Despite being linked with Chelsea and Arsenal respectively, reports in Spain claim Xabi Alonso and Iker Casillas are likely to remain at Real Madrid.
Xabi Alonso may or may not be staying at Real Madrid. For now, his future remains as much a mystery as practically every football rumour at this time of year…or any time of year for that matter.
Having been heavily linked with a move to Chelsea, the Spanish midfielder has more recently been tipped to sign a new contract at the Bernabeu, after a U-turn – or something not quite as dramatic but considerably less attention-grabbing – saw his apparent need for change replaced with the need for little more than a chat with the Real hierarchy.
Spanish newspaper El Confidencial has been at the forefront of the Alonso speculation. And today it reports that the Spanish midfielder’s potential renewal has little to do with money but plenty to do with harmony.
The report claims Alonso had grown tired of the factions that grew under previous manager Jose Mourinho – surely a reason in itself not to follow him to Stamford Bridge.
But the disharmony between certain players and the coaching staff is now a thing of the past. And the paper even goes so far as to say that Iker Casillas – a man tipped for a loan move to Arsenal and an escape from a club at which he swiftly blossomed and was just as quickly benched – could now be happy to remain given the recent birth of his child.
The paper concludes with the claim that the love Carlo Ancelotti, Florentino Perez and the Bernabeu faithful have shown towards Alonso has convinced him to remain; while the apparent tranquillity in the dressing room has rendered both his move – and possibly Casillas’s, too – all but impossible.
image: © cogocogo
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