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Barcelona Transfer Rumors 2017: Barça Give Up Philippe Coutinho Pursuit, Will Focus on Signing Dembélé, Seri and Di María

After a rough season, Barcelona started the summer on a high note as Ernesto Valverde was brought in to take charge of the club after beleaguered manager Luis Enrique left. With a new manager in charge, the club was expected to make several signings to reinforce their squad to close the gap on La Liga champions Real Madrid.

Barça made some good additions early on with Nélson Semedo joining the club from Benfica, but their plans came tumbling down when Neymar joined Paris Saint-Germain earlier this month. Still reeling from the loss of the Brazilian forward, Barcelona would go on to lose both legs of their Spanish Super Cup clash against arch-rivals Real Madrid.

The club did try to bring in more players after Neymar left. Barça tried to sign Liverpool's Philippe Coutinho and Borussia Dortmund's Ousmane Dembélé to no avail, but they succeeded in signing Paulinho from Guangzhou Evergrande. Unfortunately, the fan response to Paulinho's transfer was lukewarm at best.

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Simply put, Barcelona are a club in crisis right now with the end of the summer window approaching fast.

Spanish football journalist Guillem Balagué has reported that Barcelona are no longer pursuing Coutinho, but they are still interested in signing Dembélé and they are allegedly closing in on his signature. Balagué has also noted that the club is interested in Nice's Jean Michael Seri and PSG's Ángel Di María as well.

Di María is a realistic target if PSG are really on the verge of signing Kylian Mbappé from Monaco because they will have to offload some of their key players to finance that move.

Meanwhile, Nice general manager Julien Fournier has denied they have had talks with Barça and he thinks Seri will stay with them this season.

"We haven't negotiated with Barça nor do I know of any negotiations lined up in the next few days. They're just rumours, so we haven't set a price for Seri," Fournier said, via Sport.

"I think the player will stay with us this season. It's true that he is open to listening to offers but he's also happy at Nice whether we qualify for the group stages of the Champions League or not," he added.

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