06/02/2026
We have to get smarter…..
Arsene Wenger explained what just happened with Ibrahima Konate back in May 2025. Real Madrid are signing top players on free transfers regularly despite having the money to pay big fees.
They did it with Trent Alexander-Arnold and they've now done it again with Konate. If you think Konate is being totally honest about not knowing he would be leaving Liverpool, you've got another thing coming.
He was supposedly in talks with Liverpool for over a year and a half and couldn't find an agreement, but then days after announcing he's leaving, Madrid reach a verbal agreement with him. Sure.
Anyway, Wenger said this to beIN Sports in May 2025: “I believe that it [Trent transfer] shows the trend of transfers now, and it shows a new trend in the game.
“There is no transfer anymore for the big, big players. They go all at the end of their contract because the wages are so high that [if] you want to buy Marcel [Desailly] today you have to give him so much money that you cannot pay the transfer anymore.
“So what do the big clubs do? They say two years before the end of a contract we want to buy you, we give you these wages and we will try to make an offer to the club.
“If it doesn’t work, we come back next year and if it doesn’t work then, we will take you for free. That is what they [Real Madrid ] did with [Kylian] Mbappe as well.”
[Michael Mongie on X]
