Barcelona, Ajax, Benfica asked to shell out €15 million for Argentine defensive midfielder | OneFootball

Despite spending nearly €150 million on players during the summer transfer window, Barcelona still have a lot of gaping cracks in their team. This starts with the lack of a quality starting right-back, a backup for Robert Lewandowski, and possibly another centre-back.

However, the most pressing concern right now seems to be a replacement for Sergio Busquets – or the lack thereof. The Spaniard will likely leave on a free transfer at the end of the season, and the team has no real like-for-like deputy for him at hand.

One of the player that has come up in the transfer links recently is Argentine ace Alan Varela.

21, Varela plays as a defensive midfielder for Boca Juniors. His roots are connected to Barcelona, with the player having trained with the Barcelona academy in Bueno Aires before moving to Boca.

Reports have suggested that Barça have excellent reports on the player and could look at him as a low-cost solution to the Busquets problem.

SPORT suggests that they will have to shell out his release clause of €15 million to sign the player, as Boca refuse to negotiate anything below that.

Benfica and Ajax have also been keeping tabs on Varela and are better-positioned than Blaugranes to sign him. They have been in negotiations with the player’s entourage for months now.

Further, If history suggests anything, the Catalan giants are unlikely to make to sign the Argentine since they are looking for immediate solutions. More so because certain recent news have suggested that Busi has told Barcelona he wants to join Inter Miami as early as January itself.

Mainstream reports claim that Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Ruben Neves and Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi are the leading candidates for Barcelona as their new holding midfielder.

While Xavi has a clear preference towards the latter, Joan Laporta seems to be a fan of the former. As it stands, though, neither of the two is close to joining Barcelona; at least until they can fix their financial problems.