Old foe Jose Mourinho holds the key to Fulham's season
Alvaro Arbeloa's Real Madrid links mean little without the Special One's approval.
Tell any Fulham fan 30 years ago that we’d be involved in a managerial triangle with Real Madrid and Benfica, and they would’ve laughed in your face.
But involved we were, and now all three managers are settling into their new surroundings.
For Jose Mourinho, those surroundings are more familiar, as he returns to the club he managed between 2010 and 2013.
He’ll be busy planning for the new La Liga season, where he’ll be charged with bringing harmony back to the Real Madrid dressing room and getting his Galacticos singing from the same hymn sheet once more. You would think that would mean leaning more on the established elite than taking any gambles on the youngsters.
The brief Arbeloa experiment is over - and so question marks now hover over some of the players who emerged under the Spaniard. Will he bring them to Craven Cottage as part of his youth revolution?
Mourinho holds all the keys to these decisions.
Reports claim we’re targeting striker Gonzalo Garcia and right winger Franco Mastantuono. The pair would plug the two largest gaps in our squad, with Raul Jimenez and Harry Wilson departing this summer.
But Jose, understandably, wants to look at at his younger stars during Los Blancos’ preseason, which starts today.
With Real’s World Cup participants either still battling it out for the trophy, or enjoying a well-deserved break, it offers the chance to the Special One to watch this pair closely - as well as highly sought-after midfielder Thiago Pitarch.
Garcia is an interesting situation. Before Arbeloa was unveiled as Fulham boss, Madrid were reportedly open to offers for the 22 year old. But Mourinho blocked any moves for the striker upon his arrival at the Bernebau, wanting to assess him before deciding whether to dip into the market for a new forward.
For Garcia, he is going to struggle to dislodge Kyllian Mbappe up top, and with Endrick also lurking, a move away seems the most logical thing for his development. But his personal development is not the Madrid boss’s main priority.
Mastantuono only arrived at Madrid last summer in a £53m deal. He’s not an academy prospect, he’s an investment - hence why a loan is the only deal that’s been talked about.
Reports claim as many as 10 other clubs are interested in the Argentinian, and Madrid are said to prefer he plays for a club that is competing in European competitions to help his development, but this is where Arbeloa’s relationship can come into play. Can he convince his former boss that Craven Cottage is the best place to hone his craft?
The ace up Arbeloa’s sleeve here is the fact we can offer Mastantuono a starting berth should he be deemed worthy of it. That’s worth far more than 20 starts scattered across 60 possible fixtures in four competitions.
It’s a strange period for Fulham right now. Arbeloa’s through the door, but we’re yet to hear from him, save for his canned cookie-cutter quote in his announcement article (come on Fulham!). As far as we can tell, he’s not even set foot inside Motspur Park.
It’ll be great to hear more from him about his vision for the club, the importance of youth, and whether he plans on leveraging that Real Madrid relationship. I say Madrid relationship - but it really is his bond with his former coach that will be the one that makes or breaks any deals for next season.
On the face of it, ex-Chelsea boss Mourinho is an old enemy. But we know he has a soft spot for the Whites, after his son was in our academy. And that counts for something, as Jose is famously a man who leads with his heart as much as his head.
He could have a huge say in how our campaign turns out. It’s a funny old game.