Malaga signs Sandro Ramirez from Barcelona

Andalusian La Liga side Malaga has thrown young Barcelona forward Sandro Ramirez football's equivalent of a lifeline, singing the player to a three-year deal.

Ramirez, 20, joins last season's surprise eighth-placed side for an undisclosed fee through June 2019, Malaga announced Thursday on its website.

The Las Palmas-born striker joined Barcelona's famed La Masia academy in 2009, progressing from the youth set up to the Catalan's B side in 2013 before making his first-team debut in 2014.

Ramirez has since made 17 senior-team appearances in all competitions including four La Liga starts this season languishing behind a handful of players in Luis Enrique's squad.

Fellow academy product Munir El Haddadi was preferred to Ramirez, while Neymar, Luis Suarez, and Lionel Messi understandably merit the majority of the first-team minutes in attacking positions.

Ramirez's departure is hardly a surprise after Barcelona's technical director Robert Fernandez conceded in May that the player had become surplus to requirements and would have been sold sooner were it not for the transfer embargo that expired in January.

"Last summer Sandro had an offer to leave," Fernandez said. "We evaluated at that time the situation we had as we could not sign players (due to a FIFA ban) and he made an effort to stay with us."