‘Sometimes you need to sell players’ – Deco talks Barcelona transfers

Barcelona sporting director Deco has been talking transfers and isn’t ruling out selling players from Hansi Flick’s squad.

Deco says that Barcelona don’t really like offloading players but admits that their financial situation may leave them little choice.

“Our main idea is not to sell players, Barcelona is not a club that [likes to] do that,” he told The Times.

“But of course we need to improve in terms of that, because sometimes you need to sell players too. To sell young players, you need control. You need to pay attention to when their contracts finish. You need to make a plan for their future.”

Deco also hit back at claims Barcelona are only using young players because they can’t afford to bring in top stars.

“In terms of a sporting director, you need to look at what you have inside the club and then after you need to go to the market,” he added. “When you have players like Lamine [Yamal], [Pau] Cubarsí, Gavi or [Alejandro] Balde, Marc Casadó is an important player for us now, you don’t need to be in the market. You don’t need to buy players.

“People say to me, ‘Because of the financial situation, Barcelona are using young players.’ It’s not true. We are using young players because they are good enough. If they are not good, it’s impossible to play for Barcelona.

“We had luck in terms of the quality of this generation, because we then didn’t need to go to the market in some positions. La Masia has helped us. But it has helped us because they are good players.”