Barcelona will make one last offer to pay Manchester City for defender Eric Garcia in January.
Barca boss Ronald Koeman wants the club to push for the 19-year-old defender, who is out of contract at the Etihad next summer, when the transfer window reopens.
But having made an offer of around £9million in the summer, Barcelona are expected to only offer around £7m for Garcia in the January window.
City boss Pep Guardiola has consistently said they still hope to keep Garcia and want to tie him down to a new contract.
Guardiola rates him highly and has played him even with the long-running contract dispute going on in the background.
But Barcelona believe if they do not get him in January then they will sign him as a free agent next summer and hope that underlying threat will persuade City to do a deal.
Garcia has continued to be used by Guardiola this term.
But the ex-Barca boss, whose own contract is up at the end of the season, has now settled on Ruben Dias and Aymeric Laporte as his No.1 defensive pairing.
The big-money pair are forging a solid partnership, with Portugal international Dias having impressed since arriving from Benfica.
After Saturday's 1-0 win over Sheffield United, Guardiola praised the pair, but also noted that Garcia would continue to be required.
He declared: “They [Dias and Laporte] played the last games, and they are doing really, really well. It’s so important for us.
"It’s good. Dias has settled really well, he gives us personality and charisma in the back-line.
“Both are playing really well. We struggled a lot last year not having two centre-backs who gave us that consistency.
“We had to rotate a lot, but we need everyone, it's impossible to play both every game."
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