What is Jose Mourinho cooking?

Following a meltdown of a campaign that featured a literal fistfight and the sacking of two managers, Real Madrid have turned to Jose Mourinho to save them. Why they’ve brought in a hardass, defensive-minded manager to turn around a squad with Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr. I will never understand, but we’re here now, and a squad rebuild appears to be underway.

Adding some fitness and steel at the central midfield and fullback positions appears to be the first order of business. Spanish outlets are reporting that Enzo Fernandez has “agreed to terms” with Real Madrid, but that was always the easy part. The hard part is getting Chelsea to sell. They’re probably motivated by their financial problems, but I assume the Blues are still demanding upwards of £120m, and it’s been a long time since Real Madrid paid a fee like that.

The top brass at Real Madrid are also huge admirers of Declan Rice and reportedly pushing Florentino Perez to go huge to land the Arsenal star, though I’d give that a roughly 0% chance of happening this summer at any price point. Perhaps they’re just trying to plant a seed for later.

Things appear to be a bit farther along at fullback, and there’s no ambiguity about the profile Mourinho’s had his employers go for: Ground coverers.

While, once again, working out a fee with Chelsea is easier said than done, we have some higher quality reporting on Madrid pursuing Marc Cucurella. While he is a useful player, you will notice a distinct lack of dribbling and passing stuff here.

Even more extreme is the profile of Denzel Dumfries, who’s joining from Inter Milan. The 30-year-old has a €20m release clause, so this one was a bit easier to do. Dumfries is a very strange up-and-down, box crashing fullback who does not really do any traditional Fullback Stuff.

None of this sounds great for the future of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who does not appear to fit the profile of fullback or midfielder that Mourinho is looking for in his team. We appear to be ushering in a completely different era of Real Madrid.

But we also don’t have any rumours circulating yet about potential sales for Vini or Mbappe, and their inability to fit together in a cohesive tactic has kind of been The Whole Problem at Madrid the last two years. This should theoretically be a bigger problem under Mourinho. Perhaps he can put 8 guys who just run a lot around them and let those two do their thing, but I am skeptical.

More transfer rumours

• Bayern Munich are also trying to aggressively overhaul the squad without changing any of the attacking stars. Eli Junior Kroupi is being lined up as a multi-position attacking backup, though he’d probably cost £80m to get out of Bournemouth. Germany U-21 fullback Nathaniel Brown sounds like a more traditional Bayern signing, though they’re fighting off interest from Arsenal as well. And attacking midfielder Ismael Saibari from PSV looks like an interesting signing. Their players regularly have crazy inflated numbers, but consider me intrigued by this profile.

• Man United’s move for Ederson appears to be getting closer, with the Red Devils agreeing a fee with Atalanta. They’re also reportedly interested in Juventus RB/CB Pierre Kalulu, and I’d be interested to learn which position they see him fitting into. He’s played much more CB, but is a tad undersized and does not have a good aerial wins record.

• United are also in a weird position with Marcus Rashford where they don’t really want to sell him to a direct rival, but Barca are understandably lowballing after signing Anthony Gordon. The likes of Tottenham and Newcastle are likely to offer a much bigger fee, and I don’t think Barca are going to pay up.

• Speaking of Juventus fullbacks, they could also sell Andrea Cambiaso to Chelsea. It sounds like Juve are really unhappy with their squad and pretty happy to sell off anyone who has good value or makes a big wage.

• Aston Villa are in negotiations with Galatasaray midfielder Gabriel Sara, and while the stats of Gala players are always going to look inflated, we appear to have a bonafide passy boy.

• Liverpool are apparently interested in Mateus Fernandes, who would add some all-around depth to their midfield, but I’m not sure he’d improve them. Good squad player, don’t get what he does that they don’t already have.

• Brighton have recently been favorites to sign talented winger Zadok Yohanna, and “reached a verbal agreement,” but it’s Newcastle who have actually made a formal bid first. He’s a very zoomy, very dribbly boy who I’m excited to see in the Premier League.

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