"Alena has permission from Barcelona to exit" - Koeman

have allowed

Carles Alena

to depart on a loan deal this month. The midfielder has been having a hard time building himself under

Ronald Koeman

as he only featured in five games across

and

for Barcelona this season.

The 23-year-old’s career took off in the 2018-19 season and was at its best as he appeared in 27 games for his side.

Alena had joined Real Betis on loan for the second part of the season in the last campaign, and now

are interested in acquiring Barca midfielder’s services till the end of the season.

"

Alena has permission from the club to seek his exit,

" Koeman said.

"

When everything is done, I will be able to give an opinion, but there are players who can decide to stay or not. He has decided to seek his exit

."

As Koeman’s side was preparing for the clash against

, the club has got two positive coronavirus cases among the staff in hand to deal with which eventually resulted in training and media duties being postponed to Tuesday.

"

There are things in life that cannot be controlled,

" he said. "

We have followed the protocol by suspending the training this morning and repeating the PCR tests.

"We could only hope that there were no more positives. Thank goodness that everyone has come out negative and we were able to prepare for tomorrow's game."

Barcelona are sitting fifth on the La Liga table, falling 10 points behind the current titleholders

.

Notwithstanding a busy fixture, the Barcelona manager is looking for reinforcements to get back to the title fight.

"

Any team looks at how the squad can be improved in January,

" he added.

"

I make my plans on seeing the casualties we may have and what players [we need] to bring. But if it is not possible, I will have the same players."

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