Journalist Fabrizio Romano has confirmed that striker Rey Manaj is close to joining English side Watford on a three-year deal. The 25-year-old striker is expected to be in London tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Interestingly enough, Barcelona have decided to reserve a percentage in case of a future sale by Watford of the Albanian.<\/p>\n
Manaj has already visited the facilities of the English club and he will be in England now to complete the formalities before joining up with his new teammates. <\/p>\n
As reported by The Athletic, the 25-year-old forward had a meeting with Watford officials a few days back. The player, meanwhile, also revealed that he considered several approaches from different clubs from Spain and Italy.<\/p>\n
Manaj arrived in Barcelona in January 2020, joining the Segunda Division B side Barcelona B on a three and a half years contract. He was called up to the main roster by former manager Quique Setien but remained an unused substitute till the end.<\/p>\n
He played his bit part with Ronald Koeman at the beginning of the 2020-21 season, getting a decent run-in during the pre-season. Many believed he would become a regular fixture, but Barcelona had other ideas.<\/p>\n
In August 2021, he was loaned out to Serie A side Spezia Calcio with an option to make him permanent for \u20ac2.7 million. While the 25-year-old made 30 appearances for Spezia, a majority of them came from the bench.<\/p>\n
Hence, a return of just five goals did not come as surprise.<\/p>\n
Upon returning to Barcelona, it was pretty much clear that there is no place for him in the current team. The 25-year-old simply does not fit into Xavi\u2019s scheme of things, meaning that it is in the best of interest for everyone involved to part ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Journalist Fabrizio Romano has confirmed that striker Rey Manaj is close to joining English side Watford on a three-year deal. The 25-year-old striker is expected to be in London tomorrow. Interestingly enough, Barcelona have decided to reserve a percentage in case of a future sale by Watford of the Albanian. Manaj has already visited the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barcelona-en.elgoal.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}