Real Madrid: Understanding the rationale behind summer transfer moves

Fan sentiment is not wholly positive regarding Real Madrid at the moment.

Real Madrid fans are upset that a revolution for the squad did not happen, which everyone assumed was on the cards with the return of Zidane and his promise for change – not to mention the worst season of the Perez era. In my view there are many reasons that have compelled the club to take the approach that they have which I’ll discuss one by one in this article.

How do you define the measures for a player’s decline?

The first element has to do with the falling off the cliff metaphor. Real Madrid fell off a cliff form-wise last season, and the assumption was that most of the players needed to change as they’d all gone past their proverbial expiry date.

In reality this is incorrect and something that the club has been looking at while making their decisions. There does come a point for most athletes where their decline starts, but it takes time for them to reach a point where they’re no longer good enough to be useful to their teams.

Take Cristiano Ronaldo, for example. His second decline (after his conversion from winger to goal-scorer) started after the 2016/17 season. That season was his second peak; he scored important goals in La Liga and the Champions League with consistency and was at center stage to spearhead our best season in decades.

However, in 17/18 he wasn’t able to turn up as regularly in La Liga and our league form fell away completely. He did do well in the Champions League, but not across the whole competition in all/most matches. In fact, were it not for Gareth Bale’s heroics in the final, it’s wholly possible we would have lost that match.

This trend has continued for Ronaldo since; he turned up huge in one match for the World Cup but was not able to do it in more matches. The same for Juventus in the Champions League last season with a memorable performance against Atletico being the lone significant highlight. There is decline there, but clearly he has not yet fallen off the cliff of not being useful anymore.

Now let’s take this back to Madrid.

Can we realistically argue for most of our players that they’re off the cliff? There clearly is decline, but the assessment Zidane and the leadership have performed is on the degree of it.

There are also arguments to be made for some that they have not actually declined but like the team, just had a bad season (or two). That thinking changes the narrative away from revolution to evolution depending on how you start to assess each player and their stage of decline. The second factor that comes in is age: decline is often never assessed in isolation to looking at a players age. The idea is a younger body has the capability of recovering athleticism and hence form compared to an older one. This is where things actually then start to make sense regarding the thinking at Real Madrid this summer.

Let’s have a look ourselves at the formula then for our players: stage of decline = a correlation of age + form.

Measuring the decline of Madrid’s oldest guards

The most obvious candidates who should be in the most decline become Sergio Ramos and Luka Modric. It would be hard to argue that neither provides any usefulness to the team – big game players who still do have good games. Ramos was a colossus versus Valladolid. Modric was great vs. Celta. However, the club took measures to secure the team by changing systems hence relegating Modric to the bench and bringing in Eder Militao as an insurance policy on Ramos in case he cannot play a full season near his best.

The only other option to secure Ramos’ role would have been to invest bigger money into a player more ready for the “here and now”, but everyone agrees defenders age slower than outfield players form-wise.

You can also argue that there are only a handful of defenders better than even a declined Ramos – why would you go through so much hassle for a mature player just to come in and ‘possibly’ rotate with Ramos? How would you even convince them to make that career choice? The club made a balanced decision with a very high potential player who should be able to come in competently for the captain and take over soon in the mid-term.

Karim Benzema and Marcelo follow these two and at 31 years old are not “in the red” age-wise, considering modern fitness methods. Benzema is coming off a high scoring season and cannot logically be accused of being off the cliff. Marcelo does pose that problem, and that is why Ferland Mendy was signed. Mendy is in a stage of his development where he can slot in without too much fuss.

For good measure, Luka Jovic was signed to give relief to Benzema as well and start to have an option for the future. Pertinently though Jovic is not just one for the future, and his scoring numbers inspire confidence that he has been brought to be an option for the present as well. That’s two players able to help the present brought in to support these two.

The next layer comes with Toni Kroos. The midfielder has shown decline, but at 29 years old the age factor really plays in support for him. Hardly any logical fitness guru or coach would be able to say beyond doubt that a player whose 29 years old, proven to be elite, has fallen off a cliff due to one bad season. Hence the thinking around Kroos becomes subjective, and unless you can find a player of comparable quality in the market, there would be no sense in the club binning him. Once you start to think about it, Paul Pogba aside, who could have been a realistic transfer target for Real Madrid to transition Kroos out?

If you can’t find a more mature player then you go younger – and Real did that by retaining and putting confidence in the excellent Fede Valverde. Not just that, but they also have the high potential Dani Ceballos on the books making another midfield signing illogical. Let’s also not forget we have Modric to come in and play those few good games he has left in him.

The club made an effort for Pogba, who really could have been an option, but he played it too nice and Manchester United were in no mood to negotiate. If a player is not pushing and letting their club sit on their contract what could Real Madrid do? Signing a player just to make a signing without enough evidence to support they are an upgrade or even equivalent to your starter is just a waste of money.

Measuring the decline of the younger in age old guards

The last layer includes Casemiro, Dani Carvajal, and Isco. Age wise you literally have no arguments as they’re all at the age of 27 which is when the vast majority of players hit their peak – not come out of it.

Casemiro has been excellent for Brazil over the summer and hence with recovered form, it was mostly a no-brainer when it came to assess him. People might have preferred Llorente, but you can understand why the coach and leadership would rather put their faith in a player who is about to become captain of the Brazil National team, is a leader of the dressing room at Madrid and has a LOT of experience winning trophies and big matches.

Carvajal was very recently the best right back in the world, and in theory his heart condition is not a reason for him to lose form. Regardless, we have a young player behind him at mid-age whom we invested good money in and it would once again be illogical to move on from Alvaro Odriozola so quickly. Especially when you can even take a chance on Carvajal getting back into form. The market for right backs is scant, and we have a lot of players on our books who promise a lot. All added up, you ask the question again, could we have improved on Carvajal realistically?

Isco is perhaps the most controversial, as there can be arguments made about him being a lost talent. A player whose been accused of not being consistent and not even having a defined role yet. There is definite merit to these arguments. However, Zidane has always rated Isco and had him play a very tactically and physically demanding role in our diamond midfield during his one consistent season.

The season after, Zidane switched to play from the wings and that eliminated the role that had been built for Isco. Julen Lopetegui came in and gave him yet another role in attack, while Santiago Solari just benched him outright. For a player whose had coaches change his role every season how can we accuse him of being inconsistent? The conditions were set for that to happen to him.

He now finds himself in the #10 role that he has always favored and the one that earned him his move to Madrid from Malaga. In preseason he was our best player in attack as well. Adding up his age, context of his career, preference of the coach you can see why he is still here. For good measure he’s actually being backed up by James Rodriguez who is really well favored by the fans and is a mature player – the club has a win-win here with no revolution needed.

What about the rest….?

The last bit of analysis remains on outliers. This is where Marco Asensio comes in who was rightly trusted to take on the right wing role but got injured. Bale is his replacement who refused to leave, thereby tying the club’s hands in any possible revolution they could bring on that side.

We also know that the dream for this is Kylian Mbappe, and hence signing a mature player for right wing wouldn’t make sense. Neymar’s signing would certainly have added quality to our team and a fear factor, but investing in him meant moving on from Mbappe. It also meant taking a risk on a player whose spent the last two seasons injured during the important phases. If you spent money on Neymar, he simply cannot flop. On the balance of things, his injury record was just too big a risk and was a signing that would have mortgaged our future.

Conclusion and outlook for the season

Adding all this up, I think it becomes clear why revolution was never on the cards. Once the players were assessed, you can see there are many arguments to support a conclusion that things can improve for most of them. Where there were risks signings have been made to mitigate those.

Where really high quality players were realistic to get, we got Hazard and tried for Pogba but failed. That only really leaves Neymar, whose decision could yet haunt us. But business decisions are made unemotionally, and considering the financial outlay, the opportunity cost of losing out on Mbappe, injury record, and the cherry on top that we would only be a compromise destination for him just made this move nonsensical.

As a fan, I understand the emotional response to wanting big change after a bad season. However, we must accept the reality that while we are the biggest brand in football we are no longer the richest when it comes to wages or fees. Those constraints make it impossible for us to behave like the Galactico club we used to in the past using sheer financial muscle to get what we wanted.

If we can’t use money to turn the tide prudence is the only option – and that is what was exercised by the coach and the leadership while coming up with our plan for the upcoming season. Does it pose risk? Of course, but we can know one thing and that is that end of the day Florentino Perez and Co. will perform to the best of their ability to do the best for the club they love. What they get wrong, they will correct next summer and beyond. For now, let’s let logic prevail and focus on supporting the team the best we can.

In the end, I welcome you to conduct your own analysis on each player and where you find you have arguments beyond doubt that they should have been replaced – look at the market and assess for yourself how you could have made an upgrade on our plan for the season. In my view you might find a different shade of grey to replace a player but would struggle to make an outright argument of a better option being out there considering their age, form, output, and financial outlay all together.