{"id":619132,"date":"2022-11-08T09:40:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-08T14:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=619132"},"modified":"2022-11-08T09:40:24","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T14:40:24","slug":"barcelona-inigo-martinez-centre-back-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/11\/08\/barcelona-inigo-martinez-centre-back-target\/","title":{"rendered":"Fabrizio Romano Gives Update On Barcelona&#8217;s &#8216;Magnificent&#8217; Centre-Back Target"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/10\/16\/chelsea-jorginho-barcelona-free-transfer\/\" target=\"_self\">Barcelona<\/a> will be looking to sign a new centre-back in the January transfer window as a replacement for Gerard Pique, confirms <a href=\"https:\/\/caughtoffside.substack.com\/p\/the-daily-briefing-chelsea-to-look?autoPlay=true\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fabrizio Romano<\/a>. Athletic Bilbao defender Inigo Martinez is a possible option for the Spanish side, being a target for them for quite some time.<\/p>\n<h2>Barcelona Earmark Inigo Martinez as January Centre-Back Target<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Xavi confirms Bar\u00e7a plan to sign new centre back: \u201cWe will go for a centre back in January, it will be a priority as Piqu\u00e9 has decided to leave\u201d. \ud83d\udd35\ud83d\udd34 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/FCB?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#FCB<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Barcelona are exploring options with I\u00f1igo Mart\u00ednez in the list since long time, decisions will be made during World Cup. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fP9br3BcGQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/fP9br3BcGQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1588511651003006977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 4, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Barcelona Have Martinez as One of Many Options to Replace Gerard Pique<\/h3>\n<p>Pique surprised many fans by confirming his retirement from football mid-way through the season. In doing so, the Spanish centre-back also decided to terminate his contract with Barcelona and help the club save the major amount of money which they would&#8217;ve owed to him through his wages.<\/p>\n<p>Romano confirms that after losing the experienced centre-back, the La Liga side will be looking to sign a new centre-back to help bolster the options in their squad &#8211; despite having <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/07\/26\/chelsea-interest-denzel-dumfries\/\" target=\"_self\">signed Jules Kounde, <\/a>Marcos Alonso and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/09\/01\/arsenal-outcast-hector-bellerin-barcelona\/\" target=\"_self\">Hector Bellerin<\/a> to improve their backline in the summer. Barcelona have &#8216;multiple options&#8217; in their list of targets and are yet to make a final decision on which player they&#8217;d want to pursue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/10\/14\/barcelona-keen-chelsea-midfield-duo\/\" target=\"_self\">Barcelona Keen to Sign Jorginho and N\u2019Golo Kante<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Martinez, however, is one of their major targets to replace Pique. He isn&#8217;t the only target at all, but is one of the players they are looking into signing. The 31-year-old is quite the experienced player in La Liga and his contract with Bilbao expires next year, which could allow the <em>Blaugrana<\/em> to sign him on a cut-price deal in January.<\/p>\n<h3>Martinez\u2019s Career So Far Recapped<\/h3>\n<p>The Spanish centre-back has a decade-long experience of playing in La Liga and has been a consistent figure in the league over the last ten years. He got his breakthrough at Real Sociedad and made 239 appearances for them before joining Athletic Bilbao in 2018.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/10\/11\/manchester-city-erling-haaland-release-clause\/\" target=\"_self\">Barcelona Could Sign Erling Haaland in 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Martinez has since gone on to win the Supercopa de Espana title with his side and has been runners-up in the Copa del Rey on two occasions. The 31-year-old has 168 appearances for Bilbao, scoring seven goals and providing seven assists. He has also made 19 appearances for the Spanish national team and <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsfinding.com\/pedri-hopefully-inigo-martinez-can-be-signed\/158138\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">was called a &#8216;magnificent defender&#8217;<\/a> by Barcelona midfielder Pedri this year &#8211; an early hint of how those at Camp Nou admire his talents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona will be looking to sign a new centre-back in the January transfer window as a replacement for Gerard Pique, confirms Fabrizio Romano. Athletic Bilbao defender Inigo Martinez is a possible option for the Spanish side, being a target for them for quite some time. Barcelona Earmark Inigo Martinez as January Centre-Back Target Xavi confirms [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4218,"featured_media":619181,"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":[1365,6,7188],"tags":[529,9284,5726],"class_list":["post-619132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-la-liga","category-rumours","tag-athletic-bilbao","tag-barcelona-transfer-rumours","tag-inigo-martinez"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619132","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\/4218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}