Pep Guardiola 'offers 7 players' to Barcelona in exchange for Sergi Roberto & Ousmane Dembele
By Tom Gott
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola recently met with Barcelona president Joan Laporta to discuss potential swap deals between the two clubs, with the City boss keen on Sergi Roberto and Ousmane Dembele.
Both players have just one year remaining on their current contracts at Camp Nou. Roberto has been told that he is free to leave the club this summer, while Barcelona have warned Dembele that he will also be sold if he does not agree to a contract extension soon.
City's interest in Roberto has been known for a few weeks now, but RAC1's Gerard Moreno has now revealed that Guardiola is also chasing Dembele and has told Laporta that he has seven players in his squad who could be used in exchange for the pair.
There are no mentions of names in this report, but if you do a bit of digging around, you'll find a handful of suggestions thrown out there.
Centre back Aymeric Laporte was named as a potential makeweight early on, and Sport claim the Spaniard is putting pressure on City to offload him to Barcelona after a season in which he struggled for minutes behind Ruben Dias and John Stones.
Duncan Castles adds that Bernardo Silva, who wants to leave City, has an offer from Barcelona, while talks have also been held about using wantaway right-back Joao Cancelo in this swap deal.
Winger Raheem Sterling was also recently named as a potential target for Barcelona by Sport, although whether Guardiola would be prepared to offload the England winger this summer is not yet clear.
Similarly, there was also a recent report suggesting Barcelona were keen on striker Gabriel Jesus and midfielder Ilkay Gundogan. Jesus is likely to be sold this summer after failing to convince City that he can replace Sergio Aguero, but it's incredibly hard to see Guardiola parting ways with Gundogan after his outstanding season.
At the minute, the idea of the two sides doing business over Roberto is gaining momentum, but any move for Dembele has been complicated by Barcelona's desire to keep the winger.
Barcelona will give Dembele the chance to sign a new contract as they see him as a core part of the future, but should he continue to delay negotiations, they will not hesitate to cash in and could see a swap deal with City as their best bet.