LA LIGA SANTANDER
Real Madrid’s Asensio plan depends on Brahim and Hazard
Marco Asensio’s renewal for Los Blancos has been a hot topic of late and is linked to the outcome of other players.
Another of the players from the current Real Madrid squad whose future is up in the air, in addition to Toni Kroos, Dani Ceballos, Luka Modric and Nacho (Benzema, as we already reported, will remain until 2024 after winning the Ballon d’Or), is Marco Asensio.
The Spaniard ends his current contract on June 30 and there is still no news about its extension or otherwise, despite the fact that he is having a brilliant second half of the season. He has bagged ten goals and provided six assists in 1,494 minutes, which translates into him participating in a goal every 93 minutes this season. He is the team’s fifth top goalscorer, behind Benzema, Vinicius, Rodrygo and Valverde.
Marco Asensio: Real Madrid decision time
Last summer, Madrid waited for offers to arrive for the Spaniard when he only had a year left in white, but Asensio’s new agent at that time, the Portuguese Jorge Mendes, did not put forward any proposal to the club. Now the situation has changed, the Spaniard wants to stay and is waiting for a renewal offer that, for the moment, has not arrived.
And that offer may not arrive because Madrid are assessing what to do with Brahim. The man from Malaga, who ends his loan spell at Milan on June 30, will return to the Madrid squad and the club have him for the 2023-24 season. But both he and Asensio do not fit and it is foreseeable that the club will have to choose, in the case of two players with a very similar profile, wide attackers with the ability to play inside and who would start as substitutes to refresh the starters.
Hazard key
The only option Real Madrid has to fit both of them into the squad for the 2023-24 season is to fashion the release of Hazard, something that seems difficult at the moment. The Belgian, the highest paid player in the squad (30 million gross per season) and who is hardly playing under Carlo Ancelotti (just 331 minutes this season), recently made it clear that he has no intention of leaving Madrid, despite the limited involvement and the knowledge that he is behind Vinicius, Rodrygo, Valverde and Asensio in the pecking order.
In the summer, Madrid will explore the possibility of sending him to a team of his choice, accepting that the big money spent on the Belgian has been lost (his contract ends in June 2024). But Hazard’s “yes” is needed and, for the moment, he does not seem inclined to give it.