Who Is Apparent Barcelona Transfer Target Samuel Umtiti?

We’re about to enter the time of year when agents, chairmen and those others with a vested interest in football transfers—sometimes everyone but the footballers themselves—begin to dominate the sports-news agendas.

Even though the 2016 UEFA European Championship will be taking place in France, you can be sure that who is moving where will become the hottest of topics, and that the fees involved will keep on being driven up and up.

Lyon owner and chairman Jean-Michel Aulas knows this having been in his position at the club for 29 years now, and he showed a willingness to “play the game” when questions were asked of him about Barcelona’s reported interest in forward Alexandre Lacazette, per ESPN.

“I really want him (Lacazette) to stay,” they report Aulas as having told the French radio station RMC on Monday. “I met the [Barcelona] president not so long ago. He didn’t talk to me about Alex.”

But then Aulas was asked if defender Samuel Umtiti came up in conversation, and his reply, again via ESPN, was a mischievous “maybe.”

And so the rumour mill sprang into action, linking the 22-year-old French defender with a move to Catalonia following what have been five impressive seasons in the Lyon first team despite his tender age.

He is a player that is used to the transfer limelight already, having been linked with a move to Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur in the recent past, but Umtiti remained on message when he addressed those stories to Telefoot earlier this week.

Per ESPN, he said:

It’s flattering. He’s (Pochettino) a manager that I like. As well as that, his team …

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