Valverde has ‘lost confidence’ in Dembele

The French forward is struggling for game time

Ousmane Dembele has reportedly lost the confidence of his manager Ernesto Valverde. The Frenchman had been playing well this season until this month in which he was placed in a substitute role. In October he’s only made two appearances and both of them were from the bench.

Mundo Deportivo reported that the reason Dembele hasn’t started a game this month is that his manager hasn’t been impressed with his play as of late. It really seemed that Dembele would certainly get an increase in playing time once Lionel Messi became injured.

However, on Wednesday he didn’t even make an appearance in Barcelona’s win over Inter Milan, with later reports suggesting he turned up 25 minutes late for the game.

Whatever the reason for his absence there does appear to be some sort of mistrust between Dembele and Valverde. Moving forward the Frenchman will hope to see an increase in playtime, and there should be plenty available with Messi out for the next few weeks.

Source: barcablaugranes.com