Barça were left scrabbling for a deal to balance broken books after years of waste on bad signings and mindbending wages
By the time the transfer window closed,
Barcelona had seen Luis Suárez go to Atlético Madrid, Ivan Rakitic to Sevilla, Arturo Vidal to Internazionale, Rafinha to
Paris Saint-Germain and Jean-Clair Todibo to Benfica in return for a grand total of €3.5m – and that is the players they managed to get rid of. A couple of hours earlier, the club had been trying to force Ousmane Dembélé to go to
Manchester United. He had cost €105m plus a further €45m in variables three years ago; now they hoped to raise €0, but did not manage that either.
Left without the money to make them happen, nor did they succeed in signing Memphis Depay and Eric García. The lights were still on at the Camp Nou offices well after midnight on the frantic final day of transfer business, but it wasn’t because they were closing the deals their coach, Ronald Koeman, requested, his revolution gathering pace. Instead it painted another portrait of their crisis, Barcelona were stuck, another failure consummated. Koeman admitted this was not the squad he planned for but it is the one he will have to work with.