FC Barcelona crisis: Five players pegged for January exit

FC Barcelona reportedly has big plans for the upcoming January transfer window. The club wants to make bids for Memphis Depay and Eric Garcia, but they need to generate the cash by selling a large handful of players.

According to the grapevine, Martin Braithwaite, Carles Aleñá, Ousmane Dembélé, Junior Firpo and Samuel Umtiti are no longer in Koeman's plans

Carles Tusquets, the newly assigned president of FC Barcelona, has already met with coach Ronald Koeman and with the technical secretary, Ramon Planes. According to Mundo Deportivo, they have agreed that there is a need to reinforce he squad in January. However, before they can realistically make offers to Depay and Eric Garcia, they need to make some major sales to generate the cash.

It is no secret that the club is in a precarious financial position. At this point in the season and nine games into Koeman's official tenure, it appears as though he is ready to show these five players the door.

Dembélé (258 minutes out of a total of 810) is the one who has had the most playing time out of the five players mentioned. However, his inconsistency and the potential for a good sale thanks to constant interest from big clubs like Juventus FC and Manchester United, makes him a good candidate for a January exit.

Barca has plans to reinforce the attack with Depay, and that leaves Braithwaite clearly out of the picture. The Danish player has not made an impression on Koeman, and has only been utilised for 15 minutes so far.

Junior has also fallen off the pecking order from the role of substitute for Alba. Dest has eased him out of the role, making him a likely candidate for departure as well.

Aleñá has also been sitting as a bench warmer, and if a suitable offer comes in, Barca would be keen on making a sale.

In addition to Dembélé, another player who could generate instant income is Umtiti. However, he has been sidelined due to inury, and that may also prove to be a big hurdle to his lucrative sale.