La Liga
Barcelona superstars to be sacrificed for Lionel Messi
Premier League giants Manchester City are closely monitoring the situation of Ivan Rakitic at Barcelona after it emerged that the Croatian is one of the few players to be sacrificed by the Catalan giants as they look to free up funds to keep talisman Lionel Messi at Camp Nou.
According to Manchester Evening News, the Etihad outfit have been encouraged in their pursuit of the Croatian, who has struggled to establish himself in Luis Enrique’s first-team this season. Messi only has 18 months left on his contract with the Camp Nou outfit and the Blaugrana are desperate to extend his contract at the earliest.
However, the Blaugrana cannot spend more than 70% of their budget on wages and any new contract for the diminutive Argentine would unbalance their books and thus they need to ship out a few players so that they can offer Messi a bumper new contract. It is expected that 3 players will leave Camp Nou to free up funds for the contract extension of Messi.
Alvaro Morata wants Real Madrid to choose between him and Zinedine Zidane
According to Spanish radio station Cadena SER, Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata will leave the Santiago Bernabeu outfit in the summer if manager Zinedine Zidane continues to be at the helm of the club.
The Spaniard returned to Madrid in the summer from Juventus but has struggled to establish himself in Madrid's starting line-up and has only managed six La Liga starts so far in the season Arsenal, Chelsea and Juventus are rumored to be monitoring his situation.