Barca target Walker after failing to replace Brazilian Alves
points separate second-placed City from United in sixth, with Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool also vying for the top four.
Barcelona are also following Mario Gaspar, the Spain international who plays for Villarreal, as well as Djibril Sidibe, who played for Monaco in their 5-3 defeat at Manchester City in the Champions League last night.
Since Alves was allowed to join Juventus, Barcelona have struggled to find a player capable of making a similar impact. The homegrown Sergi Roberto has been deployed there with mixed results while Aleix Vidal, signed from Sevilla in summer 2015, rarely played initially and then, having forcing his way in, sustained a serious ankle injury earlier this month.
Vidal’s injury has led to reports Barcelona will use the ‘emergency transfer’ loophole in Spanish football to sign a right-back on a temporary basis.
Spanish clubs are allowed to sign players outside transfer windows under exceptional circumstances and if they are given such dispensation, Barcelona are expected to move for Juanfran Moreno, who belongs to Watford but has spent the last two seasons on loan at Deportivo La Coruna.
Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp has spoken of his admiration for Christian Eriksen after revealing he tried to sign the Dane for Borussia Dortmund in 2013.
Eriksen joined Spurs from Ajax that summer for about £11.5m and quickly developed into one of their most important players. But had things turned out differently, Eriksen might have worked with Klopp in the Bundesliga.
The Liverpool manager told Danish outlet BT: “Christian Eriksen is a great player; everyone would love to have him in their team. At that time we had three players [on our list] that we wanted — Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Kevin De Bruyne and Christian Eriksen.
“We scouted all three of them intensely but we knew that we could only get one and we were happy to get Mkhitaryan. Since then Eriksen has taken a great step in joining Tottenham and he is playing very well.”
Eriksen signed a new contract worth about £70,000 a week with Tottenham last summer. Before he did so, the 25-year-old was linked strongly with Juventus and by Manchester United.
Despite some patchy form early in the season, Eriksen has been a key player since the winter and shone in Spurs’ 3-0 FA Cup fifth-round win at Fulham last Sunday.
He is expected to retain his place in the starting XI for tomorrow’s Europa League tie against Gent, with Spurs needing to overturn a 1-0 deficit from the first leg to progress to the last 16.