Why a Quiet Transfer Window May Not Affect Real Madrid

Real Madrid are one of the most famous clubs when it comes to signing the biggest players almost every window, buying top players at top prices especially since Florentino Perez took the club by storm.

Perez is an infamous name when it comes to Real Madrid and is one of the main reasons why Real haven’t lacked a star name in their side since he joined.

The first time he won the elections for president, the main agenda of buying Luis Figo from Barcelona was the key to his win and that turned into a whole revolution, as Los Blancos ended up signing Zidane, Beckham, Ronaldo Nazario etc. as the first age of Galacticos begun. Perez was relected again back in 2009 as a major revamp took place with Madrid first splashing out 65 million for Ricardo Kaka as the Brazilian broke the record for the most expensive transfer, which did not last long as Cristiano Ronaldo came in the same window for a whopping 85 million as the club signed the two best players in the world at that time.

Later on, Real again tried breaking the transfer record with the signing of Bale but that’s still a debatable topic. James Rodriguez came for a whopping 60 million the very next window as Angel di Maria left the club for Manchester United. Real became synonymous with buying the best players in the world. So what caused Florentino Perez to go quiet this year? Why didn’t Real Madrid go after big players? Why did they stop pursuing Pogba?

Real had a very quiet transfer window this year as they surprisingly only bought just one player, that too Alvaro Morata on a buy-back clause and other than that, Fabio Coentrao came back from his injury plagued spell at Monaco and Marco Asensio after his impressive spell at Espanyol. Real were still able to retain a majority of their squad as only Jese Rodriguez left the club as surprisingly both Rodriguez and Isco pledged their future to Real even after spending most of their time on the bench for majority of the last year. The transfer ban is still looming over the capital club and despite that, Real didn’t go for any player. This has surprised many fans and pundits did criticize Zidane for the same but the truth is, Real have played really smart this transfer window.

Real Madrid never needed to sign many players given the squad they had last year and they did the same as Perez handed Zidane the responsibility of signing players. Real actually have a really solid bench which is actually better than a lot of team’s starting lineup. When you see players like Isco, James, Morata etc. on your bench, who needs big signings? As Zidane was quoted saying in an interview: “It is really hard to improve this squad” and that’s actually pretty true.

The depth Real have in their squad cannot even be matched by Barcelona, despite the Catalans spending over 100 million this summer. The only requirement was of signing a defensive midfielder to cover for Casemiro which may cause a problem for Real if at all the midfielder gets injured, but then a few tactical changes can cover up for that easily. In the absence of Casemiro, Zidane will shift to a 4-4-2 formation with Toni Kroos as a deep lying playmaker rather than a defensive midfielder, just like Ancelloti did in his 4th clasico. Real Madrid have been quiet, yes, but they wrapped up all they required from the window very early on and played it smart, which they didn’t do last time and ended up losing their winning combination. Zidane has been very smart and shrewd with his transfers as he covered up for the voids with the perfect players. The team has a perfect blend of everything and the squad looks really solid. Given the depth of the team, Real should be aiming for a treble.