Dembélé, forced volunteer

Ousmane Dembélé was minutes away from leaving at the limit of the market closing to Manchester United but finally the Frenchman did not see the operation clear despite the fact that his coach, Ronald Koeman, had made it clear that he had no plans to have him. However, when the transfer was frustrated, the Dutch announced that he was going to have the French while he was part of the squad. On Saturday in Getafe he could have an opportunity in what could be his last train in Barcelona.

Dembélé made the news last week because he went to train alone at the Ciutat Esportiva del Barcelona on the days when the rest of his teammates who were not concentrating with their selections they enjoyed a day off. That gesture was interpreted as a change in attitude by the Frenchman who tried to reaffirm his commitment to the team to try to convince his coach. No one denies that this was the intention of the French winger, but the truth is that Dembélé was a forced volunteer.

As the journalist Lluís Canut explained in the Onze de Esport 3 program that “Dembélé did not go voluntarily to train but they were duties that Ronald Koeman had set for him. It was not a punishment training but a session to make up the pending training sessions at the beginning of the season, when he was injured and could not carry out the necessary workload ”.

That is, Koeman has proposed to recover Dembélé as much as possible while he is still in the team and it has imposed pragmatism.

It so happens that this Saturday Barcelona visits the Getafe field after a stoppage due to commitments of the national teams that could give the French player another chance in his uneven career at Barcelona. It could be the last train for Dembélé.

Ansu Fati, holder so far on the left wing of the Barcelona attack, has played the three games that the Spanish team has played and it is more than likely that he will rotate ahead of Saturday's game. A Koeman opens a range of solutions to cover the hypothetical loss of the young forward. One would be to place Coutinho from the left and get him out of the midpoint position in which he is convincing the technician. In the case of the Brazilian, it is also necessary to see in what state he returns from his two games with Brazil. Coutinho was the player who later played of all the Blaugrana internationals when he played a match against Peru in Lima.

Another option would be to place Pedri or change band to Trincao or Griezmann, but there is no doubt that the most natural replacement would be to align Dembélé or even the youth squad Konrad of the Source, a footballer who in his day the coach put ahead of the French international in his list of preferences.

It does not seem that Dembélé will have many more opportunities. Following Koeman's work plan, now the forced volunteer is presented with a key opportunity in his career.