Rebuilding Madrid, One Pass at a Time - The Transfers, Rumors & Lies Thread

Maybe, I don't know. But it just seems extremely unlikely that in the whole world of football, there isn't a single player with that profile that can provide the added value to this team. It seems fairly lazy to me. PSG didn't get Vitinha in his prime (his midfield colleague was also a bullseye acquisition by PSG, by the way), nor did Barca find Pedri in the garbage bin. Not to mention Zubimendi was there begging for us to sign him. There are always options, but it seems it's a choice by the club not to make an effort.

In any case, that allegedly no one in the market fits that profile doesn't mean Jude will miraculously be able to do that job for us. I just don't see it. He does have a lot of other elite qualities though, which the team (as well as Jude!) should utilize significantly better going forward.

 

No I just mean there isn’t a player who can come in and control the tempo like Kroos and Modric did, imo that requires a good degree of trust and leadership as well as the actual ability to do so.

In terms of ability (but not willingness), for me
Jude can do that better than anyone else in the market. But yeah, I agree, there will be other good central mids who have qualities which will help us improve.

 

Jude has the ability, it doesn’t want to play deeper and be the one who can dictate play.

He’s gotten the taste of goals and getting forward and doesn’t want to do the dirty work.

 

That's very harsh. He's probably the hardest working person in midfield and I'm sure there are stats to back it up.

 

He has a ton on ground to cover defensively due to how high up he plays when we have possession. Burns a lot of energy defensively yet not as effective due to this.

 

In a true 4-3-3, the mf isn’t pressed so high up where they are in the advanced attack positions, which Jude is always in.

If we was more central and passing the ball he wouldn’t be so gassed to recover.

But if you play Jude deeper, Fede/Tchoumeni become redundant, and we can’t have that….

 

While Bellingham is forced to cover a lot of ground behind Junior because the Brazilian refuses to effectively trackback and cover (which is his job as a winger), that doesn't excuse the Englishman's poor passing. He's created 4 big chances all season (0 in CL) and has 1.2 key passes per game (all competitions)

I suspect that even Bellingham doesn't know his role on the pitch. He improvises. Very little output in the end but a lot of running and hustling..as a €130m "elite" midfielder that's not enough.

 

I love Jude, however I think the coach needs to pick a role for him and just let him focus on that.

He has the size, he can thread a pass, the only thing he lacks is the engine, however I feel he would be a very good CM.

There's no need for him to score anymore.

Someone mentioned Tonali earlier, I doubt we would see him here because of the gambling stuff but he is good.

 

Players > coach

 

Why do they necessarily have to "control the tempo like Kroos and Modric did"? You're setting some rather unrealistic expectations there. They only have to do it better than our current crop of midfielders, shouldn't be too hard to find such a player.
And no, I haven't seen anything from Jude that makes me think he's capable of doing it well.

 

The reality is Jude is not such a great creator with the ball.

 

Think he will end up in PL.

🚨 @FabrizioRomano: “€40-45M for Kees Smit will NOT be enough.

It will be BIGGER money.” pic.twitter.com/XlZ2EZflMg

— Madrid Xtra (@MadridXtra) February 9, 2026

 

You know what his salary at City or you just trolling?

 

Guehi nets €3.5m P/Y less than Alaba

 

Utterly disgusting from the management. Borderline sabotage to the teams Football ambitions

 

In the summer we're probably going to bring in someone like Schlotterbeck or even Romero.

 

I don’t even trust this management to make the right choices anymore so I won’t hold my breath.

 

€20m?

Alaba is the highest paid CB in the top 5 leagues IIRC and only VVD comes close. So we shouldn't be wagging fingers at other clubs..

It's not about Guehi or x or y..it's the club's farcical narrative regarding the winter transfer market..

 

Bonuses are included in the salary sum which I put. The transfer fee €20m, for e.g. is amortized over 5 years and is paid over a couple of years. Our financial state is fine (at least the official numbers).

It's hard to say what would have happened because we do not even acknowledge the existence of the January window. We didn't bother.

 

Partially because we defer reinforcements until they become an absolute critical need.

€50-55m for Carreras was money well spent imo and a reasonable price for today's market. Huijsen would have gone for much higher if to an EPL side.

We pay anything out of FOMO so I don't want to comment on what we paid for Endrick and Mastantuono..