Goalkeepers are the talk of the town in Barcelona this week as Claudio Bravo is expected to leave Nou Camp ahead of the 2016-17 season. Bravo is set to complete his £17 million move to Manchester City this week as Pep Guardiola is set to offload England no.1 Joe Hart in favour of Claudio Bravo. It was reported earlier that the Catalans are also going to buy the duo of Diego Alves and Paco Alcacer from Valencia whilst loaning Munir and Sergi Samper to play at the Mestalla for the next campaign as the two clubs have forged a good relation in recent times.
The papers reported that the deal for Claudio Bravo will go through once an agreement is reached between Barca and Valencia for the four mentioned players. But, now it has emerged that Luis Enrique is interested in PSG's 23-year-old, Alphonse Areola. Areola spent last season on loan at Villarreal and helped them qualify for this season's Champions League. He earlier has had loan spells at Lens and Bastia as Areola is highly rated by the coaches at the French capital.
Barcelona boss, Luis Enrique has made it clear that he will need three goalkeepers in the upcoming season. With Bravo off to ply his trade in the Premier League, that leaves the Spanish champions with just Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Jordi Masip. With Diego Alves reportedly out of the picture, Areola can be an able deputy to the talented Ter Stegen in the future seasons.
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Barcelona have done splendid business this summer as they have signed some emerging talents like Samuel Umtiti, Andre Gomes, and Dennis Suarez. Meanwhile, City have spent over 150 million this summer as Guardiola has signed world-class players like Nolito, Ilkay Gundogan and prospects too like John Stones and Gabriel Jesus.
Claudio Bravo is all set to be reunited with Man City's goalkeeping coach Xabier Mancisidor who coached him during his days at Real Sociedad. It was Mancisidor, who scouted Bravo at his local club, Colo Colo and decided to sign him for Sociedad. Joe Hart who has been frozen out of the team by Pep Guardiola may go out on a loan term as the experienced shot-stopper is not willing to leave the club permanently with Everton and Sevilla interested in signing him.
