Real Madrid’s defence is a bit of a shambles at the moment. Marcelo, their all-encompassing left back is crocked and his only real backup in Fabio Coentrao is rarely seen outside the injured players’ wing these days. Nacho can fill in on the left, but the versatile defender has been tasked with plugging other holes this season. Hence, Zinedine Zidane finds himself in urgent need of a left back. And that left back, according to AS is Napoli mainstay Faouzi Ghoulam.
The Algerian has been consistently impressive over the past couple of seasons and his impressive displays on the left for Napoli (and Algeria in WC 2014) have piqued interest in him from across Europe.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the Algerian is aware of this and is not best pleased with his situation at Napoli where he feels the Euro 900,000 annual salary he draws is not sufficient for a man of his calibre and importance to the team. This has added a lot of interest-accelerant in the transfer market.
While he would not hope to displace Marcelo as first-choice left back at Real Madrid – not anytime soon – he would definitely draw a higher paycheck. And with the sheer amount of games that Madrid play, there shouldn’t be any problem with game-time either.
For Madrid on the other hand, the purchase would make perfect sense. Currently valued in the 15-20 million bracket, his arrival at Madrid would solve a major headache for Zidane and would enable him to rotate with much greater ease and less worry that he is putting out an inferior defense.
The allure of Real Madrid and working with Zinedine Zidane could well just tip the scales in the Madridistas favour, especially when compared to what Bayern Munich may offer. Unless Napoli and their eccentric chairman Aurelio De Laurentiis agree to up the Algerians take-home package, this move could very well happen as soon as convenient for both parties.
While Madrid can’t do any business this window, next summer their hands will be uncuffed, and we should expect the La Liga giants to make big splashes in the window. Strengthening a surprisingly frail squad will be Zidane’s number one priority and Ghoulam could very be their first step in that direction.