Sergio Busquets played an important role in ensuring a Liverpool flop didn’t return to the club recently, according to a report.
According to the Barca Reservat podcast, manager Xavi was keen to sign an attacking midfielder in January in the middle of the club’s title challenge that saw them lift the LaLiga trophy for the first time in four years.
They beat arch rivals Real Madrid to first place by 10 points as they continued their climb back to the elite of European football after a year out the Champions League amid serious financial problems.
Xavi played a key role in the club’s comeback after being appointed as manager in November 2021, and helped deliver the title he had won so many times in his near-two-decade-long spell as a player at the club.
According to the report, he entrusted his dressing room with their opinions on transfer targets in January, and then-captain Sergio Busquets advised him not to sign former Liverpool man Arthur Melo for some brutal reasons.
Busquets reportedly told his manager and former team-mate that the new-27-year-ol lives a disorderly lifestyle when he was a Barcelona and that he would set a poor example for the younger players.
Arthur played for Barcelona between 2018 and 2020, making 72 appearances before joining Juventus in part of a deal that saw Miralem Pjanic head in the opposite direction.
His career then started to go downhill. He made 62 appearances in his first two years at the club, though 28 of those came as a substitute. He then joined Liverpool late on in the summer 2022 transfer window in a loan deal as the Reds scrapped for midfield cover late on in the window.
Injury-plagued his time with the Reds, and he made just one substitute appearance during his year-long stay before joining Fiorentina on loan last summer.
The podcast also reported that Xavi was keen on signing a right back that could also play centrally, and earmarked Bayern Munich’s Benjamin Pavard – who would later join Inter Milan – as a potential option.
He again asked his dressing room, and it is said to have been Pavard’s France team-mate, Ousmane Dembele, who argued against his arrival.
Dembele reportedly told Xavi that Pavard is a player who creates issues in the dressing room, a feat Barcelona didn’t need as they chased domestic success again. Xavi therefore didn’t move to sign him.
Though the club didn’t eventually move for any major players in January, they signed Ilkay Gundogan and Joao Cancelo to fill the voids needed in the summer window following their title win.
