Chelsea have been heavily linked with Ousmane Dembele this season amid his uncertain future and he has finally proven what all the fuss is about
Chelsea target Ousmane Dembele has enjoyed an incredible change of fortune at Barcelona, handing prospective Blues owners a dilemma. The 24-year-old, who has been strongly linked with a move to the west London side this season, has flourished under Xavi despite ongoing uncertainty regarding a future at Camp Nou.
The France international sees his contract with the Spanish side expire at the end of the season and has emerged as one of the most sought after talents this summer. Dembele was heavily linked with an exit in January; football.london understands that Chelsea was monitoring Dembele’s situation — but so were Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal.
Although a move didn’t materialise, the window closed with a sense that he’d be on his way at the end of the season after Barcelona director Mateu Alemany told the winger to leave immediately unless he signed a new contract. Speaking at a press conference in January, the transfer chief said: “With Ousmane and his agents, we started conversations around July.
“In all this time, almost seven months, we have talked, Barca has made different offers, we have tried to find a way for the player to continue with us and those offers have been continuously rejected by his agents.
“We told him and his agents that he must leave the club immediately because we want to have players committed to the project. We expect a transfer to take place before January 31. The sporting consequence is that we don’t want to have players who don’t want to be at Barca.”
However, since then, Xavi has injected new life into Dembele’s Barcelona career. The Frenchman has enjoyed a terrific resurgence, directly contributing to nine goals in his last seven La Liga appearances.
Dembele’s moment against Sevilla with a quarter of an hour to play typified the forward’s glorious return to form. He charged down his marker and flew into an incredible slide tackle which prevented the visitors from breaking out of the press.
The Frenchman, who Lionel Messi once tipped a ‘phenomenon’, then leapt to his feet and celebrated his tackle like a goal. While it may be small, Dembele showed a side to his game that warrants the interest that Thomas Tuchel registered in January.
However, Alemany seems to have changed his tune and Barcelona have launched a renewed effort to tie the winger down to a new deal, according to Fabrizio Romano. So, prospective Chelsea owners must look to make it their first job to heed Messi’s endorsement and back the Blues boss.
