Ousmane Dembele has the potential to be as good as Neymar and could be a future Ballon d’Or winner, says ex-England and Bayern Munich player Owen Hargreaves.<\/p>\n
Dembele is set to join Barcelona for a fee that could rise to \u00a3135.5m from German club Borussia Dortmund<\/p>\n
The fee is second only in value to the \u00a3200m Barca received for Neymar from Paris St-Germain earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Speaking about Dembele, Hargreaves told BBC Radio 5 live: “He is the best 20-year-old player in the world.”<\/p>\n
The former Manchester United midfielder added: “He has been under the radar but for anyone who has seen his body of work in France and the Bundesliga last season, he is breathtaking to watch.<\/p>\n
“Physically he is so powerful and can play equally with both feet. He takes set-pieces with both feet.<\/p>\n
“He can play to the right, to the left and as number 10. The figure is obviously high for a young player but if you see him play he will take you breath away. He is a potential Ballon d’or winner.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think he will play off the left [as Neymar did for Barcelona]. I think he may play on the right and Lionel Messi could be central.<\/p>\n
“He won’t be a direct replacement for Neymar but he has the potential to be as good.<\/p>\n
“Neymar is in another category at the moment and will take over from Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo [as the best player in the world].”<\/p>\n
He added: “If you had to make a winger, this is the kid who defenders wouldn’t want to play against. He is big but he is going to grow into his body. He is going to be a nightmare to play against.<\/p>\n
“He has the potential to be the best, no question.”<\/p>\n
‘We expect a lot from him’<\/strong><\/p>\n Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde believes his side will benefit from Dembele’s ability and attacking versatility.<\/p>\n “He’s a player who guarantees an attacking threat, which is something we had lost and we badly need,” Valverde told a news conference ahead of Barca’s game at Alaves on Saturday.<\/p>\n “He can play on either wing or through the middle, he gets forward a lot and is very technical. We expect a lot from him and we’re very excited about him.”<\/p>\n Barca will pay an initial 105m euros (\u00a396.8m) for the France international, 20, who has agreed a five-year contract and will undergo a medical on Monday.<\/p>\n Barca revealed that his deal will contain a release clause of 400m euros.<\/p>\n Dembele has not featured for Dortmund since the German Super Cup on 5 August. The German side rejected a bid from Barca for the forward earlier in August, with the player then suspended for missing training.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ousmane Dembele has the potential to be as good as Neymar and could be a future Ballon d’Or winner, says ex-England and Bayern Munich player Owen Hargreaves. Dembele is set to join Barcelona for a fee that could rise to \u00a3135.5m from German club Borussia Dortmund The fee is second only in value to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[564,10547,10548],"class_list":["post-348196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-citi-sports","tag-ousmane-dembele","tag-owen-hargreaves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}