Real Madrid have issued a clear public denial after reports suggested they had held talks over Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez.<\/p>\n
The club went further than a simple refutation, saying there has been no direct or indirect effort to sign the Argentina international and that there is no intention to pursue him this summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn light of the reports and statements that have appeared in recent days regarding an alleged interest from Real Madrid CF in the player Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez, the club wishes to state that it has not made any effort, either direct or indirect, to sign the aforementioned player and, likewise, has no intention of undertaking such an operation,\u201d the club said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal Madrid wishes to express its utmost respect for Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez, a great footballer whose career and quality are widely known, as well as for Chelsea FC , a club with which it maintains an excellent institutional relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrecisely because of the respect that an entity like Chelsea FC deserves and because of the principles of institutional loyalty that have always governed the actions of Real Madrid, the club considers it necessary to categorically deny speculations that are unfounded and do not correspond to reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal Madrid regrets that, despite the clarity of the facts and the lack of any action on the part of the club, information continues to be disseminated that does not correspond to reality and that only contributes to generating confusion among fans and unnecessarily harming the entities and people involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement complicates Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s situation. He has not publicly damaged his relationship with Chelsea, but his obvious flirting and his failure to challenge his agent\u2019s public comments have created friction. A move to Madrid had been presented as the likely resolution, but that option now appears closed.<\/p>\n
If Los Blancos will not pursue Fern\u00e1ndez, \u201csomething else needs to happen.\u201d Options are limited. A reunion with Enzo Maresca at Manchester City is one of the few plausible alternatives, but City\u2019s recent record-breaking acquisition of Elliot Anderson suggests an expensive move for Fern\u00e1ndez is unlikely.<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s asking price is understood to stand at $160 million (\u00a3120 million), and he remains under contract with Chelsea for another six years. Chelsea have said they would be happy to keep him. Fern\u00e1ndez, Chelsea\u2019s vice-captain under Maresca, will also need to repair his relationship with supporters.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid still want a new tempo-setting midfielder, and Fern\u00e1ndez is one of several names under consideration. The club\u2019s categorical denial over Fern\u00e1ndez echoes an earlier denial about Bayern Munich winger Michael Olise, although that same level of public rejection was not applied to Olise, who is believed to remain high on the wish list of club president Florentino P\u00e9rez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Real Madrid deny any attempt to sign Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez, leaving Chelsea midfielder in limbo now unsure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,987],"tags":[1505,983],"class_list":["post-16179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-real-madrid","tag-accountability","tag-agents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}