Can Barcelona afford a centre-forward in the January window?

Barcelona are a club in crisis. They have just been knocked out of the Champions League, while they’re sitting eighth in LaLiga Santander ahead of their Sunday afternoon clash with Osasuna. On top of that, the Catalan club’s finances are a mess, with a loss of €481m posted for last year.

They desperately need to strengthen in attack and sign a reliable centre-forward, one at a much higher level than Luuk de Jong. Sergio Agüero was supposed to be their penalty box poacher this season, but his injury and heart issues have kept him on the sidelines, while Ansu Fati, Martin Braithwaite and now Memphis Depay have all had injury concerns too.

President Joan Laporta promised reinforcements this week. “We are looking for formulas to improve the team in the winter window,” he said in a video posted on Twitter.

The big question, though, is how can Barcelona sign a centre-forward in the winter market when their hands are so tied financially?

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Barcelona’s January spending limit

When LaLiga released their salary spending limits earlier this season, there was shock when Barcelona had the seventh limit of the league, at €97.9m, significantly less than Real Madrid (€739.2m) and also lower than Sevilla (€200.4m), Atlético Madrid (€171.6m), Villarreal (€159.3m), Real Sociedad (€127.7m) and Athletic Club (€111.8m).

Despite this limit, Barcelona’s wage bill is actually far higher than €97.9m, around €400m. That’s because teams already over the limit are allowed to remain over it. But, these teams can only sign new players if they bring in some income. Even still, they’re only allowed to put 25% of any money that they recoup in savings towards new players.

According to comments from CEO Ferran Reverter in October, Barcelona have around €20m to spend in January thanks to some savings made at the end of summer. This isn’t much and also has to include salaries for the rest of this season.

Which strikers could Barcelona sign in January?

With just €20m, Barcelona’s options are very limited. They would have money to pay the wages of a player brought in on loan or a free transfer, but there aren’t many free agents right now, even if they managed to acquire Dani Alves this way, while the strikers available on loan might not be much of an improvement on Luuk de Jong.

Barcelona, then, may look to sign a player with a contract that’ll expire in the summer and to pay a small transfer fee, as would be the case with Edinson Cavani.

But, the Blaugrana won’t want to spent too much on one player, as they have other positions where they’d like to improve in January, such as full-back.

Laporta and his team are looking for formulas, but this maths puzzle isn’t an easy one at all.