As the transfer window enters its endgame there has been a familiar sub-plot over the last few days, another chapter in the ballad of Ousmane Dembélé.
This is the strangest of sporting lives. Dembélé is only 24. He joined Barcelona for £96m as long ago as August 2017, one of several deals that were steroid-fed by the state of Qatar’s inflationary lust for Neymar.
