Alejandro Balde's Struggles at Barcelona Amid United Interest
Alejandro Balde’s Barcelona season is drifting, and Manchester United will be watching closely.
The 22-year-old left-back, strongly linked with a loan move to Old Trafford late in the summer window, did not play a single minute in Barcelona’s 5-1 Champions League demolition of Feyenoord. He did not even get off the bench.
Hansi Flick’s team cruised through their European opener, but the line-up told its own story. With a natural left-back available, Flick still chose to start Joao Cancelo — a right-back by trade and former Manchester City defender — on the opposite flank. Balde stayed seated, again.
That has become a theme. Since United’s attempt to prise him away on loan, Flick has not used the Spain international at all. Balde has been named in every matchday squad in all competitions this season, but has remained unused every time, a clear indication of where he currently stands in the pecking order at the Camp Nou.
Flick has already challenged him publicly. The Barcelona boss wants more from the defender, especially in terms of attitude and application, and has been blunt about the battle ahead if Balde wants his place back.
Before the transfer window closed, Balde’s situation was even more stark. He was left out entirely for Barcelona’s opening La Liga win over Elche. Flick later explained that the omission was not about forcing him out, but about clearing his head.
“No, I'm not asking him to leave,” Flick said at the time. “This morning I felt there was something wrong. I spoke to him and said: ‘At this moment, I have this feeling, and I think it's best for you to clear your mind, sort out your thoughts, and then we'll talk again tomorrow.’
“And he agreed as well. He agreed to it because there are so many things going around in his head, and that's why he's not here.”
Balde has since been reintegrated into the squad, but only on paper. His shirt is there, his name is on the team sheet, yet the minutes are not. For a player once seen as one of Barcelona’s brightest young full-backs, it is a jarring stall.
All of this unfolds while United quietly wrestle with their own left-back dilemma.
Michael Carrick goes into the Champions League clash against Sabah with Luke Shaw as his only established senior left-back. Behind Shaw, the options are all compromises. Lisandro Martinez can shift across from centre-back. Noussair Mazraoui or Diogo Dalot could be flipped to the wrong side. None of those solutions is ideal for a manager trying to build stability at the back.
Carrick might have to experiment sooner than he’d like. Shaw missed United’s final training session before the Sabah game at Old Trafford, raising the prospect of a reshuffled defence under the European lights.
The United manager played down any major concern, but his words still carried a hint of caution.
“We just gave him an extra recovery day today. We'll see by tomorrow how he is,” Carrick said. “It's not an ongoing thing or a plan or anything like that. It was just off the back of the game the other day. So, as normal, each individual has different little things that we manage.”
For now, it is only “management”. One more knock to Shaw, though, and United’s lack of depth on the left becomes a live problem, not a theoretical one.
And that is where Balde’s name will keep circling. A young, attack-minded left-back, frozen on Barcelona’s bench, while a club that chased him in the summer tiptoes through a season with a single senior option in his position.
If Flick continues to overlook him and Shaw’s workload keeps piling up, how long before those conversations between Barcelona and Manchester United start again — this time with far more urgency?
