{"id":71683,"date":"2026-08-17T14:14:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/71683\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T14:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:14:28","slug":"emergency-plan-mourinho-turns-real-madrids-target-into-the-new-rodri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/71683\/","title":{"rendered":"Emergency plan: Mourinho turns Real Madrid’s target into the new Rodri!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jos\u00e9 Mourinho finds himself facing his biggest dilemma since day one: the search for the creative midfielder he has repeatedly requested but who has yet to arrive, forcing him to find the solution from within the squad.<\/p>\n

Rodri was the ideal option and appeared close to the Bernab\u00e9u, according to Spanish newspaper “Mundo Deportivo<\/a>“. Then the Madrid-born player rejected Real Madrid and chose Barcelona, leaving Mourinho without the piece he had craved to build his play.<\/p>\n

With the Rodri deal dead, the board told the Portuguese coach that no new signings would arrive without a departure first, insisting the team already boasts enough quality in midfield.<\/p>\n

Faced with that reality, Mourinho spent pre-season experimenting with a 4-2-3-1 built around two midfield anchors. One of those slots looks reserved for Tchouam\u00e9ni or Camavinga, after he tried Valverde as a defensive anchor against Schalke.<\/p>\n

The second position sits at the heart of the dilemma. Mourinho wants a player who can build attacks from the back.<\/p>\n

Arda G\u00fcler got a look, but Bernardo Silva, signed from Manchester City, stands out as the likeliest candidate. He proved in the friendlies he can link defence and attack and pitch in defensively too.<\/p>\n

Silva’s role was not limited to the anchor position. He also turned out as a right winger and a playmaker, and that flexibility makes him the closest fit for the job in the league opener against Espanyol, barring a surprise in the final days of the transfer market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jos\u00e9 Mourinho finds himself facing his biggest dilemma since day one: the search for the creative midfielder he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26176,1414,85,82,272,83,1102,265],"class_list":["post-71683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-b-silva","tag-j-mourinho","tag-laliga","tag-madrid","tag-manchester-city","tag-real-madrid","tag-rodri","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}