Arsenal remain active in their search for a young, versatile defender and have been linked with Real Madrid prospect V\u00edctor Valdepe\u00f1as, commonly known as Valde. Fabrizio Romano has confirmed club officials have spent \u201csome time\u201d keeping a close eye on Valde.<\/p>\n
Valde is a natural centre back who is comfortable on the left. He is yet to make his first-team debut for Real Madrid but was included as an unused substitute when Carlo Ancelotti called him up in March for a 2\u20131 win over Villarreal. He is regularly seen in first-team training while splitting most competitive minutes between Castilla and the C team.<\/p>\n
Madrid tied Valde to a new deal in October 2024 that runs until the summer of 2029, a development that could make any approach complicated. The club have a pattern of entertaining offers for emerging talents with the condition that a buy-back clause is included. Smaller clubs often accept those terms but Arsenal are highly unlikely to agree to a buy-back.<\/p>\n
Compounding the situation are reported frustrations at Real Madrid over William Saliba. Los Blancos had been hoping for a cut-price route to the French defender, but his decision to sign a long-term contract forced Madrid to look elsewhere. Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 of Liverpool has been mentioned as another target for Madrid as they prepare for a possible defensive overhaul next summer amid doubts over the long-term futures of David Alaba, Antonio R\u00fcdiger and Ra\u00fal Asencio.<\/p>\n
Valde will be aiming to force his way into the first team, but he is one of several defensive prospects at Madrid. He faces internal competition from fellow 18-year-olds Joan Mart\u00ednez and Diego Aguado. Any potential move for Valde would therefore involve negotiating a contract situation and navigating Madrid\u2019s preference for clauses on emerging players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal track Real Madrid defender V\u00edctor Valdepe\u00f1as, but his contract and buy-back terms complicate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,987],"tags":[1078,1077,1100],"class_list":["post-3552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-real-madrid","tag-buy-back-clause","tag-contract-renewal","tag-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3552","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=3552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}