Xavi Hernández's new Barça already has one more reinforcement. The Barcelona entity, finally, confirmed what, for a few days, was almost already an open secret: the signing of Oriol Romeu. Finally, the club chaired by Joan Laporta has closed an agreement with Girona to seal the return of an Oriol Romeu who went through the lower categories of the Barcelona team and who, after debuting with the first team in the Spanish Super Cup under the orders of Pep Guardiola in 2010, was transferred to Chelsea in the summer of 2011.

The 31-year-old footballer will involve an outlay of about four million euros, will sign a contract for three seasons and will have a termination clause of 400 million euros. Last Monday, in fact, he would have already passed the pertinent medical examination after leaving the pre-season concentration of the Girona team, but his incorporation was not made official until this morning.

Oriol Romeu returns to Barça as a replacement for Sergio Busquets who ended his time at the Barça entity at the end of last season and who, in fact, became the great obstacle for this player, initially trained in the youth academy Espanyol, will manage to consolidate himself in the Barcelona first team. That lack of options, precisely, was what led to his march to Stamford Bridge taking place almost 12 years ago..

Chelsea was finally the one that got hold of him, despite the fact that other Premier teams, such as Liverpool or Arsenal, also bid hard for his signing.. However, he did not have many opportunities in the London team either and, after being loaned out to both Valencia and Stuttgart, he ended up joining the ranks of Southampton where he stayed for seven seasons until, last year, he joined Girona in which it has been an absolutely fundamental piece in Míchel's schemes.

The midfielder, who was not the first option to cover the departure of Busquets but who has ended up establishing himself as such after the difficulties in closing the arrival of footballers like Kimmich or Zubimendi, will embark along with his new teammates this afternoon bound for a pre-season tour in the United States in which Barça will face Juventus, Arsenal, Real Madrid and Milan. In addition, the Barça club has also announced in the last few hours the loan of Pablo Torre for a season to the Girona team, so that the Santander midfielder can thus accumulate the minutes that he lacked so much in his first season as a Barcelona player.