Barcelona sporting director working on fixing overreliance on Spanish international | OneFootball

Barcelona’s dominance this season can be credited to a mix of team effort that has been auguring well for the club under Hansi Flick.

The club have also appeared far less reliant on their star player Lamine Yamal. However, at the end of the day, the Spanish international is still a key differentiator for Barça, especially with the way he can effortlessly dribble through opponents.

This is something Barcelona sporting director Deco wants to fix, heading into the new season.

Barcelona’s reliance on Yamal

As reported by Diario SPORT, Lamine Yamal averages 4.8 dribbles per game with a 55% success rate, a figure that places him in a league of his own at the club.

Are Barcelona too reliant on Yamal? (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

The second-highest dribbler in the squad is not a winger or an attacking midfielder, but full-back Joao Cancelo, with 1.5 per game. That a defender is shouldering such a significant portion of the team’s dribbling burden highlights the deficiency in the forward line.

Raphinha manages just 1.0 dribbles per game, while Dani Olmo registers 0.4 and Ferran Torres a modest 0.2 with a 29% success rate.

For a club of Barcelona’s attacking ambitions, those figures fall well short of what is required to compete at the highest European level.

Deco already working on solutions

Anthony Gordon is one of the options Deco is considering. (Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

The sporting director has already begun exploring options to address the imbalance. Deco has held meetings with the agents of Anthony Gordon, the Newcastle winger who averages 1.3 dribbles per game in the Premier League.

Other names under consideration include Ez Abde, currently at Betis with 1.4 dribbles per game, and Victor Munoz of Osasuna, who averages 2.2.

Both are natural one-on-one specialists who have already proven their quality in La Liga, though a move for Abde now appears unlikely while Bayern are leading the race to sign Gordon.