During his first stint with Barcelona as an academy graduate, former Southampton midfielder Oriol Romeu had the opportunity to move into Barcelona’s first team and played only two appearances in 2010/11 before moving to Premier League side Chelsea.

Last season, the 31-year-old was playing in La Liga for Girona, but as fate would have it, he will have the opportunity to wrap up more appearances for Barcelona when he steps onto the pitch to play for the La Liga champions; this is after Romeu joined Barcelona on a three-year contract on Wednesday.

Although the transfer value of the deal was not revealed and was undisclosed, Barcelona still went on to add a 400 million Euros release clause to the midfielder’s contract. Romeu left Barcelona to join Chelsea in 2012 and made over 40 appearances for the Blues while going on loan deals with Valencia and Stuttgart in between.

While he struggled to nail a regular shirt at Chelsea, his big breakthrough and stability came in 2015 when he joined Southampton, racking up 256 appearances for the Saint Mary’s Club in seven years.

Last season he joined and played 33 games for Girona in La Liga and scored three goals which were enough to give Barcelona the impression of handing the midfielder a second chance at the club 12 years after his first appearance with the senior team.

Romeu joins free agents Ilkay Gundogan and Inigo Martinez as Barcelona’s third signing of the summer. The Catalonia club has also managed to sign Brazilian teenager Victor Roque from Brazilian top-flight Series A, although the player is not expected to join the club immediately and not until July 2024.

Barcelona has lost a good amount of quality players this summer, with Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets leaving the club to join Inter Miami in the MLS.

Daniel Ademiju Idowu