{"id":611218,"date":"2022-03-22T15:59:16","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T19:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=611218"},"modified":"2022-03-22T15:59:16","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T19:59:16","slug":"barcelona-target-leeds-united-winger-raphinha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/03\/22\/barcelona-target-leeds-united-winger-raphinha\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona Target Summer Transfer for Leeds United Winger Raphinha"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Barcelona are the latest club to show an interest in Leeds United winger Raphinha and have been in contact with the winger&#8217;s agent to discuss a possible summer deal<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1506239282180243457\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1506239282180243457\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fabrizio Romano<\/a> reports. As it stands, Romano states that there has been no contact with Leeds United over a potential fee, however, the player is reportedly keen on a move to the Camp Nou.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brazil winger Raphinha has been a revolution following his transfer to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/02\/28\/jesse-marsch-leeds-united-head-coach\/\" target=\"_self\">Leeds United<\/a> from French club Rennes in the summer of 2020. The 25-year-old helped the Yorkshire club finish 9th in its first season back in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/03\/21\/sassuolo-ceo-reveals-interest-giacomo-raspadori\/\" target=\"_self\">Premier League<\/a> following a 16-year hiatus and quickly became one of the key players at the club.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Yorkshire club has struggled in its second season back in the top flight, however, that hasn\u2019t stopped clubs from being interested in the Brazil international.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Barcelona Set Sights on Leeds United Winger Raphinha<\/h2>\n<h3><b>Raphinha Ready for Next Step<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the recent news that <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/03\/22\/ac-milan-midfielder-franck-kessie-barcelona\/\" target=\"_self\">AC Milan midfielder\u00a0Franck Kessie will be joining Barcelona<\/a> on a free transfer in the upcoming summer, it looks like Catalan club are hoping to get a head start on their transfer business. Raphinha could be next on the club\u2019s shopping list as they look to continue strengthening their squad to compete with rivals <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/03\/07\/erling-haaland-next-club\/\" target=\"_self\">Real Madrid<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite Leeds United\u2019s struggles this season Raphinha has continued to prove himself at Premier League level netting nine goals in 28 appearances. Therefore it\u2019s no wonder that clubs have been keeping an eye on the skilful winger with an aim to prying him away from Leeds at the end of the season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This season has also seen Raphinha cement himself as a regular for Brazil, making seven appearances and scoring three goals since his debut against Venezuela on October 7, 2021.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His current club have reportedly been trying to get a new contract sorted with the player in order to likely capitalize as much as possible on the interest shown from other clubs<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Leeds United\u2019s Struggles<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leeds have struggled this season finding themselves sitting in 16th place with only eight games of the season remaining. The club has struggled with injuries to key players throughout the course of the season and have been without first-choice striker Patrick Bamford, meaning that winger Dan James has been deployed as a makeshift no.9 for most of the season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This has meant that the club has had to rely heavily on Raphinha for its goals as he has fired home nine of the club&#8217;s 34 goals in the Premier League. With key players returning from injury, Leeds will be hoping that they can do enough to ensure another season in the Premier League.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"rkPUkYvfQfxsIeWdmnx08Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1238947123\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'rkPUkYvfQfxsIeWdmnx08Q',sig:'P7s5qLDLir6rl_x21RArneXHxEWstIhHcRlGiYPn_-w=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1238947123',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona are the latest club to show an interest in Leeds United winger Raphinha and have been in contact with the winger&#8217;s agent to discuss a possible summer deal, Fabrizio Romano reports. As it stands, Romano states that there has been no contact with Leeds United over a potential fee, however, the player is reportedly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4148,"featured_media":611252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1365,6443,3,7188,28],"tags":[6790],"class_list":["post-611218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-liga","category-barcelona","category-leeds-united","category-premier-league","category-rumours","category-transfers","tag-raphinha"],"modified_by":"Jordan Hackett, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}