The Madrid One wrote:The whole Hakimi ordeal may have been orchestrated by Hakimi's agent to pressure Madrid. If we let him go then surely Zidane and the club didn't bother convincing him to stay because they don't see enough in him. For all the recent noise surrounding Hakimi, i've always considered that he is technically lacking and from what I hear he is still not a trust worthy defender. I'd personally bring him back to suss him out.

James will surely go, as well as Ceballos, if the latter stays then it's purely because he's Spanish. Arsenal fans are already bullying him and nicknaming him "spinning bottle cap" because even they see that other than his ability to turn his hips he offers little.

Apparently there are rumors Milan want Jovic and are willing to pay 40 million. There were those who were excited when Jovic came, I always said that aside from his finishing ability in the box he seemed a trunk of a player, far from elite in pace, acceleration,  technique, agility, etc. Wonder if we can manage to send Bale packing some how.

MTO, i have already posted what I think will happen to Ceballos. As stated earlier the club will be missing gate revenue this year and as a result there likely will be no additions. So the club looks like it is trying to generate additional income to backfill the lost gate revenue. That would appear to be primarily players on loan or in the system that won’t make it to 1st team. Getting 45M for Achraf Hakimi and 10M for Oscar is a very good start. Ceballos could also fit into this strategy as now reported both Betis and Valencia are interested. But there are many more in system and on loan, Mayoral, Vallejo for example.

But for players on 1st team, that likely will be wishful thinking on our part, James and Bale at top of list. Problem with Jovic moving is like always, Milan is looking for a loan deal and there is no other backup (Mariano is more likely to be sold and definitely is inferior to Jovic, plus doesn’t have Zidane’s confidence). If they are going to move any of these 1st team players, it will be because there are buy offers for a decent price, although we can hope that club will reduce demands to a reasonable current market assessment plus ensuring there remains a decent usable squad size. Plus there is the issue of some kids at club in need of loan deals to develop such as Brahim.

Don't expect Bale to go anywhere. He makes too much money for most clubs to pay him, and you can forget about him going to China, when they were the epicenter of Covid.

The man will sit there making his money until his contract ends. You really would need to be desperate to want to sign him.

How much longer is his contract, Nick.

I do agree with you. I can’t seeing him taking a pay cut. Besides he seems happy collecting paycheck and playing golf.

As I stated earlier, expecting sales from first team is more likely wishful thinking than reality. Not sure though in the case of James.

His contract ends in 2022. We might be able to offload him next year if we're lucky.

The club could also reach an agreement to terminate his deal but I don't think they have to set this precedent for such a big name that will for sure get the football world talking, specially the English press.

If he wants to leave someone had to pay a reasonable transfer amount or he will stay and deliver the same lackluster performances here and there.

2022? How is this possible? Did you give him a 9 year contract?
Or did they clandestinely extend his contract in one of his prolonged golfinginjury absences?!

Mr Nick09 wrote:The club could also reach an agreement to terminate his deal but I don't think they have to set this precedent for such a big name that will for sure get the football world talking, specially the English press.

If he wants to leave someone had to pay a reasonable transfer amount or he will stay and deliver the same lackluster performances here and there.

It the English think so much of Bale, why is it that after several years, there has been zero interest from any EPL club?

I said English press not English clubs. Also I am sure most English clubs would have loved to sign him in the past 2 years but Bale makes too much money for most to consider his signing, specially when he was looking like he is finishing. Now everyone knows he is finished.

I'm not comfortable of having centerbacks as backups for Carvajal. Even if Odriozola comes back he won't have much play time.

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say Zidane will use Vazquez as the back up. Zidane is just in love with that guy.

Mr Nick09 wrote:I said English press not English clubs. Also I am sure most English clubs would have loved to sign him in the past 2 years but Bale makes too much money for most to consider his signing, specially when he was looking like he is finishing. Now everyone knows he is finished.

Lol, he was finished 10 years ago. Even when he scored important goals, he was invisible or missing in action for most of those games. I know you said press, but given praise on this forum, most EPL fans still think highly of him, and thus the view of the press. But those who should know better, i.e. the clubs, haven’t attempted  to purchase him. Sure some would like him for next to nothing and at a greatly reduced salary, but if he actually was the great player that fans and media say, why wouldn’t these clubs attempt an offer?

If I were Flo, I would buy him out , put up with whatever nonsense the media puts out and see where Bale ends up (and what he has to come down to in terms of salary!)  .... but then again in these tough economic times, we have to wait at least another year for that to happen.  

Best we can hope for is for Zidane to banish him to the golf course or Castilla.

Regarding Hakimi, he's possibly leaving for around 40 million euros plus 5 million euros in variables. Transfermarkt.com values him at around 53 million euros, and i think that the right price would have probably been around 50 considering he's coming from Madrid.

Having said this, I can, with full integrity, say that Hakimi has never impressed me, principally because he is not very good/technical with the ball at his feet and because he isn't the most elastic in tight spaces, and this pays dividends in the elite level. To top it off, Hakimi apparently didn't take it upon himself to develop himself into a good defensive fullback. Hakimi has been overrated due to being a Madrid youth product and 40 to 45 million in this market is not far off the mark all things considered.

There's a good thread on twitter that compares him to Carvajal 2020 (who many say is past it) and even then Carvajal trumps him well as the results are damming.

https://twitter.com/theblancotimes/status/1277194959158820865

Quotes in Blue:

Firstly, Carvajal has shown superiority to Hakimi in defense. The Spaniard is better at 1v1s vs wingers and at winning the ball back.

Tackle/dribbled past %: Carvajal: 37.2, Hakimi 35.8

pAdj Tackles won: Carvajal: 1.92, Hakimi: 1.86

This shows us that Hakimi would struggle defending when Madrid fall back into their mid block, added that it will be without the protection of 3 CBs, let alone having to track back with his advanced position with less cover.

Offensively however, Hakimi is the more dangerous and threatening fullback with an xA of 4.7 compared to Carvajal’s xA of 3.8. And the Moroccan’s pace and dribbling ability can be menacing in-behind defenses, and are also two attributes that Carvajal isn’t best at.

However, Carvajal is still very good offensively and competes closely with Hakimi in some key offensive statistics.

Key Passes: Carvajal = 39, Hakimi = 34

Passes in the final 1/3: Carvajal: 112, Hakimi: 111

Passes into the Penalty Area: Carvajal: 50, Hakimi: 42

Also keep in mind that Hakimi is allowed to bomb forward often because of his role as a wingback, while Carvajal plays more conservatively to quickly be able protect on counter-attacks and allow Ferland Mendy or Marcelo to go forward to contribute to Madrid’s left-sided overload

One downside of Hakimi’s game is his fallibility to the press. He’s not the best at keeping the ball and making good passes under pressure, seeing by how he leads the Bundesliga in intercepted passes with 55, while Carvajal has only 29 intercepted passes in La Liga this year.

Achraf also has more miscontrols and dispossessions than Dani, with 53 and 57 respectively, while Carvajal only has 25 miscontrols and 21 dispossessions.

It shows to Hakimi’s lack of control and press resistance. Zidane has instructed Carvajal to play as an inverted RB at times since the restart with his decent press resistance, but if Hakimi takes his place, he’ll likely be a lot more limited and won’t be able to play inverted.

After a statistical analysis of the two, we can say Carvajal deserves the starting RB spot at the moment with a far more balanced skill-set.

We should not give up on Odriozola imo. Odriozola is far more technical and agile in tight spaces than Hakimi, he's also fast, and with specified training he could fix up his defensive abilities sufficiently.

So Odriozola can fix up his defensive abilities but Achraf cant?

The stars here are not telling me anything, in almost everything the guy used they are within a few percentage points of one another. This is a bad use of statistics to differentiate two players imo.

Hakimi is being sold because he wants to be a starter and Carvajal is currently better than he is. It's simple, good luck to Hakimi, we might see him again

Mr Nick09 wrote:So Odriozola can fix up his defensive abilities but Achraf cant?

The stars here are not telling me anything, in almost everything the guy used they are within a few percentage points of one another. This is a bad use of statistics to differentiate two players imo.

Hakimi is being sold because he wants to be a starter and Carvajal is currently better than he is. It's simple, good luck to Hakimi, we might see him again

The statistics highlight what is visible through the eye test: "Hakimi’s lack of (ball) control and press resistance" and what that entails.  

The hope was that Hakimi improved his defensive abilities if he came here but that is moot now and i'd much rather focus on Odriozola's growth since he's still ours. Along with Hakimi's desire for playing time you are forgetting to highlight that if Zidane and co. rated him higher they probably would have tried harder to convince him. It's not just simply about Carvajal being better. Hakimi likely saw a grim vote of no confidence.

The Madrid One wrote:
The statistics highlight what is visible through the eye test: "Hakimi’s lack of (ball) control and press resistance" and what that entails.  

The hope was that Hakimi improved his defensive abilities if he came here but that is moot now and i'd much rather focus on Odriozola's growth since he's still ours. Along with Hakimi's desire for playing time you are forgetting to highlight that if Zidane and co. rated him higher they probably would have tried harder to convince him. It's not just simply about Carvajal being better. Hakimi likely saw a grim vote of no confidence.

like I said above it's a poor use of statistics to differentiate two players, and then the guy's conclusion is that they are not two different. That's a harmonica's level of using numbers to say nothing new.

Me I remember when Achraf came up from Castilla not ready, and zidane was starting him in Champions League games. Vote of no confidence you say? Lol. It doesn't matter how good achraf is now, he is not better than Carvajal, and Zidane can't guarantee him to start. inter can.

Both Odriozola and Hakimi played in Bundesliga last season btw

Odriozola was never picked except as a basic rotation placeholder, and didn't have any impact or make any impression, instead of not  being that especially good.

Hakimi made a big impact, 2nd fastest recorded sprint of last season (behind Phonzie), was a huge attacking factor in BVBs game, while quite apparently being a defensive hazard and thus was only picked by Favre as right wing back, not RB, after a while.

You can shove your La Liga, which arguably was the weakest of European top 4 leagues, last season, up your arse.
Players are what they are, and Odriozola and Hakimi would be exactly the same for Real.
Keeping Odriozola ahead of Hakimi is complete bollocks if you go by quality, but if you need a bench warmer who has no chance of replacing Carvajal anyway, makes more sense to cash in on Hakimi, as that's the exact role Odriozola carved out for himself at Bayern. Someone to make up the numbers while we're pursuing our targets.

Oh and seeing as Zidane's tactical vision for a right back is to drill in aimless crosses from half-field, it's possible that this is the one thing at which Odriozola is actually better

It's a bit an odd argument given that Hakimi's defensive attributes obviously were problematic for Favre when picking a selection and formation, so it was obviously an issue also at Dortmund, and it's not like BVB were this defensive fortress against BuLi teams big and small

also if anything Bundesliga's too obsessed with pressure on the ball, the notion that La Liga or PL players have less time on the ball is a straight myth

LOL at Hans, the ultimate troll anti Madrid! He simply can't except the fact That R. Madrid uses the Bundesliga as a development league for its players. A step above segunda in Spain.

So are Real Madrid selling Hakimi to balance books?

Seems strange. Cause Nacho and Odriozola aren't good enough.

Selling a player who is comfortable at left and right back.

Next they'll sell Varane and Asensio

We are selling Hakimi because he dared to say that he does not want to come back and "fight it out" with Carvajal. It's this shocking new thing with millenials, they want to play as much as possible. The unmitigated gall of those kids... It's crazy right? Go figure.

Since Hakimi sullied the club badge with unreasonable requests, we are unceremoniously kicking him out of Madrid. Well served, such a clown. Have you seen his ball retention stats? Terrible, I say terrible!

And yes of course we are also selling Varane, Benzema, etc... I heard Real Madrid are planning to stop football activities and will start a beach football club. In fact the Bernabeu will be demolished and they will build an artificial Beach in the middle of Madrid with our new beach club arena.

Can't wait to grace the new beach Bernabeu with my shorts and flip flop sipping syrup

Nick, i hope your tongue is stuck in your cheek.

It's official, with Hakimi we make 40 million and avoid paying the salary demands of a player who apparently didn't mutually fit with what we're looking for. It would be unbelievable if James were to stay (in a recent interview with Rio Ferdinand he makes it pretty clear he stayed this season at Madrid against his will) and if we really want to help ourselves economically then we need to do something about Bale.

It will be interesting to see how Ceballos finishes his season at Arsenal. I was able to watch the first half of Arsenal vs Norwich yesterday and finally, Ceballos plays a match the way that was expected of him when he was hyped up and first came here. From a relatively deep CM position, he played the best 45 minutes i've ever seen from him. If he's equally impressive against Wolves, Tottenham, Liverpool, and City, then i'd loan him out for one more year.

MTO, I hope Ceballos makes it as a good player, but he won't end up at Madrid no matter how he finishes the season. He is looking for a club that will play him in a role that he is comfortable with as he wants to be on both seleccion for Euros next summer and Olympics. And seleccion is were he has consistently played well as their style of play is what he plays well and is comfortable with. The clubs showing interest, not surprisingly are in la liga, both Betis and Valencia. The question for the club is do they cash in now in a income starved year with a sale or do they wait and agree to another loan deal.