Real Madrid have no space in their squad list anymore. They have signed four players in the summer, and have every kit number full. The only one that isn't taken is 25, which will be taken by Franco Mastantuono soon.
Real Madrid have been trying to focus on sales, but they have just been hard to come by. For academy players, it has been easy to find suitors, but Real Madrid have had it difficult to sell some first-team players.
They would ideally want Dani Ceballos to leave, along with two liabilities in Ferland Mendy and David Alaba. According to a report from MARCA, Saudi clubs are interested in two of these three players.
Real Madrid want to sell these two players, but there is a catch
Ceballos has been linked with a return to Real Betis in the last few months, whereas David Alaba is on the last year of his contract, and is showing no signs of leaving the club.
If Real Madrid were to get rid of the salary that Alaba takes, it would probably have to be a move to Saudi Arabia that finances it.
The catch, however, is that Alaba strictly wants to stay at Real Madrid, and Ceballos still would only consider a return to Betis.
This has put Real Madrid in a conundrum. They clearly want to sell a few players, but they are just not able to, and that does hurt when you have a squad to plan.
Ceballos will at least provide a bit of quality to the team. He can still be a back-up option for when the team needs some sort of ball retention and press resistance. Ceballos is also a good presser, which would help.
Alaba, on the other hand, is very injury-ridden and his best days seem to be well behind him.
Ideally, all three of these players would leave, but in reality, the answer is closer to zero than to three.