Sunday, July 21, 2013

Liverpool Miss Out On Barcelona Bargain

Cristian Tello is set to sign a new deal with the club which would make the release clause activation in his previous deal null and void.

Liverpool recently missed out on Henrikh Mkhitaryan and it now looks likely they are on the verge of missing out on yet another long-term transfer target.

For the second summer in a row the club has been linked with the same Barcelona player because of an issue with his contract.

A year ago Liverpool was one of many teams linked with the signature of talented Spanish winger Cristian Tello. The pacy forward only had 12 months remaining on his contract at the time and it was rumoured he was unhappy with his lack of first-team football at the club.

Therefore the assumption was made that Barca would cash in on Tello and Liverpool; along with AC Milan and others were linked with a vested interest in the player.

Six months later however and he signed a long-term extension to his deal.

However that new deal had a clause written into it similar to that in Thiago Alcantara’s; and if Tello did not play a certain percentage of games in the season for Blaugrana he would have a release clause activated.

That release clause was just €10 million (approximately £8.5 million) and after Tello did not play the requisite amount of minutes for the club the clause was activated at the end of the season.

Along with the arrival of Neymar it seemed that Tello was finally destined for a Catalan exit; with Liverpool again strongly linked with taking advantage of his contract issues.

Other teams were also mentioned including Borussia Dortmund, Fulham and even Tottenham but it was always Liverpool who headed the running in the media's eye due to the style in which Tello plays being conducive to Brendan Rodgers’ footballing philosophy.

But unfortunately nobody will be signing him.

It seems that Tello will continue to be a Barcelona player for the foreseeable future after reports in Spain suggested he was on the verge of signing a new deal with the club this week which would eliminate such a clause.

For Barcelona it is good news because at just 21-years-old if a team, including Liverpool, could have snapped up Tello for just £8.5 million it would absolutely be a deal that would come back to haunt them a little ways down the line.

Lucky for them his obvious adoration for the club has outweighed any starting ambitions as he will continue to fight for a starting spot amongst one of the best attacking line-ups in world football today.

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