Real Madrid are not waiting for Deadline Day arrivals, but they are still shaping the story of the window as it closes, with \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa at the heart of it.<\/p>\n
\u00c1ngel is set to join Gonzalo Garc\u00eda and C\u00e9sar Palacios at Fulham, where the three Castilla graduates have chosen to continue their careers under Arbeloa in west London. Their decision came after it became clear that Jos\u00e9 Mourinho did not view them as part of his immediate plans in Madrid.<\/p>\n
From a financial standpoint, the sales make sense. Real Madrid are expected to receive around $4.6 million (\u20ac4 million) for \u00c1ngel, while the departures of Gonzalo and Palacios bring in a further $58 million (\u20ac50 million). In total, the club have collected nearly $63 million (\u20ac54 million) from the trio, adding yet more profit to a record summer of outgoing sales.<\/p>\n
Yet the footballing question remains. For a side still in need of midfield solutions, moving on two promising academy midfielders can look short-sighted. Palacios made seven first-team appearances last season, as well as 32 for Castilla, and finished with 15 goals. \u00c1ngel also earned seven senior outings in 2025-26, both players receiving their debuts from Arbeloa.<\/p>\n
Those minutes were encouraging, and Palacios has already started Fulham\u2019s first two Premier League matches of the season. Both players had the kind of profiles that could, in time, have mirrored the rise of another Castilla graduate such as Federico Valverde. But that progression was never realistic this season, even after the failure to sign Rodri.<\/p>\n
Mourinho already has Valverde, Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni, Eduardo Camavinga, Bernardo Silva and Arda G\u00fcler available, while Thiago Pitarch has also emerged after earning a place in the squad last season. The later arrival of 19-year-old Sergio Mart\u00ednez from Racing Santander further underlined how little space there was for \u00c1ngel and Palacios.<\/p>\n
Gonzalo is the one departure that could linger longest in Madrid. He scored four goals at the Club World Cup and added eight more last season, despite erratic minutes. He even forced Endrick out on loan to Lyon at one stage by holding the role as Kylian Mbapp\u00e9\u2019s backup, before the Brazilian\u2019s return changed the picture.<\/p>\n
Fulham have already seen why he was rated so highly, with Gonzalo scoring on his debut against Chelsea and again in the 3-0 Carabao Cup win over Wimbledon. He is, after all, a natural No. 9. Whether Real Madrid regret the sale may depend on how far he goes in England, but the price on offer was clearly difficult to refuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Real Madrid sold three academy talents to Fulham, but Gonzalo Garcia could yet make them regret it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[713,987],"tags":[1066,180,182],"class_list":["post-18919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fulham","category-real-madrid","tag-carabao-cup","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18919","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=18919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}