Analysis: Doubts within Barcelona surrounding Ansu Fati future must be met with counter-argument

Barcelona will have to make sales in the summer transfer market if they are to have any hope of reducing their wage bill by €200m to fit into their salary limit. It means some of the current squad are likely to be put on the market.

One of those currently in focus at Camp Nou is Ansu Fati. The 20-year-old has struggled to relocate his form and finishing that made hims so special this season.

According to MD, there are doubts within the club about him. Some feel that he should leave in the summer, as the Blaugrana look to make cuts, but also as he looks to get his career back on track folllowing a number of injuries.

Ansu has maintained publicly and privately that he wants to succeed at Barcelona, where he has been for the last decade. Meanwhile Xavi Hernandez feels that he can cotinuing growing and strengthening his muscles to get back to where he was. The reality is that he is using Ferran Torres and Raphinha far more often than Ansu though, and that’s with Ousmane Dembele injured.

Other reports have said that his falling value as a result of his lack of minutes make an exit less likely, with Barcelona keen to avoid selling on a low.

There is no doubt that if Barcelona were to consider a sale at this point in time, it would be at his lowest value since exploding onto the scene in the first team.

Whether it is for Barcelona to increase his value, for Xavi Hernandez to make good on his claims that Ansu is an important part of the club’s future, or for Ansu to triumph, there needs to be some form of change in the coming months. Unless they can provide a counter-argument to the current narrative, the status quo will remain, a situation that benefits nobody.

Barcelona have 12 La Liga games remaining, and while they are not yet home in the title race, the opportunity to rotate should present itself in the closing stages of the season.

It would be damaging their own assets were they not to give Ansu minutes towards the end of the season. Although it could confirm doubts about his durability and state of mind, Barcelona must find out what they have.

Only through playing him can they either recover a player for their own use, or in order to put him on the market. Although the same argument could perhaps be made for Ferran Torres, his situation is far less critical than that of Ansu, both in terms of current form and there are no doubts about his fitness being a permanent issue.