Real Madrid honcho Florentino Perez has admitted his side need to ‘sell to buy’ if they want Monaco’s Kylian Mbappe.
The French teenager is regarded as the hottest prospect in world football after scoring 26 goals last season for the Ligue 1 champions.
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He’s been heavily linked to Arsenal and Real Madrid, as well as ourselves, but it seems that Real, who’ve won the Champions League in three of the past four seasons, may already be stocked full of forward talent.
“We are in a situation similar to that with [Paul] Pogba [who Real Madrid decided not to sign last summer], and last year we decided to sign no one because we won the Champions League,” Pérez told Goal.
“Real can only play 11, the group is 24 players. We love many players who have never come here . . . if Mbappé come this year, I do not know. We have to see if he has to play here right now, or if it’s better for him to continue to evolve his training in his club. If Zidane says yes, I will take action and I will also have to decide who is going to leave.”
In terms of attacking talent, Real are outrageously flush. They’ve Ronaldo, Bale, Isco, Benzema and the up and coming Asensio – not to mention Alvaro Morata and James Rodriguez who are still on the books at present.
Mbappe is rated at over £100m, and while Liverpool’s interest is definite, the Echo claim that we consider ourselves rank outsiders.
But if we don’t ask, we don’t get…
Why don’t we spend the £70m we were going to spend on van Dijk (and a little more) on Mbappe, and just keep Mamadou Sakho for the season as French company for the youngster! Perfect.