Sergi Samper has returned to Barcelona after his season-long loan spell at Las Palmas was cut short following a long-term ankle injury.
Las Palmas have made an official statement to confirm that Sergi Samper’s season-long loan deal has been terminated midway through its tenure. The 23-year-old has returned to Barcelona after he underwent ankle surgery last month that ruled him out for the rest of the season.
Sergi Samper rapidly progressed through the ranks at Barcelona upon joining the club’s fabled youth academy La Masia in 2001 as a 6-year-old. But, after breaking into the senior setup with the Barcelona B side in 2013, the player has had to bide his time, and is still not a regular in the first-team squad.
The aforementioned is also thanks in large part due to Sergio Busquets making the holding midfield role his own at Camp Nou for the better part of the last decade. With the veteran midfielder still going strong, Samper’s chances of becoming a regular first-team player at Barcelona remain slim.
Las Palmas announced that they have reached an agreement with Barça to rescind Sergi Samper’s loan agreement after his left ankle injury in early January against Eibar in La Liga. Samper will miss 4 months pic.twitter.com/1G8CLVOUdP
— FC Barcelona Fl (@FCBarcelonaFl) February 1, 2018
Till then, with the youngster still only 23, loan spells at other La Liga clubs are his best opportunities to get regular first-team minutes under his belt and grow as a professional footballer. The latest loan move from Barcelona was to Las Palmas, with Samper joining the Canary Islanders in August on a season-long spell.
The move did not pay a lot of dividends, with the player only managing to make five appearances for the La Liga strugglers due to a spate of injuries. But, just when it started looking like he had turned a corner, a long-term ankle injury suffered in a league game against Eibar last month, has brought about the end of his time at Las Palmas.
The club has now come to an agreement with Barcelona and Samper to cancel the rest of his loan deal following an ankle surgery that brought his campaign to a premature end.
With just one year left on his Barcelona contract as well, his future at Camp Nou looks bleak, especially with the Blaugrana reportedly looking at Arthur Melo as a potential long-term successor to Sergio Busquets. Samper, though, will hope to have a say in the matters once he’s recovered from his latest injury.
