Barca in dilemma over Coutinho, Dembele deals

Barcelona are in “a very difficult situation” as they attempt to secure deals for Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele, accord­ing to sporting director Robert Fernandez.

The Catalan giants completed the signing of Paulinho on Thursday but are keen to add Coutinho and Dembele to a forward line depleted by Neymar’s world-record transfer to Paris Saint-Germain and a knee injury suffered by Luis Su­arez in Wednesday’s Supercopa de Espana defeat to Real Madrid.

Suarez will be out for four to five weeks de­spite finishing the contest at the Santiago Berna­beu, after which Barca general manager Pep Se­gura claimed deals for Coutinho and Dembele were close.

That suggestion has been denied by Borussia Dortmund’s CEO, Hans-Joachim Watzke, and Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp.

And, speaking at Paulinho’s introductory me­dia conference, Robert said: “Not just Barca but any team looking for top quality players are get­ting involved in a very difficult situation in this market.

“Why? Because the market is where clubs like us want to sign top quality players. There is no buy-out clauses, so that makes things trickier. Yes, we are negotiat­ing with clubs to make several signings, but in all awareness of the difficulty.

“We need to work our way into a favourable situation and hopefully close these deals as quickly as pos­sible.

“Dembele and Coutinho are two important players that we like a lot and have done for a long time. They have the condi­tions, the right age and could adapt to our football. It would be good to have them here. That’s the reality”.