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Writer’s Prelude. Today’s DT is written in haste.
This week will also hopefully feature a few more DTs written by your fellow MMers. Again please email us at managingmadridmods@gmail.com if you’d like to contribute to this week.
Sensible Change?
Dear MM,
First, apologies for any typos or grammatical errors. This DT is being written in haste (legitimately via my phone while I sit in the back of a car) so bear with me throughout this hectic process. Life much like Real Madrid is a chaotic beast that we simply attempt each and every day to tame or better worded make reason out of. For better or worse, today was (well is the day isn’t over lol) one of those days. But less about me lol.
Rodri Again. The winds of news have now blown in another direction and it looks like Florentino and the board will resume negotiations with Rodri in an attempt to bring the WC winner to Real Madrid C.F. My first reaction is thankfulness that Florentino appears to be able to temper his own ego in the situation for the better of the team. My second reaction is it’s pretty sad that Spanish fans / Real Madrid fans / even Spanish journalists practically staged an online campaign to force this transfer to move forward despite it being increasingly obvious how much this short-term signing is absolutely necessary. And again I know some of you are still hesitant and would prefer more long-term building but it may be time for us to accept that long-term strategies just something we don’t do. Especially while Mourinho is our manager and Florentino is trying to get enough support to sell a portion of the club to equity investors, short-term success is truly non-negotiable. Riquelme potentially wins an election in 2027 if we go trophyless, again. But anyway happy to see this moving along as I believe Rodri is a much needed profile AND LEADER for our midfield.
What’s next? All I’ll say for now is expect some people to start getting uncomfortable. If any of you read the tea leaves, it’ll be quite difficult to have Fede Tchouameni Rodri Arda and Jude in one starting lineup, so at least 1-2 players who normally consider themselves starters is going to be riding the bench or completely playing out of position. Oh I forgot Bernardo Silva is in the mix too. If this transfer does go through, expect a departure and I don’t really need to explicitly say who it is. I’ll leave that to TR. But surely it isn’t the French midfielder who just renewed his contract despite Manchester United wanting to sign him. And it certainly isn’t Jude ““Best English Player” Bellingham. Soooo yea — spots are going to need to really be earned in the midfield.
Sensible Departures. Umm I’ll be quick because I haven’t really ever rated these players. Franco going on loan would be the smartest decision for both parties. The kid is extremely raw and last season barely showed even top flight football quality. He needs to consistently play just for his own career. Raúl Asencio is another loan which feels like more of a James Rodriguez to Bayern loan or Kovacic to Chelsea. We can’t sell you yet but we’re just buying time to hopefully figure something out. This loan would leave us with 4 primary CBs which imo should be ok. I would’ve loved if we didn’t bring Konate but that is what it is. So if Dean can make the jump, him + Konate + maybe healthier Militao + backup Rudi should be adequate if we play a system that actually takes pride in defending. I wouldn’t mind supplementing that position tho with another hardy veteran or a willingness to play Castilla players. But yea let’s just see how that plays out in the end.
Cheers,
J
