Julian Brandt will leave Borussia Dortmund at the end of the season and is drawing interest from Arsenal and Barcelona as he prepares to become a free agent.<\/p>\n
Dortmund executive Lars Ricken said at the weekend: \u201cBoth sides agreed that the expiring contract would not be extended. I believe we parted with a great deal of respect. But it\u2019s also another opportunity for both of us.\u201d Sky Sport in Germany reports that Brandt \u201cwants to go abroad\u201d in his next chapter, and both Arsenal and Barcelona are said to be “monitoring” the situation. As yet, there have been no approaches.<\/p>\n
Barcelona, described as cash-strapped in the reporting, are attracted by the absence of a transfer fee and would likely use Brandt as cover rather than a starter. For the Blaugrana, the most probable role would be as the first point of cover for Raphinha, although recruitment plans could also be influenced by decisions around Marcus Rashford. The Manchester United winger would cost in the region of $35\u201340 million to buy outright because of the option in the loan agreement. He is also less than 18 months younger than Brandt, who would be available without a fee. Brandt\u2019s estimated Dortmund salary ($156,000 per week) is barely more than a third of what Rashford ($436,000 per week) is thought to earn currently.<\/p>\n
At Arsenal, Brandt is viewed as a versatile option to provide cover in two positions and to add depth. He could also facilitate outgoing business, allowing the Gunners to offload Leandro Trossard or to cash in on Gabriel Martinelli, while concerns over Martin \u00d8degaard\u2019s decline and Mikel Merino\u2019s injury have highlighted central midfield fragility.<\/p>\n
Brandt is reportedly already learning Spanish, which may give Barcelona an advantage because of a Catalan girlfriend. Dortmund will need a replacement, and the possibility that Jadon Sancho could return for a third spell is raised in the coverage. It\u2019s certainly possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Julian Brandt is leaving Dortmund; Arsenal and Barcelona are monitoring his free-agent status. Today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1017,1163],"tags":[983,1522],"class_list":["post-8135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-barcelona","category-transfers","tag-agents","tag-julian-brandt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8135","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=8135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}