Barcelona winger Ousmane Dembele, not all that way back, may need been thought-about one of many largest switch flops of all time due to how accidents had lengthy restricted him.
The Frenchman stays one of the vital costly gamers in historical past on account of his €145m transfer from Borussia Dortmund in the summertime of 2017.
Frustratingly for Barça followers, he was typically excellent when match, scoring 14 instances in 2018/19 and 11 instances in 2020/21, but hardly enjoying in 2017/18 or 2019/20.
Barcelona have been decided to promote Dembele as just lately as a 12 months in the past, eager to take away him from the wage invoice but additionally recoup at the least some cash for him earlier than his contract expired.
Ultimately, proposed strikes to Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain fell by. However Dembele appeared to have a brand new lease of life at Camp Nou below Xavi, employed in November 2021, within the second half of final season and he signed a brand new two-year contract with Barça.
To this point this season, Dembele has featured in all 16 of Barcelona’s La Liga video games and has 14 direct aim involvements (seven scored, seven assists) in 23 appearances in all competitions.
Considerably remarkably, apart from a quick bout of Covid-19 final January, the 25-year-old hasn’t missed any video games by harm since recovering from a knee downside in November 2021 that had pressured him to overlook the opening three months of that season.
Mundo Deportivo writes that Barcelona physio Carlos Nogueira, who adopted Xavi from his employees at Al Sadd in Qatar, is a big cause why.
The participant himself has additionally put extra effort into his health and restoration now that he’s extra mature, having as soon as earned a fame for poor timekeeping. The strict self-discipline launched by Xavi, which noticed Dembele fined on an event final season for being simply three minutes late for coaching, has in all probability additionally had an affect on his change in mindset.
So far as his health is anxious, Dembele is claimed to have realized from Nogueira that his longstanding muscle points stem from his neck. it stunned him, however allowed issues to be addressed in a approach they by no means have accomplished earlier than. Because of this, there have been no recurring flare-ups since.