Doesn't really matter IMO. Dembele would need assurances regarding playing time. Why would he swap benches based on an assumption that Salah could leave next year?
I don't think Sandro (27) and Toby (29) are in the wrong end of their 20s. They are in their primes.
Willian I agree, but Willian is a proven quantity and would cost 40 million, Dembele had one good season, at Dortmund where everyone from Kagawa, Mikhi and many others have looked like world beaters only to get found out playing in a different system.
Spending 80-90 mill on a player like Dembele could be a big risk especially when we have 5 other positions in need of re enforcement.
Loan with an option to buy is a no Brainer, but why would Barca agree to that?
Also the guy clearly wants to play for Barca only and if he is bring forced out, I don't really know how he would do here especially since there have been questions regarding his mentality and diets.
Dembele was stuck in a hotel for several weeks, without being able to go to the training ground, alone in the Catalan city. His time was taken up playing video games and phoning his friends and family in France.
The problem became bigger when the club discovered his bad eating habits, those of most young kids.
Barça intervened to help him organise his life in a manner more fitting of a top-level footballer, moving him away from his fast-food diet. "He must use Samuel Umtiti as an example, who has a more monastic life. Dembele's a kid of 20 years, a millionaire in a city with a lot of temptations. A little order in his life would do him good," a source from the club told Le Parisien.
Dembele asked for three flats in Barcelona, on top of each other. One for him, another for his father and the third for his mother -- they are separated. The petition couldn't be attended because the club couldn't find a suitable option. Finally, they found a flat in the north of the city, where it's normal for his friends to spend a lot of time with him.
https://www.sport-english.com/en/ne...-dembele-complete-his-complex-landing-6644112
Making big demands, poor lifestyle, thinking that he has already made it - none of this would work well with Mourinho.