What next in Julian Alvarez transfer saga as Real Madrid mocked and Arsenal surely priced out of move? | OneFootball

Julian Alvarez always looked like potentially being one of the biggest stories of this summer’s transfer window, and it’s already kicked off in a major way in the last 24 hours.

The Argentina international has been a top performer for Atletico Madrid, even if his La Liga goals tally from the season just gone were a little underwhelming.

There was always likely to be a lot of interest in Alvarez this summer, and so it’s proven as Real Madrid made the strange decision yesterday of announcing that they’d had a bid rejected for the player.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s been going on and what could happen next in this crazy Alvarez transfer saga…

Real Madrid reveal failed Julian Alvarez transfer bid

Having just won re-election as Real Madrid president, Florentino Perez seemingly followed through on his vow that he would be making a €150m bid for a ‘Galactico’ signing.

Perez sparked plenty of speculation when he made this claim about an unnamed transfer target, and this was yesterday confirmed as being Alvarez.

“Following the meeting of the board of directors held today, it has made an offer of 150 million euros to Club Atletico de Madrid for the federative rights of the player Julian Alvarez,” Real Madrid said in a statement on their official site.

“After reviewing and evaluating the offer, Club Atletico de Madrid has expressed its gratitude for the proposal, made within the framework of the good relations between both clubs, and has rejected it, referring to the player’s release clause.”

Atletico Madrid hit back

Needless to say, Atletico Madrid were not too happy with how their rivals behaved here, with this first X post below simply responding with laughing emojis…

They followed this up with two more posts, with the first one reading:

“Official statement with our clarifications regarding the official statement from our neighbors @realmadriden: 1. Your video of the Pope got cut off before he said he was also an Atleti fan. 2. You may have confused politeness with gratitude, but just to be clear: we don’t thank you for anything. 3. We are neither considering nor evaluating any offer for Julián. 4. How could we not get along, when you make us laugh even more than @FCBarcelona?”

They added in another post: “P.S. Taking advantage of the good relationship with your new president, let’s see if you stop “stealing” players from our Academy. Thanks a lot, @realmadriden!”

Could Arsenal or Barcelona still move for Julian Alvarez?

It will be interesting to see if other clubs still move for Alvarez, who has been linked with the likes of Arsenal and Barcelona.

It was recently suggested, however, that despite the Gunners’ interest, Alvarez himself was not interested in a move to London, according to Cadena SER.

In any case, if Atletico have turned down as much as €150m for the former Manchester City man, then it’s hard to see Arsenal being able to afford that.

AS previously reported on Barca looking more likely for Alvarez, but it seems Atletico are not happy with the Catalan giants either, so at this point it’s hard to see any kind of deal happening.

What are Real Madrid planning in the transfer market?

When Perez hinted at a Galactico signing, Alvarez is probably not the kind of player most fans or pundits had in mind.

Michael Olise would perhaps make more sense, and has been linked with the Spanish giants by the Telegraph and others in the last few days.

Still, if Real tried to sign Alvarez, perhaps the club will look at another major striker signing this summer, and that would surely raise questions about the future of other stars like Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior.

Mbappe could perhaps shift to the left-hand side to accommodate a new striker, but who knows how happy he’d be to do that? And if he did, it would mean taking Vinicius Junior’s place, which would also surely cause a whole heap of new speculation.

The Alvarez saga might not end up going any further than this, but it’s kicked off the summer transfer window in some style and its effects will be intriguing to follow from here.