Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez has returned to Atl\u00e9tico Madrid training, rejoining group work on Sunday after missing three sessions earlier in the week as speculation over his future continued to intensify.<\/p>\n
The situation remains tense. \u00c1lvarez has made clear that he wants to move on to \u201cfulfil my dream,\u201d but Atl\u00e9tico\u2019s position has stayed firm: they do not want to sell to Bar\u00e7a. At the start of the summer, the club rejected a reported $115 million (\u20ac100 million) bid and also reported their La Liga rivals to the Spanish FA over improper conduct. Even so, Barcelona have kept pushing.<\/p>\n
Last week, Joan Laporta said he was \u201cvery interested\u201d in \u00c1lvarez, maintaining pressure ahead of Tuesday\u2019s transfer deadline. Atl\u00e9tico answered with a blunt statement that there was a \u201c0% chance\u201d of selling to Barcelona.<\/p>\n
The drawn-out dispute has also prompted concern over \u00c1lvarez\u2019s wellbeing. Atl\u00e9tico CEO Gil Mar\u00edn said the forward is \u201cgoing through a very, very difficult situation, both personally and professionally.\u201d The 26-year-old was absent from three training sessions last week with \u201cillness\u201d and was left out of the squad that travelled to Sevilla on Saturday, where Atl\u00e9tico won 3-1.<\/p>\n
AS reported that \u00c1lvarez returned to solo training on Friday evening before taking part in group work on Sunday. The club\u2019s coaching staff had arranged a weekend session for players who did not feature in Andalusia, along with some youth team players.<\/p>\n
Before the Sevilla match, Mateu Alemany said: \u201cThe plan is very clear. Juli\u00e1n had a few days where he wasn’t feeling well. Yesterday [Friday] he trained and we expect him to rejoin the team quickly and be available for the next league match.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve spoken with him and everything is fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diego Simeone offered similar reassurance, saying: \u201cWhen Juli\u00e1n returns to training, I will do everything possible to make him feel as important as Juli\u00e1n has always been at the club.\u201d<\/p>\n
With only two days left in the window, Atl\u00e9tico appear to be preparing for the prospect of \u00c1lvarez staying beyond Sept. 2. A Barcelona move now looks unlikely, unless the entire episode has been a bluff. If anything is to change before the deadline, it may require a major bid from Arsenal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c1lvarez is back in training as Atl\u00e9tico hold firm, Barcelona persist, and Arsenal linger before deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1035,1017,1397],"tags":[242,180,182],"class_list":["post-18846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-atletico-madrid","category-barcelona","category-transfer-news","tag-injury","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18846","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=18846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}