New suitor emerges for €18 million-rated Barcelona star struggling for minutes | OneFootball

With less than two weeks left before the winter transfer window closes, there may be some activity at FC Barcelona in the coming days.

With the Blaugrana eager to bring in Marcus Rashford on loan from Manchester United, they need to sanction an exit sooner rather than later and Eric Garcia seems to be a candidate to be offloaded.

As has already been confirmed by their manager and sporting director, Girona are very eager to sign Garcia again, after having had him at the club on loan during the last season.

Real Sociedad enter race for Eric Garcia

However, another La Liga club have thrown their hat in the ring for Eric Garcia’s signing, with SPORT reporting that Real Sociedad are also interested in the 24-year-old versatile star.

Indeed, the Basque club are understood to be showing a strong interest in signing Garcia, with their manager, Imanol Alguacil, said to be a huge admirer of the player, especially his versatility.

Real Sociedad want Eric Garcia. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)

While the talk has always been about the former Manchester City starlet returning to Girona after last season’s successful loan spell, Sociedad have now emerged as serious contenders for his signing.

Garcia could be open to leaving

For the large part, Garcia has been keen on staying put at Barcelona but things seem to be changing with regard to his stance of late.

After all, he has found minutes extremely hard to come by, having played only 16 times (664 minutes) this season, with only six of them being starts.

The situation is unlikely to get any easier for Garcia now that Ronald Araujo is staying at Barça and Andreas Christensen is also back from injury. Meanwhile, Inigo Martinez is also expected to return in three weeks.

So, it would not come as a surprise to see the 24-year-old being possibly open to a departure, even though manager Hansi Flick would be against it.

It remains to be seen how the situation evolves in the coming days with not much time left in the transfer window.

*Player valuation in title obtained from transfermarkt.com on date of publication.