Since Atletico officially announced that Antoine Griezmann won't continue at the club, various reports emerged linking Barcelona with a potential move. However, the board seems to be divided in regards to whether the club should or should not buy the Frenchman.
Barcelona's ex-coach Carles Rexach is certainly in the camp that opposes the signing as he stated himself, repeatedly. And now he is doubling down in his critique of the potential move for the Frenchman saying that he would much rather bring Neymar back instead of spending money on Griezmann.
“I’d rather sign Neymar before I’d sign Griezmann,” Rexach told COPE. “Neymar now regrets leaving, but the Griezmann case is worse, because he caused a scene to stay at Atletico Madrid last year and now he wants to come to Barca, but the train only comes by once.
“We already know [Neymar’s] defects and virtues, and you’d rather have a crazy person you know than a wise man you are yet to meet. Now he has realized that he has made a mistake and he has seen that in the world there are only two or three teams with the global transcendence that Barcelona has.
“Neymar has the advantage of being a skillful player who goes deeper into opposition areas and is more complete, whereas Griezmann has a profile to play in the same position as Messi,” the former Barca player and coach concluded.
Barca are indeed interested in bringing Neymar back, or so it looks. RMC Sport's Mohamed Bouhafsi, an extremely reliable source when it comes to the news concerning PSG, claims that Barcelona have made an approach to PSG for Neymar last week, but the Parisians club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi have issued a 'hands-off' warning with the French side extremely unwilling to do any business with the Catalans especially to sell one of their best players back to them.
As for Griezmann, Barcelona are expected to pay his release clause and announce his arrival once his price tag goes down. Reportedly, the forward will earn €19m per season during his first two years at the club and his salary will increase to €23m from the third season onwards.
Although Griezmann had a not-very-good season at Atletico considering his standards, Barca's president Bartomeu still wants to sign the 28-year-old. He could serve as a replacement for Suarez or be used as a left winger alongside Luis and Messi in a 4-3-3.
Do you agree with Rexach? Is the 'devil we know' really all that better in this case?
