With several players incoming as a part of their squad revamp, Real Madrid will also announce a few departures over the course of this week.
Over the last week or ten days, Real Madrid announced that they had agreed terms with Atletico Madrid and Chelsea over the permanent transfers of Marcos Llorente and Mateo Kovacic respectively. Losing two coveted youngsters is certainly a blow to the Whites’ engine room, but there will be several more exits in the coming days.
Zinedine Zidane’s side will jet off for pre-season in the United States within the next two weeks but it seems like the Frenchman would not want to give many of the fringe players a chance. Real Madrid’s options in left back are plenty with Marcelo, Ferland Mendy and Sergio Reguilon, thereby allowing Theo Hernandez to move to AC Milan on Tuesday or Wednesday, as per AS.
Theo Hernandez would not be the only one heading to the home of the 7-time European champions, as Dani Ceballos is expected to follow. The ex-Real Betis midfielder has made it clear that he wants to stay at Real Madrid, hence, allowing his move to AC Milan to be only a loan that would span over a season or even two, according to AS.
Real Madrid lost one of their Galacticos in Cristiano Ronaldo to an Italian giant- Juventus- last summer, and James Rodriguez may well be another casualty with Napoli confident of landing him. AS has reported that the former Bayern Munich loanee would be keen on re-uniting with Carlo Ancelotti, and has already agreed on an annual salary of 6.5 million euros with Napoli.
One of the least impactful departures would be of Raul de Tomas, who will be sold to Benfica imminently, as reported by AS. The striker has impressed with Rayo Vallecano, but he still has a lot to do before he can peg back Karim Benzema or new signing Luka Jovic from their roles. De Tomas will probably be sold off with a buyback clause, as Madrid do with most youngsters.
Following most of the exits, the Whites can expect a considerable amount of the wage budget to free up as well as their cash to increase sizeably, therefore allowing them to go all out on Christian Eriksen or Paul Pogba. Donny van de Beek continues to be an option, but a proven Premier League superstar will always be ahead of a not-so-established youngster.