this has been a shitty summer so far, I was hoping morata, james and bale was sold already and we get at least one of dembele or mbappe but nothing is happening and perez is wasting time with morata, anything over 60m is a win ffs.

You have to be clinically day dreaming to think Bale is gonna be sold this season. No way. Morata and James, from the looks of it, is being over priced particularly James. Any would-be suitor has to cough up 60 mil for James? Really? For Madrid to rid themselves of James, they'll need to really lower their asking price.

Morata, well, that's another story really. Personally think Perez is trying to gouge out Utd's eyes and cut out their tongue for the whole De Gea fiasco. In any case, if nothing actually happens, we'll still very much have a winning team so...all is not lost?

So in summary to date, we have Pepe, Mariano and Coentrao gone and are playing the slow we don't have to sell Stategy Morata and James as well there is the intriguing interest in Danilo.

Already in are Vallejo, Marcos Llorente, Theo Hernandez and for the moment Borja Majoral.

And they are still intending on signing Mbappe and Ceballos, once Morata and James are gone.

There is an issue here. The team numbers are now at 25 and only 22 get to play. 23rd (last season Mariano) rarely plays and 24th (Yáñez) is the practice GK. In other words, no way will Mbappe nor Ceballos come on to sit on bench. Someone has to go. Borja Majoral regressed last season not getting enough action with a lessor team so no way he stays. It had been rumoured club may go after Sandro if Morata does leave and Mbappe doesn't come. So basically 24 players which means Lucas becomes #24. But would that be sufficient to give Ceballos and Mbappe enough? I say Kovacic goes out on loan or sold! Would be great if Nick is right about Bale, but I doubt it.

Danilo going elsewhere would be sweet

Mr Nick09 wrote:Danilo going elsewhere would be sweet

Yes I agree. There are 2 names being bounced as replacements. One is Archaf (not sure re sp) from Castilla and the other is a kid, 21, Aaron from Real Sociedador maybe it's espanyol. That plus Nacho is sufficient.

There is real competition from PSG re Mbappe and Barca for Ceballos. They may just stick with Morata if they lose out to PSG and to win him over they probably do have to do something about Bale, which gets more and more difficult with passage of time. WIth Ceballos, they likely will loan / sell Kovacic, that would be enough, I think.

Morata is a scrub I am a bit concerned we did not sell for 75-80 mil

Madrid are dropping the ball on Mbappe. They want him to wait and he has no intention of doing that.

Same case re Ceballos. These kids feel they are ready and don't want to wait. Although I think both would settle for some sort of rotation? Loaning out kovacic might be enough re Ceballos although Barca will give him more minutes (plus he hates Barca), but with Mbappe would rotation with Benz and filling in for oft injured Bale be enough?

However if he does go to Psg, watch for Flo to slam the door on the Morata deal.

We barely have space for ceballos though

Agreed although he made similar statements as Mbappe. he wants a chance to compete. He is actually a better CM than either Isco or Kovacic, so loaning out Kovacic gives him a chance at first rotation for Kroos or Modric. Let Isco battle with Bale for playing time.

i would have rather had both wait a year, but I also see them as replacements in another year re aging players (Isco and Asensio are the others). It's all about building a dynasty having replacements already on board for aging players.

Ceballos has shown nothing to suggest he is a better CM than Kovacic, that's his competition. I won't compare him to Isco as it's not the same class of player and Isco is not a natural CM

You have to be joking te Ceballos in comparison to Kovacic

no he's right Bill.  Kova is just as good, if not better, a prospect. Not really a prospect either as he was excellent at Inter and already a mainstay on Croatia NT, which is a very good NT.

Well, according to Inter fans, he had excellent moments but due to being being placed in various positions, never showed any real consistency.

I wouldn't say he is a better prospect Sports but I don't think we'll lose out much if the club doesn't purchase Ceballos as long as Kova is still around. But somewhat like Bill, I'm bias towards Ceballos with the difference being I wouldn't mind the club buying him at all regardless if he actually fits.

kovacic is better, callebus just has that spainsh nationality going for him.

They're different players Doc anyhow.  I see Kova as a north/south player that uses his pace and dribbling.  Ceballos is more of ball control guy and a passer.  I don't think they should complete for the same role given their different profiles.  Would be nice to have both.  Modric is going to slow down fairly soon methinks given his age.  You don't want to place your bets on just one prospect as a possible replacement.

Agreed and for a release clause of 15 million, the club can very well purchase him. Would he be guarantee a starting role? No. Duh. But the club can just lie which they do all the time anyway.

I don't care if our midfield is crowded, Barca are about to miss out on Veratti. Just buy Ceballos to block his move to Barca. Worry about playing time later. They can go and buy Paulinho for all I care, we need to stop them buying the better CMs. PSG are doing their job, we need to do ours

It would be lovely if Danilo left, but that would be one change too many in the bbackline in one summer imo, we should keep him for one more season and let Achraf/Tejero get experience elsewhere before they're ready to come back

halamadrid2 wrote:I don't care if our midfield is crowded, Barca are about to miss out on Veratti. Just buy Ceballos to block his move to Barca. Worry about playing time later. They can go and buy Paulinho for all I care, we need to stop them buying the better CMs. PSG are doing their job, we need to do ours

It would be lovely if Danilo left, but that would be one change too many in the bbackline in one summer imo, we should keep him for one more season and let Achraf/Tejero get experience elsewhere before they're ready to come back

Still laughing how they're even being linked with Paulinho. From Verratti to the great Paulinho how the mighty have fallen.

@doc to answer your earlier post, can't rely on a player who doesn't want to be here. Being stubborn over his price tag will only hurt us as well as our relations with our own player. Morata is already frustrated as it is with ManUtd pulling the plug and going after lukaku instead. and worse, we just lost any advantage we had on negotiations. if we sell him, it will be for a lower price than w/e manutd were offering.

I do not appreciate the sloppiness of our transfer dealings so far. we should seal ceballos sooner rather than later as well. can't let barca have him.

Assuming the bids that were reported were true, we should have taken the 65 mil and ran off into the sunset. That is A LOT of money for someone of Morata's skill. A good to very good player when things fall into place for him but I would not call him "world class" level. Or 65 million Euros level either to be frank.

Signing someone in place of Danilo is not exactly a big change Hala, it's fine. We would be adding a back up LB we don't have, replacing Pepe with Vallejo, and Danilo. It's fine to me

Too many new faces in the backline in one summer Nick. All the guys will have to get used to playing for us for starters then they have to perform from day one in order to avoid scrutiny. We both know Theo is a better LB than Danilo and anyone is better than him at RB but these new guys need time, the more there are the harder it'll be to rotate and help them get used to playing for us. I mean in case of injury to our whole backline like happened last season we could be forced to play 3 guys who have no experience playing at a big club that asks alot from its defence. We need experienced back up at RB until these guys are ready to enter regular rotation then he can go

Canal 4 reporting this morning that signing of Ceballos will be confirmed today.

Also Man U have officially terminated the pursuit of Morata.

Also Yáñez leaving and Luca Zidane likely to be practice GK.

This likely means end of summer market with possible James and Danilo transfers left.

Looks like lineup will be same as last year minus Mariano, James, Pepe, Coentrao, Yañez, plus Vallejo, Theo, Marcos Llorente, Ceballos, Luca. Squad size 24

The only issue I have with this is we are well prepared for future except for replacing BBC, specifically the striker portion of it and GK. I'm assuming we lose out on Mbappe.

But this lineup is well equipped to repeat last year's accomplishments.

I have a feeling Benzema won't be going anywhere this summer. Tough luck.

I don't think we would've won the CL last year hadn't Bale been injured.

The sooner the BBC is broken, the better. But I have now come to the conclusion that Bale and Benzema are untouchable. It doesn't matter how injury-prone the Welshman is or how bad and useless Benzema, they'll both continue to ride their luck on Ronaldo's back. It's something I have to live with I guess.

On a separate note, Marca are saying Ceballos is about to sign a six-year Real Madrid deal. [Link]

I don't really know how to feel about this. He has no place in our already stacked midfield, and I really can't see him displacing either Kova or Isco. They're both few levels above him. So unless James gets sold or Ceballos gets loaned out, I don't think he'll get enough minutes at the Bernabeu to feel relevant or develop.