Barcelona are considering their options after being hit with the blow of finding out that captain Marc-Andre ter Stegen will be out for at least the majority, if not all of the season. It seems likely they will sign a replacement, but the question remains whether they will go for someone in January or sign a free agent immediately.
If they do decide to go for a free agent, the options of Keylor Navas and Claudio Bravo, who yesterday offered to come out of retirement if he was called, are the options that convince Barcelona most, as per Sport. The Blaugrana have three names in mind if they do decide to wait until then.
Las Palmas’ Alvaro Valles has been identified before as a potential option, and he is out of contract next summer. Las Palmas are using Jasper Cillesssenen in goal currently, and they could be open to letting him go.
Another option is Valencia’s Stole Dimitrievski. The North Macedonian international was signed by Los Che to replace Giorgi Mamardashvili on a two-year deal, but with the future Liverpool goalkeeper unexpectedly sticking around this year, he has found himself on the bench. Barcelona have previously scouted Dimitrievski too, as is the case with Valles.
A much younger option would be Toulouse’s Guillaume Restes. The 19-year-old would be a much younger option, and would compete with Inaki Pena for the number two spot, once ter Stegen is back in action, but would be much more expensive. Barcelona considered a €15m plus €5m in variables offer in the summer, although clearly they did not have the funds for such a deal.
Restes is a new name on the Barcelona radar, but has been impressing in France, and winning a starting spot at Toulouse in Ligue 1, in spite of his youth. With caps at underage level through various categories for France, Restes was also selected by Thierry Henry as France’s starting goalkeeper in the Olympics this summer.