KEY POINTS

  • Reports in Spain claim that Everton, Celta Vigo and Schalke 04 also made formal offers to sign the Spaniard.
  • 20-year-old forward wanted to remain in La Liga.

Follow all the moves on transfer deadline day here

Munir
Munir scored eight goals for Barcelona in the 2015-2016 campaign Getty

Munir El Haddadi turned down lucrative offers from West Ham, Tottenham Hotspur and Everton before opting to make a loan move from Barcelona to Valencia, according to Sport. The Spanish starlet also received proposals from Celta Vigo and Schalke 04 but on Tuesday (30 August) he instead agreed to join Los Che to replace Paco Alcacer, after the second make the opposite move to the Nou Camp.

The 20-year-old forward has served as a back-up for Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar at the Barcelona first-team since making an impressive breakthrough into the first-team in the 2014-2015 campaign. However, earlier this month the Catalans urged him to look for a new club to continue his development amid the expected arrival of Alcacer, which was finally confirmed on Tuesday following weeks of negotiations.

Munir thus joined Valencia on Thursday to became in the thirteen casualty of the Barcelona big summer overhaul, following in the footsteps of Sergi Samper, Douglas, Claudio Bravo, Cristian Tello, Thomas Vermaelen, Dani Alves, Martin Montoya, Alex Song, Sandro Ramirez, Marc Bartra, Adriano and Alen Halilovic.

But having garnered a reputations as one of the most promising talents to emerge from the prolific Spanish football the decision was not as straightforward. Yet, Sport claims that during the last few weeks the Barcelona starlet received an avalanche of calls from different clubs to express interest in his services.

The Spanish publication claims that the Spaniard had as least turned down four formal offers from Schalke, Tottenham, West Ham, Everton and Celta before joining Valencia on loan, with Los Che keeping an option to secure his services on permanent basis at the end of the season for €12m.

Twitter

Days ago Sport already mentioned that Mauricio Pochettino and Everton were monitoring the situation of the striker, after he scored a brace against Leicester City in a pre-season friendly. Now they add that the Tottenham boss even gave the green light to make a €15m offer for the striker – although they were not keen with Barça maintaining a buy-back clause.

Yet, now Sport reveals that West Ham was eventually the Premier League club who push harder to secure his services until the last minute, making an even better offer as Slaven Bilic is desperately looking to bolster his attack.

Munir, however, wanted to stay in La Liga so at the end only considered Celta and Valencia. In this case, everything looked set for the Spaniard to move to the former but he opted instead to move to Mestalla as the Valencia offer was much better.