Where Messi favourite Lautaro would fit in at Barcelona

Timing is everything in football, particularly when it comes to transfers.

When Real Madrid tried to sign Lautaro Martinez in 2015, he said no. He felt his career would be better served by staying at Racing Club – and he was proven right.

After making his professional debut at 18, Lautaro established himself as one of the brightest attacking talents in South America and, two years ago, he was snapped up by Inter, where he has continued to improve exponentially.

Now, it is not just Madrid who are interested in his services but "many clubs", as Nerazzurri sporting director Piero Ausilio admitted to Sky Sport Italia on Wednesday.

Barcelona are "the most determined" to sign the 22-year-old and it's easy to see why the cash-strapped Catalans are so desperate to figure out a way to meet Lautaro's €111 million (£97m/$121m) buy-out clause.

After all, they've already paid a considerable price for failing to sign a replacement for the increasingly injury-prone Luis Suarez, both from a sporting and financial perspective.

The Uruguayan's struggles away from home have contributed to the team's struggles in the Champions League in recent years, while Barca found themselves so short on numbers up front in February that they had to make an emergency signing, paying Leganes €18m (£16m/$20m) for Danish journeyman Martin Braithwaite.

So, the Blaugrana simply cannot afford to let another transfer window pass without signing a striker of world-class potential and they have, quite understandably, identified Lautaro as Suarez's successor.

Is this really the right time for Lautaro to join Barca, though?

This is a club that's been operating without a coherent transfer strategy for years now and even though he does look like Suarez's "ideal heir", as Racing’s president of youth football Adrian Ruben Fernandez recently put it, there is no guarantee that he will be properly utilised at Camp Nou.

Just look at Frenkie de Jong's present predicament. Having honed his skills at Ajax, the Dutchman was essentially made for Barca – given the two clubs are bound together by Johan Cruyff's footballing philosophy – and yet De Jong has yet to be played in his preferred position in the centre of midfield this season.

The point is that there are several other factors to consider before concluding that Lautaro is the right fit for Barca simply because he shares some of Suarez's characteristics.

Indeed, the assumption is that Lautaro is simply a like-for-like replacement and will just slot into Suarez's role in the centre of Barca's three-man attack, with Lionel Messi on the right and Antoine Griezmann on the left.

However, it is worth noting that Lautaro has been almost exclusively deployed in a two-man attack: at Racing, Inter and Argentina.

Barca, though, remain wedded to their beloved 4-3-3, as Quique Setien quickly learned when he unsuccessfully tried to tweak the team's formation just after his appointment as Ernesto Valverde's successor in January.

A compromise would, therefore, have to be found in order to get the best out of Lautaro, given he is neither an orthodox No.9 nor a traditional No.10. He is something of a hybrid.

Indeed, the primary reason why he has gelled so well with Romelu Lukaku at Inter this season is that the pair are both willing to work the flanks and change positions at regular intervals.

It is also worth remembering that Argentina finished third at last year's Copa America with Lautaro playing up front with Sergio Aguero, and Messi stationed in behind, which is why Fernando Batista is advocating using Suarez and Lautaro in tandem, should the Inter ace end up in Catalunya.  

"If you want to play 4-3-3, there would be room only for one of the two," Argentina's Under-20s and U23s coach told Mundo Deportivo. "But with those two beasts (Lautaro and Suarez) up top, Barca would have a great advantage.

"This would also give Messi, who now drops a little further back, more options to pass. So, I would not hesitate: I would play with Suarez and Lautaro together."

Goal

Of course, that begs the question: what do Barcelona do with Griezmann?

Since joining from Atletico Madrid for €120m last year, the Frenchman has essentially struggled with the same systemic issues that Lautaro would face.

Like Lautaro, he is a mobile, modern forward who prefers to play off a more conventional target man. Of course, unlike Lautaro, Griezmann doesn't have a strong bond with Messi.

The Argentina captain has not gone so far as to publicly summon his compatriot to Barcelona but he has made no secret of his admiration for the club's primary transfer target.

"He is spectacular, he has incredible talent, you could see he was going to be a great player and now he has exploded and is showing it,” Messi told Mundo Deportivo in February.

"He is very strong, he is brilliant in one-on-one situations, he scores goals, he takes on anyone in the area. He holds the ball up, he pivots, he goes looking for the ball. He has so much talent, he is a complete player."

Lautaro is by no means the finished article, though.

He has hit an impressive 16 goals in 31 games in all competitions this season – but that's nearly half as many as the other big name on the market this summer, Timo Werner, who has also racked up nine more assists (11-2).

In addition, Lautaro is quite trigger-happy, racking up more shots than his more prolific strike partner Lukaku, but his conversion rate is poor (18.4 per cent). To put that in context, Werner is netting one out of every four attempts on goal, while the finishing freak that is Erling Haaland buries half of his.

Lautaro also trails most of the 'Big Five' league's top strikers in terms of passing accuracy and dribble success rate, underlining just how many areas in which he has to improve.

Indeed, it is telling that his numbers across the board are generally inferior to those of Suarez, who has hardly had a vintage campaign because of his fitness issues.

As a result, the likes of Fabio Capello have been warning Lautaro against leaving Inter for Barca this summer.

"Lautaro Martinez is a very good player; he has everything," the former AC Milan coach told El Larguero. "But going to Barcelona and becoming a starter with Luis Suarez still there would be difficult. I think it is better to be a starter at Inter than a substitute at Barcelona."

Nobody has scored more Lautaro's nine goals for Argentina since Lionel Scaloni took charge in 2018 and yet even he is preaching caution, pointing out that what the attacker needs at this point his career is regular game time.

Of course, the idea of Barca paying more than €100m for a player and leaving him on the bench might sound ludicrous. But it certainly wouldn't seem that strange to either Ousmane Dembele or Philippe Coutinho.

Anyone who has watched Lautaro this season will testify to his enormous potential. He is dynamic, industrious, talented, hungry and, perhaps most importantly of all, intelligent.

He turned down Madrid five years ago because he knew the big boys would come calling again. Turning down their great rivals would be far tougher, simply because this may be his only chance to play for the same club as Messi, who turns 33 next month.

If Barca do not avail of Lautaro's €111m buy-out clause before it expires on July 15, they are unlikely to be able to afford him in the near future.

The timing is clearly right for Barcelona. But now they have to convince Lautaro that the timing is right for him too.