After James Rodriguez gave hints over the weekend that he’s considering a Real Madrid exit, the transfer rumours were predictably only hours away.
That’s fair enough, James hasn’t been getting the game time he wants at Real Madrid, and him admitting an exit is a possibility is a concrete enough reason to report on a potential transfer.
Happy in a free attacking role behind a striker, James can also play out wide. However, Mourinho has a wealth of options with Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard, Anthony Martial, Wayne Rooney, Marcus Rashford and even Memphis Depay.
It could easily be argued that James represents something different to several of those options, and that he’d be an upgrade, but it would be heavily loading that area of the pitch, even if Depay leaves in the winter window.
Sport say James has no shortage of offers and Mourinho is described as being insistent, but even if the claim of interest is true, this one would sound more like a summer transfer than winter one.
Being a Catalan newspaper, Sport will be thrilled to stir up the idea of unrest at Real Madrid. The Spanish club would want to recoup as much as possible of the €80m James cost them.
