Athletic Club Bilbao are preparing to say goodbye to Aymeric Laporte.
This week he’s been training normally, despite agreeing a move to Manchester City, but once the money is in Athletic’s account, he can leave for England.
City will be paying Laporte’s full €65m buyout clause because there’s no other way to get him, Athletic protect their players so much because it’s so hard to replace them. With a strict Basque recruitment policy, there’s a very restricted market to shop in.
That’s why it can often be a problem when a player like Mikel Merino goes elsewhere. Supposedly on his way to Bilbao in the summer, Newcastle United swooped in and got a deal done.
There wasn’t sour grapes at the time, although Marca suggested he moved to Newcastle for money, but now it’s looking even more of a mistake not to have tried harder.
Merino is flexible in his defensive position and the player is back ‘on the horizon’ for Athletic, report El Correo.
The local Basque newspaper say Athletic lost out to Newcastle due to ‘board of directors indecision’, and that it would now be difficult to justify spending a big fee on the 21 year old.
Still, Merino is one of a small number of options for Athletic right now.
