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.

Is Ceballos still going on loan? Would love to see him replace Kovacic.

I really hope he goes back on loan

He accepted to sign with us because we are not sending him on loan, he will be part of the first team.

i posted it last page, this is our midfield now

Kroos/Ceballos - Casemiro/Llorente - Modric/Kovacic

top heavy af

have we sold BB already ?

Hm, we got Ceballos, interesting. I think we're overbooked now though.

Ceballos is one too much, he's a luxury and he needs good playing time, and so does Kovacic.

Regarding Mbappe, seems like Madrid wants him to wait a year atleast, don't see why he'd be rushing to get signed by PSG.

Now that Asensio is being hyped and that we have a squad where you HAVE to rotate to keep everyone happy, i'd think Benzema should lose his perma-starter role, and if Bale plays bad or gets injured frequently again, he should be out soon too.

Zizou and Flo have all they need right now, we just have to manage correctly now, BBC should be on its last half leg.

The best case scenario would be to sell James, Benzema and Bale. We don't even have to replace them, we already have the personnel to finally have a well-balanced unit.

It's a win-win situation. The three of them would bring in at least 200m, and we would have vacated two valuable spots in the starting eleven, spots that otherwise would be filled with useful and talented players we already have, rotting on the bench.

we can't sell both bale and benzema, just one of them will be enough this season. I think with Isco we have a legit starter now.

James of course is leaving

Nobody seems to be interested in James. We should just lower the asking price for him at this point. We have no use for him and he seems to be happy to stay eventhough he knows the coach doesn't rate him

TMO... Mbappe isn't married to Madrid. He's more than willing to go play for another team. He won't pause his career just because we're not ready.

You can always tell when Flo is not that interested. Here's some carefully picked quotes from his latest interview to further prove my point:

He is a very good player, it reminds me of last year of when they said that we would sign Pogba. The summer is very long, Zidane has had a close relationship with him for several years.

But very few players play at Real Madrid at the age of 18.

'He should have patience, the coach has it in his mind. It's not worth saying if we are going to bring in players who could be on the bench

It's as if he's saying, we will go after Mbappe if he accepts a bench role for now. Either that, or he stays at Monaco until he become a beast and that's when we will bring him to displace one of the untouchables up front.

You can always tell when Florentino wants someone badly. In this case, he wants to wait a little longer. I don't think we'll bring him this summer.

Yup for such a huge price, you can tell from Perez' interviews whether we get the player or not. He always makes a big deal out of big money transfers. Ever since that interview I knew we weren't as interested in him as the rumour mill would have you believe. I mean 130mill for a guy with one good season.....Perez wouldn't even budge for Pogba and he evened likened Mbappe to Pogba just to confirm the suspicion

Imo if we can't get 90mill for Morata we will probably force him to stay and I don't mind, he will continue to help us to win trophies while the clubs who refused to pay the asking fee will continue to bask in mediocrity

If we utilise our squad correctly we won't even need another striker, we just need to keep the emphasis on our midfield which is our jewel, the frontline is our black sheep and if we dont get rid of it we will continue to leak goals and when Ronaldo's goal scoring starts to dry up we will be in deep trouble, he is the one keeping it alive right now

you are wrong in that this is not a situation we control, the player is not at a stage where the only move up for him is to join Madrid.

Perez understands very much that staying at Monaco at least this season is a very real option for Mbappe.

So it's normal he is not going out there acting like he is control, he is not.

@Hala, CR goalscoring is already going down. Benzema who was never a reliable scorer, has his numbers plummeting. And Bale is as injured as ever. The "crisis" is very much here.

I understand that Sports, but i'm coming from the train of thought that he can stay one more year in Monaco because he will have CL football and i'm also assuming Monaco will stay competitive next season.

Aside from salary, i don't know if there's enough compelling reason to believe Mbappe would move from Monaco to PSG this summer when he could just wait and see what happens. If he keeps it up then PSG and Madrid will still be there.

Regards Morata i think he really needs to get sold now because otherwise the likelihood of Benz being benched more by guys like Isco or Asensio diminishes. Selling Morata would help make transitioning from the BBC easier imo.

For 130mill if we really really wanted him you'd hear Perez harp on about him being born to play for Madrid etc etc. He remained coy in his interview, even saying he'd be on the bench if he came here. If Perez really wanted him he'd buy him and force ZZ to start him (most likely at the expense of a midfielder). Reality is that we are after him but not desperate for him and we probably want to evaluate his development over the next season

@Nick, I see it, you see it, we all see it apart from ZZ and Perez. The only way we shift any of them is if their contracts run out. We are lucky Bale is so injury prone or Isco would join Morata in wanting to leave. I think our lackadaisical pursuit of Mbappe is a testament to how little we value a new striker. The media are kidding themselves if they think Mbappe coming hinges on Morata leaving, if Morata forces a transfer (which I dont think) we'll probably just make Mayoral the back up (God forbid)

2019 is the year we finally rid ourselves of this nightmare

Couldn't agree more. It's precisely the reason why I thought he wasn't going after Pogba, and why I now think he isn't that interested in Mbappe either.

Perez always, always makes sure the whole world knows he's coming after his targets. He did it with Bale, Ronaldo and pretty much every single galactico he has ever signed.

With Mbappe, he answered the question with the same indifferent tone he had when he answered to the Pogba rumors, and even related it the latter's case.

I just don't see it happening this season, if ever.

About the BBC, I don't think the club is thinking about replacing them now. As long as Ronaldo is scoring 50 goals a season and hiding the shortcomings of the disaster that is Benzema and the unreliability of the flying injured Welshman, the club won't raise a finger to address the problem.

It's only when Ronaldo stops scoring and we get roflstomped into a trophyless season that Perez and co might consider breaking them.

Until then, let's be patient and hope we won't get that impending heart attack from watching Benzema walking, Bale getting injured for fun and defending with 7 men.

Hala, Perez did say Mbappe was born to play in madrid lol

I think Perez's overall mindset has evolved anyway, and he is not seeking to make moves out of desperation but any move now has to make sense. We used to be in a position where we wanted to sign to have success, now we have success so any signing must make sense. Having a squad good enough to deliver 3 CLs in 4 years means that you dont need to drop 100 mil every summer on a single player unlike Man Utd for example.

We lack control in this situation because it's not about agreeing a fee with Monaco, it's about convincing the player that coming now is the best move for him. We can't be forceful, and ultimately, we dont have to be aggressive about his signing because of what i explained above.

On paper, maintaining BBC one more season makes sense as a strategy. In my opinion, if it's not this summer, it will be in 2018 that we break the BBC because this generation is turning anyway, it will be a forced situation anyway.

Selling Ronaldo is too complicated for all that he is and represents, so to me it needs to start with the other two. I would sacrifice Bale this summer first, bring Mbappe in, and keep and eye on what Dembele is doing over the next year and world cup.

Isco is as good as Bale for us and he helps us dominate the midfield. You bring in Mbappe that can start along side CR with less pressure, and you still have the veteran Benzema around to help with the rotation, with Vasquez and Asensio obviously still around.

Again, this situation comes down to what Mbappe wants to do, he has not made a decision about his future the same way that Bale had told us he was ready to leave. So again, you will not see Perez out in the press boasting that we will sign him for sure.

If Perez didn't want him... he wouldn't travel to France personally to meet him and his parents at the Mbappe house. How many players has he done that for?

Anyhow, Mbappe is not staying at Monaco. That's off the board. They have gutted their roster too much and that was his prerequisite to remain.

No he didn't, the interviewer tried to force feed him the words and Perez just said something along the lines of "I will let you know if he's born to play for Madrid"

I agree that Perez has changed, too bad his eyes are not willing to observe the growing disaster of a frontline we have on our hands

Ronaldo is not even a problem. He has the attitude of a child but he has ALWAYS delivered. He would be the last of them to leave. We need to milk his quality for as long as he can offer it, whatever happens after that we will address when that time arrives

The other two are the problematic ones, Bale is injured 365 days a year, and on the odd chance he isn't injured he walks straight into the line up and whatever form we conjured in between will have all been in vein because he comes in and predictably is rusty needing a few games to get his fittness level up only to get injured again, wash, rinse, repeat. Benz i won't even talk about

Again I'll say what I've said before, Mbappe isn't a must as long as we utilise our great attacking players correctly. Of course it'd be preferable if we were to add another striker but it wouldn't be a disaster if we didn't.

I mean we could play this:


With Lucas as the joker

Or we could play:


We literally aren't even in need of a striker, we just need to bin the BBC. At some point you've got to admit defeat and rectify the problem instead of turning a blind eye to it hoping it'd rectify itself

Bale injury trouble is my argument to ship him off, while he is young enough to still get us paid. he is a good player, but Isco has proven to be equally good, even if he is not a great goalscorer

Mbappe now, then Dembele next summer. There are hardly bigger talents around europe right now

We need to get rid of Bale and Benzema more than we need Mbappe and/or Dembelé.

Our team would be perfect and way more balanced without those two. They're taking up valuable space in the starting eleven and now it's time to cut them loose. Enough is enough.

The guys they're being benched for (Isco, Kova,...) are insanely talented, and every time they get called upon they torch the living hell out of the opposition.

Exactly for how long are we going to turn a blind eye on the fact that we're way stronger without Bale and Benzema?

I understand some of you want Mbappe and Dembele, but I say we already have a magnificent squad. We only need to ship those two and we will be perfect.

They need to go this summer if we want to keep our domination alive and strong.

We've won 3 out of 4 CLs.... and the double last season. Yet we need to change half the team

You only change if you bring on a phenom or a significantly better player.

If it's not broken.... and we're absolutely not broken in any way... then you don't fix it.

No, we don't need to change half the team. We don't need to buy anybody for that matter. We just need to sell Benzema and Bale. That's it.

that does not make sense. Regardless of how you feel about them, they have been pillars of our attack in the past 4 years, and you just can't get rid of them without adequate replacement

The issue is pretty simple with Mbappe... it's not the fee. We've already accepted that. Madrid won't however, pay him 12 mil like PSG is offering. We're offering 5 mil with the promise to renegotiate in 2 years. All this according to Marca.

Mbappe's father is advising him to go to PSG because the difference is so big and the future is never certain.

Mbappe, Draxler, Di Maria and Cavani with Verratti, Rabiot, Matuidi and Motta is pretty formidable. I don't rate Emery as an elite manager though... but still, that's elite talent.

the whole salary grid argument? i really doubt the figure is as low as 5 mil to be honest, but that's my opinion. Marca's information says that's the amount so we will se...

i will just say that we fcked up that grid when we renewed Bale to massive extension without him delivering the goods.

So as far as i am concerned, even if we dont match what PSG are offering, 7-8 would not be breaking much.