Real Madrid: Is Raphael Varane expendable?
This is a hugely unpopular thought, but it’s a question that nonetheless needs to be posed: is Raphael Varane dispensable? Is Varane expendable and can Real Madrid do without the star center back?
I believe (almost) everybody is replaceable, at the end of the day – provided there is the shrewdness to pick the right replacement, the necessary funds, and that this replacement is ‘gettable’, which in the current market proves to be less and less the case.
One issue Varane has is injuries. Since the 2013-2014 season, various knocks and injuries have had him out of action for over four hundred days. 400. That’s a lot. To put it differently, it’s a sure bet that Varane will miss at least a handful of days through injury in any given season.
Ability-wise, on the other hand, there’s nothing to be said. Everybody knows who Varane is, what he’s made of, and what he can do. That said, this season, as with the vast majority of the squad, has been a subpar, disappointing one for him.
There’s no question, of course, that nobody would consider selling Varane out of the blue. Here you have a young amazing player, one who’s been here for a bunch of years, a player for the past, present, and future, and who, what’s more, is a recent World Cup winner.
Madrid wouldn’t sell him, and it would be a silly thing to do. No, it’s Varane himself who’s apparently weighing up – or more than that, per some report – an exit, in search of a ‘new challenge.’
Be that as it may, many think it’s just Varane pushing for a raise here, which, chances are, is actually what’s happening. But what if Varane did actually just want to leave and wasn’t after a raise at all?
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In that case, Real Madrid would be forced to sell him, as they’re not in the habit of holding on to players whose heart isn’t in it anymore. Where would he go? Media pundits have put forward PSG as the most likely destination, with Manchester United and Juventus in the wings.
The first thing that needs to be said is that Varane wouldn’t be going cheap. If Virgil Van Dijk – who admittedly, has been the defender of the season in most people’s view – was bought for about €80 million, and, perhaps shockingly, Lucas Hernandez went to Bayern Munich for a similar fee.
The four-time Champions League winner Raphael Varane would not only warrant a fee in the same region, but would have to be blown out of the water for him to leave.
With the prices floating around,€ 80 million for Varane would be an insult. A hundred should bring Perez to the table, and something between 120-150 million is perhaps more like the right price.
And that’s not being unreasonable in the slightest. Just evaluating Varane while being cognizant of the way the market works at the moment, i.e. a market where Chelsea pay €80 million for Kepa, something that doesn’t even raise a whole lot of eyebrows.
There would be a few viable replacements if Varane were to leave- De Ligt, Koulibaly, Skriniar, or maybe even Samuel Umtitifrom FC Barcelona who’s also rumored to be considering a departure from his current club.
None of those would come cheap, which is all the more reason to hold out for a correct offer, which of course Madrid will do. That’s the whole point of having a €500 million or so clause in place: so that you get to decide if, when, and how a certain player leaves.
As the two main destinations would reportedly be PSG or Manchester United, clubs that have two of the main transfer targets for Los Blancos in Kylian Mbappe and Paul Pogba respectively, the
question of a swap inevitably comes up. If PSG want Varane and Madrid want Mbappe, could the former be included in a potential deal?
Could he be involved in a straight swap for Pogba? They’re both possible and maybe even something that should be done.
Varane is Varane, but he’s not unexpendable. It’s not the injuries only, but when Sergio Ramos is missing he often seems to be struggling to lead the defense in his place. But leaving that aside as well, there’s another reason I think – provided he does want to leave – using him in a Mbappe or Pogba deal is an option that needs to be given serious thought: attack is the best defense and Madrid are painful to watch up front.
They’re no great shakes in defense either, but you can afford to concede three if you can score five. It goes without saying that having both a good defense and attack is ideal, but if you have to make a compromise, the choice, to me at least, is obvious.
Attack gets you wins, defense prevents defeats- and is more likely to get you draws. By and large, the latter doesn’t win games – it keeps games from being lost and the rest is primarily down to the midfield and the attack.
And Madrid can’t simply lose, they must win, and, even more, they have to win convincingly and spectacularly at least once in a while, to keep the people watching and fans showing up at the stadium.
Next. Hazard closer than ever to Madrid. dark
Going by the three things I said above, if the right choice was made as to his replacement (say, de Ligt) and there were the funds to get it done, and the replacement was accessible (and he is) – Varane, much as I’d rather he didn’t, would be free to go, even more so if sacrificed on the altar of a potent attack.