Robert Lewandowski's next two goals will cost Barcelona €1.25 million

Robert Lewandowski's next two goals will cost Barcelona another €1.25 million, even though they couldn't even afford to loan a player on deadline day.

Like the phrase about London and rats, you're never too far away from a story about Barcelona and the finances around one of their transfers.

The Catalan giants, who have often been the subject of mockery in recent years, managed to find a new thing to be a bit of a laughing stock about, by missing out on one deal on Tuesday by less than 20 seconds.

It's quite the skill to have an entire month to sort out your business and then blame a computer error when you wait till the last minute, it feels like a lot of assignments in my university days.

Another deal failed to materialise for Xavi's team after they couldn't afford to include a purchase option on a loan move they were attempting to get done.

It all continues the madness from last summer, when they seemed to spend endlessly and needing to pull 'financial levers' in order to sign players.

That certainly seemed to be worth it when it came to signing Lewandowski, who joined from Bayern Munich, and has so far scored 14 goals in 16 La Liga appearances.

In total he has 23 goals in all competitions and, according to Mundo Deportivo, the club owe Bayern €1.25 million once he reaches 25 for the season, which will be payable every season he does it.

Lewandowski celebrates his most recent goal. Image: Alamy

The Polish striker scored is 23rd strike on Wednesday night against Real Betis, in a game that stretched their lead over Real Madrid to eight points.

Raphinha gave the visitors the lead in the 65th minute, before the ex Borussia Dortmund forward doubled the lead with just 10 minutes to go.

Jules Kounde then scored an own goal five minutes later, just the seventh goal the team have conceded in La Liga in this campaign, to show how important Lewandowski's goal was.

It was the 34-year-old's return to the team after three games out with suspension, although he might have been back a game before.

His suspension was initially delayed thanks to an appeal to a local court, meaning he played in the local derby against Espanyol.

The three game back kicked in after, leaving the second team in the city extremely annoyed about the decision to let him play.