Alejandro Balde's Struggles at Barcelona Amid Manchester United Interest

Alejandro Balde’s Barcelona season is drifting, and Manchester United will be watching every minute of it.

The 22-year-old left-back, heavily linked with a loan move to Old Trafford late in the summer window, did not play a single second in Barcelona’s latest Champions League outing. He stayed rooted to the bench as Hansi Flick’s side tore Feyenoord apart 5-1, a statement win that only underlined how far down the pecking order the Spain international has slipped.

Flick’s decision was striking. With a natural left-back available, he still pushed Joao Cancelo – a right-back by trade and a former Manchester City defender – across to the opposite flank. Balde, once seen as a long-term pillar for the Blaugrana, again watched on as an unused substitute.

This is not a one-off. Since United tried to prise him away on loan before the deadline, Flick has not used Balde at all. Not in La Liga. Not in Europe. Not in any competition. The defender has been named in every matchday squad since his brief exclusion on the opening weekend, but his role has been limited to that of spectator, a clear sign of how little influence he currently holds in this Barcelona side.

Flick has already gone public with his demands. He wants more from Balde. More drive. More edge. More fight.

Before the end of the transfer window, the German coach even left him out of the squad that beat Elche in their first league game and addressed the situation head-on.

“No, I'm not asking him to leave,” Flick insisted when quizzed on the defender’s future. He then explained a conversation that laid bare the player’s mental state at the time.

“This morning I felt there was something wrong. I spoke to him and said: ‘At this moment, I have this feeling, and I think it's best for you to clear your mind, sort out your thoughts, and then we'll talk again tomorrow.’

“And he agreed as well. He agreed to it because there are so many things going around in his head, and that's why he's not here.”

The message was blunt: reset, refocus, and then compete. Balde has since been reintegrated into the group, but the next step – actual minutes on the pitch – still hasn’t arrived.

While Balde waits, United’s own left-back situation remains fragile.

Michael Carrick has just one senior specialist in that role: Luke Shaw. Behind him, it’s a patchwork of solutions. If Shaw suffers any kind of setback, Carrick would almost certainly have to shuffle his defence, either shifting Lisandro Martinez out to left-back or flipping one of Noussair Mazraoui or Diogo Dalot to the opposite side. None of those options is ideal. All of them would disrupt the balance of a back line already under scrutiny.

That reality loomed larger when Shaw skipped training on the eve of United’s Champions League tie against Sabah at Old Trafford. The absence immediately raised alarms, given how thin United are in that position.

Carrick moved quickly to calm the noise, framing it as load management rather than a fresh problem.

“We just gave him an extra recovery day today. We'll see by tomorrow how he is,” the United manager explained. “It's not an ongoing thing or a plan or anything like that. It was just off the back of the game the other day. So, as normal, each individual has different little things that we manage.”

Shaw is expected to be held back for the Manchester Derby at the weekend, a decision that underlines his importance and United’s reluctance to gamble with his fitness.

So the picture is clear. In Barcelona, a highly rated left-back is stuck on the fringes, urged to prove his commitment. In Manchester, a club with long-standing interest in that same player is one injury away from a defensive reshuffle it does not really want.

If Balde’s exile continues and United’s left-back conundrum deepens, the question almost asks itself: how long before those two stories collide again in the transfer market?