Barcelona are no more in the upcoming transfer market for Nico Williams. The Athletic Bilbao\u2019s winger was high on their list last season and the club were desperately eyeing a move for him. However, after his poor season in the La Liga this current season, it is now believed that Barcelona have shifted their focus on other targets.<\/p>\n
For the second straight summer, Nico Williams looked like a natural fit for FC Barcelona\u2019s rebuild. The Athletic Club winger\u2019s explosive pace and ball-carrying ability had placed him near the top of the Blaugrana\u2019s shortlist a year ago. Back then, president Joan Laporta and the sports department openly explored a package that would pry the 22-year-old away from San Mam\u00e9s.<\/p>\n
Fast-forward 12 months and the landscape has shifted sharply. Williams\u2019 2024-25 La Liga season never caught fire: just 2 goals and 3 assists in 29 league appearances, a downturn from the flashes of end-product he showed the previous year. Scouts reported lingering decision-making issues in the final third, and Athletic\u2019s steep valuation, north of \u20ac50 million, remained unchanged despite the dip in output.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Catalan radio this week, Laporta admitted the club has moved on:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe valued Nico as a potential signing last summer along with Dani Olmo, but right now we\u2019re valuing other players\u2014we\u2019re going for other targets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sources at the Ciutat Esportiva reveal that Barcelona\u2019s recruitment team is prioritising a left-footed right-winger who can operate in half-spaces\u2014profiles more in line with Girona\u2019s S\u00e1vio or Porto\u2019s Pep\u00ea\u2014while maintaining financial flexibility for a top-level pivot midfielder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barcelona are no more in the upcoming transfer market for Nico Williams. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":36075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3990,661,1823,3796,564,3919,3789,3881],"class_list":["post-15415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-atheltic-bilbao","tag-barcelona","tag-fabrizio-romano","tag-football","tag-hansi-flick","tag-la-liga","tag-laporta","tag-nico-williams"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}