€55m hurdle preventing Barcelona from beating Tottenham to dynamic PL forward

Barcelona have full agreement with Tottenham Hotspur-linked Raphinha on a five-year contract

According to transfer specialist Fabrizio Romano on Twitter, Barcelona have reached a full agreement with Leeds United superstar Raphinha on a five-year contract for a potential summer move.

According to The Sun, Raphinha has also been linked with a plausible move to Tottenham Hotspur in this summer transfer window.

Leeds are adamant that they would only sell the Brazilian if any of the interested parties meet their £47million valuation. Despite the agreement with Raphinha and his agent Deco, Barca have not made a bid yet, with talks over a potential transfer stalling at this moment.

Romano has further revealed that several Premier League sides, including Arsenal, have put themselves in contention for securing Raphinha’s signature. Tottenham have also been touted as a potential destination, so they could be in the mix to sign him this summer.

Spurs still have a chance!

It is quite understandable why we may have been targeting Raphinha despite Son Heung-Min and Dejan Kulusevski being starters on both wings. After all, Steven Bergwijn has already expressed his desire to leave this summer, while Lucas Moura could join him as well.

Raphinha, who is able enough to play on both wings, would be a great signing should Bergwijn and Moura depart ahead of the next season. Since Barca have not found common ground with the Whites so far, that could pave the way for us to try our chances, although the Gunners would also be in the same boat.

Furthermore, our pursuit of Raphinha depends on whether we can sign Everton ace Richarlison or not this summer. Unlike the former, the latter is also able to play as a striker and on both wings, which makes him more useful with Harry Kane lacking a backup option in our team.

As such, Fabio Paratici has set up a solid transfer plan to meet our needs by covering for a case in which we fail to sign Richarlison. Hence, if Antonio Conte’s side does target Raphinha, we would probably have to convince him to join us over our rivals like Mikel Arteta’s side in this transfer race.

Perhaps the prospect of playing in the Champions League, especially ahead of a World Cup year, could be enough of an incentive to give us an edge over our competition. The Brazilians have one of the most stacked squads in world football.

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If you want to represent the Selecao, playing well for your club goes a long way in achieving that. And if you come up with the goods on a regular basis in premier competitions such as UCL, it becomes hard for the national team manager to ignore your first-team pedigree.