Valent\u00edn Barco has signalled that he will not be part of Strasbourg\u2019s squad next season after posting a farewell message on Instagram. The full confirmation of a transfer to Chelsea has not been announced, but the social post made clear his intention to leave the French side.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday I say goodbye to this club,\u201d he wrote, adding: \u201cThank you very much for this year and a half, and many successes for the future.\u201d The message mentioned former manager Liam Rosenior, who the club credited with a role in Barco\u2019s development during his time in France.<\/p>\n
A move to Chelsea is widely expected. If completed, Barco would follow striker Emmanuel Emegha in moving from eastern France to Stamford Bridge Blues this summer, a transfer window in which Chelsea are set to benefit from their shared ownership with Strasbourg under the BlueCo group.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s interest in Barco dates back to his time at Boca Juniors, when they were among the early suitors. At Boca he was primarily used as a left back, with the ability to invert into midfield noted as a factor in his appeal for modern systems.<\/p>\n
Barco did not join Chelsea then and instead moved to Brighton & Hove Albion. He made seven appearances there before being loaned to Sevilla, where he did not establish himself. Seeking to rebuild his career, Barco moved to Strasbourg initially on loan and a permanent transfer clause was later triggered. It was in France that the 21-year-old regained form.<\/p>\n
At Strasbourg he began as a left wing back under Rosenior, who later converted him into a full-time midfielder with positive results. How Barco would slot into Chelsea will likely depend on the formation adopted by new manager Xabi Alonso. Alonso favoured a 3-4-2-1 shape at Bayer Leverkusen and a return to that setup at Chelsea would align with Barco\u2019s experience in similar roles at Strasbourg under Rosenior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Valent\u00edn Barco has posted an Instagram farewell to Strasbourg ahead of a likely move to Chelsea and.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1397],"tags":[983,1692],"class_list":["post-13909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-transfer-news","tag-agents","tag-valentin-barco-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}