Barcelona place Hamza Abdelkarim on standby | Goal.com
With the summer transfer window drawing to a close, Barcelona's search for a new striker is getting complicated. A deal for Julian Alvarez has become extremely difficult, and Lautaro Martinez looks no easier to land, forcing the Catalan club to start weighing up solutions from within their current squad.
According to the Catalan newspaper "Sport", Barcelona are still chasing an out-and-out striker. Should every attempt to sign one fall through, Hansi Flick will have to lean on the players already at his disposal.
Raphinha sits at the front of the queue. He proved he could fill the striker role against Elche and delivered a good performance there, while Anthony Gordon offers Flick another option through the middle, on top of his natural game on the wing.
The list of solutions doesn't stop at that pair, though. Flick holds more than one card he can play up front depending on the demands of each match, before he reaches the most desperate option of all: pushing forward young Egyptian striker Hamza Abdelkarim.
Abdelkarim's name comes at the very end of the chain of solutions Barcelona could turn to, not as the first alternative to a new signing.
Per the newspaper, if the club fail to add Alvarez, if talks for Lautaro grow complicated and no suitable option remains on the market, then looking inward becomes the answer. With everything else exhausted, Hamza enters Flick's thinking as an emergency measure to fill the out-and-out striker role.You can discuss topics and news in greater depth on the "Kooora" forums
His presence hands Barcelona an extra card within the squad, above all because he is a natural number nine, at a time when Flick is being forced to deploy the likes of Raphinha and Gordon out of position.
Naming Hamza in the calculations doesn't mean Barcelona have decided to rely on him as a primary option this season. It simply reflects the situation the club find themselves in before the window shuts.
The plan starts with an attempt to sign a top striker, Julian Alvarez chief among them. Next comes the search for available alternatives, then a reliance on Raphinha, Gordon and others in the squad. Only after all that does it come down to Hamza Abdelkarim as one of the last and most desperate solutions.
Time is running short. This emergency option could yet become a genuine opportunity for the Egyptian striker, particularly if Deco fails to close any new deal in the final days of the mercato.
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