‘It hurts me a lot’… Luis de la Fuente speaks out on latest injury setback for 22-year-old Barcelona forward | OneFootball

Luis de la Fuente has emerged as a very successful head coach in the past couple of years and back in the summer, led La Roja to an incredible Euros triumph built around young talents like Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal amongst others.

The Spain head coach has time and again shown that he isn’t afraid to call young players breaking through at Barcelona for the first team. Even for the current international break, he has handed a first call-up to La Masia sensation Marc Casado who has impressed for the first team so far this season.

One player at Barcelona who was making waves in the national team a few years ago was Ansu Fati. A child prodigy, the Spaniard broke into the first team aged 16 and it was only a matter of time before he gained a spot in La Roja’s roster. However, he hasn’t been picked since the 2022 World Cup.

It emerged yesterday that Ansu Fati had suffered yet another issue in his hamstring and was set to be out for a period of two weeks. It was the latest in a long list of setbacks that the youngster has faced in recent times and as quoted by SPORT, here is what Luis de la Fuente had to say on the 22-year-old. He said:

“It hurts me a lot that he has been injured again. And of course, he can recover. His talent is fantastic, we love him very much. He has been with me in different stages and surely he can come back. When he returns to play, he will be again in the process of gaining confidence, which is sometimes very complex, when you have shown as high a level as Ansu did.”

“But it is all a process. First, he needs to be well, secure, confident, and play a great match. Once he plays a match that he is satisfied with, it will change his dynamic and hopefully. Because he has always been in our minds to be selected.”

It is a testament to Fati’s immense talent that coaches are still not willing to give up on him. So far this season, he has had cameos under Hansi Flick when fit and apart from those odd flashes of brilliance, the 22-year-old is struggling to influence games like he used to a few years ago.

What Fati needs is a regular starting berth at a club that is willing to give him a long rope. Unfortunately for him, at Barcelona, there are attackers ahead of him in the pecking order. Thus, a January move might be the solution for the 22-year-old to recover his attacking flair.

Barcelona should look to loan Fati out to a club that is in La Liga. Unless the Spanish attacker can recover his self-confidence, he will never return to the player that he once was. His attacking intelligence is still very much there, as seen in his cameos in recent times but let’s wait and see how he recovers from this injury and how his future plays out going forward.