It’s becoming increasingly common for clubs to make an investment in a player, more in hope of selling them on at a profit rather than developing them into a first team option.
Chelsea were always seen as the best example of this for a while, players like Romelu Lukaku never got much of a chance to play but made the club some serious money.
The main way to ensure they develop and the price rises is to put them out on loan, so they can put themselves in the shop window and show everyone what they are capable of. It becomes a problem if they struggle to see any action during that loan spell.
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Real Madrid have started to catch on to this and have made some young signings lately that were immediately loaned out. A report from Diario via Football Espana has indicated that goalkeeper Andriy Lunin was the latest example, when they signed him for €7.5m only to send him out immediately.
It’s not really worked out for him. He only played four games last year at Leganes and hasn’t featured at all for Valladolid. As a result they claim that Real Madrid will be looking to recall Lunin and his teammate Javi Sanchez in January, with neither player seeing a minute of action yet.
While that seems a logical decision, there are some complications. The report indicates that Real don’t have the option to recall them, but their former striker Ronaldo is the owner of the club and it’s hoped that both sides will want to keep good relations going forward.
This means that Valladolid might decide to agree to Madrid’s request and let them return to the Bernabeu in order to have an agreement going forward for further loan signings.
This could be a huge few months in the case of the keeper Lunin. He needs to play regularly to help his development and Real will hope their investment in him wasn’t a waste, so it will be interesting to see if he’s loaned out somewhere else for the second half of the season.