Perhaps with Ousmane Dembele on the bench on Thursday night Barcelona might not have been knocked out of the cup.
They could have at least brought him on for extra time after Ansu Fati broke down.
Instead he had been left behind with Barcelona declaring he should leave ‘as soon as possible’.
Sportsmail looks at how it came to this and asks what will happen next?
Barcelona outcast Ousmane Dembele (pictured) has been frozen out by the club
Barcelona could have relied on the Frenchman to come on after Ansu Fati (right) was reduced to tears after coming off with another injury during their Copa del Rey defeat
Flattery will get you nowhere
The current board inherited a situation where the club’s second most expensive signing of all time was showing very little interest in signing a new contract and therefore likely to leave for nothing at the end of this season.
Operation flattery began.
Xavi said Dembele could be the best player in his position in the world and president Joan Laporta said he was better than Kylian Mbappe. The plan failed.
Blaugrana boss Xavi (centre) said Dembele could be the best player in his position in the world
Dembele might have indicated privately to Xavi that he wanted to stay but when it came to negotiating with his agent Moussa Sissoko the two parties were miles apart.
Dembele wanted more than his current £10million net a season and Barcelona wanted him to take the same cut in pay that his team-mates have taken with a long contract that would see him earn more in the final years but make sacrifices now while the club continue to struggle to stay inside La Liga’s salary cap.
Talking tough doesn’t work either
‘That kind of thing doesn’t work with us’ said Sissoko after Mateu Alemany, Barcelona’s Director of Football indicated that the player needed to leave if he was not going to sign a new contract with a pay cut.
The player was upset as he was sent home instead of joining the rest of the squad for the cup tie with Bilbao but he came out fighting with an open letter saying he will not give in to blackmail.
Barcelona's Director of Football Mateu Alemany (pictured) that the player needed to leave if he was not going to sign a new contract with a pay cut
The French international shared an open letter saying he will not give in to blackmail on his social media page (above)
Can Barça say: you’ll never play for us again’?
They can, but it's better to say it privately. This is nothing new. Clubs at all levels try to force the hands of players all the time by telling them if
