where they were able to register all but one of their new signings and re-upped players.

The odd man out is Jules Koundé, the former long-time Chelsea target. In fairness, Koundé was unlikely to play this weekend anyway having just recently returned from offseason surgery and still building up match fitness, though it is fairly amusing to see the man who snubbed Chelsea get snubbed by his own new team.

And of course it also means that Barcelona, even before signing anyone new like Marco Alonso, still need to create space in their salary cap by letting players go or agreeing salary reductions. Memphis Depay looks to be first on the chopping block, possibly heading to Juventus, and he could be followed by others including the two players linked heavily with Chelsea at the moment, Frenkie De Jong and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

De Jong remains adamant that he wants to stay, which may be starting to discourage us at long last, but the Aubameyang track is heating up a bit, and rumors of a €10-20m transfer starting to float around — with Chelsea looking at the lower end of that scale and Barca of course looking at the upper end.

Tuchel spoke in glowing (albeit general) terms of Aubameyang on Friday, and while the Alonso deal should be going through this coming week, we may not be done doing business with Barcea this summer.