Barcelona youngster Ousmane Dembele has been heavily linked with a move out of Camp Nou during the summer transfer window but according to the latest reports, the Catalans are not ready to part ways with the Frenchman.
Dembele first broke into the European scene with Borussia Dortmund during the 2016-17 season and Barcelona did not waste much time in scooping up the youngster just one year later for an initial fee of €105 million.
But the French International has failed to make any sort of impact in the Barcelona first team with two major injuries keeping him on the sidelines for much of the 2017-18 season.
Recently reports had surfaced that Barcelona no longer consider Dembele a valuable asset and are planning to offload him before the start of the upcoming season.
Now though Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu had made it clear that the club have invested heavily on both Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho and neither of them will be sold during the current summer transfer window.
Bartomeu said: “Dembele will go nowhere. He and [Philippe] Coutinho are a big investment for us.
“They are very important to our project and we expect a lot from them.
“Coutinho in the last four months has been very active in the team but Dembele is a very young player and talented and we expect great things. Next seasons will be different. It’s not easy to play at Barca in your first year because the style of football is quite different from at other teams.”
This statement will come as a huge setback for Arsenal who have reportedly shown interest in the 21-year-old.
According to reports, Arsenal manager Unai Emery has Ousmane Dembele on his transfer wishlist and the Gunners are rumoured to be readying a bid for the Frenchman.
