Having won the La Liga title in his first season at Camp Nou, Ernesto Valverde will now turn his attention towards the biggest trophy in club football next season. He is certain to add some quality to an already impressive squad at Barcelona but also has a few fringe players, who are expected to be sold this summer.
However their most important deal this summer will be the replacement for Spanish mastermind Andres Iniesta. One of the most decorated midfielders in the modern game, Iniesta will want to end his international career by winning the World Cup in Russia but he has already bid adieu to his childhood club Barcelona at the end of the last season.
Valverde will quickly need to replace Iniesta’s quality in the first team and has been linked with a number of impressive midfielders recently. It is understood that one player they are now interested in is Miralem Pjanic. A product of the academy at Metz, the Bosnian international made a name for himself in his three-year stint with Lyon, before being picked up by AS Roma in 2011. Since his first season at Stadio Olimpico, he has been a regular in the first team and has played a crucial role in helping his side reinvent themselves as a strong team in Italy.
His consistency in the middle of the park saw Juventus calling, and there are very few players in Italy that are ready to snub a move to Turin. Pjanic joined Juventus in 2016 and made 30 league appearances in his first season, helping them to the finals of the Champions League that season. He was also named in the UEFA Champions League Team of the Season for the 2016/17 campaign, hitting the peaks of his footballing prowess.
He has 220 Serie A appearances in his career, scoring 37 goals and picking up 64 assists and is one of the most established midfielders in Europe at the moment.
He is technically gifted and is effective outside the boxes at both ends of the field. He may not have the guile, vision and technique that Iniesta has showcased over the last two decades but the Bosnian certainly has the quality to replace the creativity of the Spanish international.
Reports suggest that Juventus are open to selling him this summer but are not interested in parting ways with him for anything less than €85m, which might be a problem for the Catalans, who are not doing so well financially after their business last summer and in January.
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However, they are in desperate need of a midfielder of Pjanic’s calibre and should definitely do what it takes to land him if they are to continue their dominance in the Spanish top flight.
