The latest '9' on Barca's agenda is Braithwaite

Barcelona received this Monday the definitive approval from La Liga to seal the sign of a striker to replace Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele who are both out for the rest of the season. Suarez may be back for the last few games, but Dembele will definitely not return until the 2020-21 campaign. 

Angel remains the preferred option by the Barca coaching staff, but in recent hours, a surprise name has come to the fore, that of the Leganes striker Martin Braithwaite. 

Braithwaite's agent is the same as Frenkie de Jong's. Barca saw his quality first hand last term because the Leganes striker scored one of his five goals against them. 

'Mundo Deportivo' reports that the Denmark international has become one of the likely options for Barcelona to reinforce the side. They also say that progress will be made soon now that La Liga have given Barca approval to sign a player. 

Martin Braithwaite is a 28 year-old striker whose Leganes contract runs until 2023. He has spent the majority of his career at Esbjerg in Denmark where he stood out and at Toulouse. He was at the French club until 2017 when he decided to try his luck in England. 

He spent half a season at Middlesbrough, he was loaned out to Bordeaux and then returned to spend another half a season at Middlesbrough, before leaving for Leganes in January 2019. 

He scored five goals and gave as many assists in the first five months at the Madrid based club. What is more, all of his goals came against high quality opponents which says a lot about his quality. 

This season, the striker has now got eight goals, although he has just given one assist. He is now among the candidates to join Barca along with Angel Rodriguez and Lucas Perez. He is even more likely to join than the other two, it is reported in the Catalan capital. After receiving approval to sign, Barca will speed up their signing this month.