According to the English outlet Mirror, Lionel Messi would rather see Ousmane Dembele being sold than Phillipe Coutinho who has been heavily linked with a move away from Camp Nou after his loan spell with Bayern Munich. Both Coutinho and Dembele can be classified as expensive and failed transfers for Barcelona but Dembele at least has age on his side. And to raise funds for incoming transfers, it looks the Barcelona board are intent on selling Coutinho who has been linked strongly with Chelsea, Newcastle and Spurs.
Transfer Rumour Reliability
Mirror is the source of this transfer rumour and the English outlet are a Tier 4 source in our Football Transfer Sources Reliability Guide. A Tier 4 source is highly unreliable and not to be trusted unless other more reliable media source pick up the story. Mirror quote The Athletic as their source for this rumour but The Athletic are still yet to be rated as part of our guide as they have added a host of journalists this season and are a pay-walled service.
Barcelona’s transfer strategy has been spectacularly bad over the past few seasons with expensive signings failing to click. With the Coronavirus pandemic, Barcelona’s financial problems will get worse and they have to sell players in order to bring in new players to plug the gaping holes in their squad. With Messi getting old, there is not much time for Barcelona to start planning for his retirement but so far the future looks bleak for the Catalan club.