Thursday morning saw the Manchester United striker situation take an unexpected turn, with a deluge of reports claiming the Red Devils had agreed a £75m fee with Everton for Romelu Lukaku.
Instantly, this meant that the interest in Real Madrid’s Alvaro Morata had ‘cooled down’, as the prospect of both coming to Old Trafford was never a realistic one.
This led to social media going into some kind of strange meltdown, with many conspiracy theories being drawn up involving Chelsea, smokescreens and bad jokes about first touches.
But what actually happened for Manchester United, who seemed adamant on signing Morata, to allegedly forget about him completely and go for the Belgian target man instead?
Well, Marca claim to have all the answers to that question, drawing out a timeline of the past 24 hours from Real Madrid’s point of view.
It starts off big, as, according to the Spanish newspaper, on Wednesday night, Alvaro Morata already saw himself as a Manchester United player.
A few hours later, however, negotiations between everyone involved became ‘complicated’ as Lukaku emerged as the new number nine at Old Trafford, despite José Mourinho’s fight to have Morata by his side next season.
Rewinding back to the beginning of the negotiations, Real Madrid’s stance was clear: “€100m for our striker”.
The La Liga club didn’t feel they needed to sell him, but talks saw the two clubs come closer to a compromise, with the Spanish giants happy to accept €80m + €10m in bonuses.
Manchester United, down their end, were allegedly happy with the €80m fee, but not with the bonus section of the demands, and talks continued.
After nearly 24 hours of continued talks, the difference between the two sides was just €5m, but Manchester United’s American board members decided to put Thursday morning as a deadline for the negotiations, which Madrid didn’t agree to.
This led the Premier League side to turn to plan B: Romelu Lukaku, even if José Mourinho didn’t particularly want him at Chelsea.
Marca say claims that a deal has been agreed for the Belgian aren’t true, and the Old Trafford door is still open for Morata.
In the player’s entourage, the mindset is to ‘keep fighting’ for an exit, as Morata doesn’t want to play second fiddle for another season at the Bernabéu.
However, if nothing is sorted by Monday, the player will have to wear a Real Madrid shirt, even if he knows the best thing for him is to be by Mourinho’s side at Manchester United.
Morata, who has been in ‘constant contact’ with the Portuguese manager, now has to wait and see if the Lukaku deal goes through, or if the cancelled talks regarding his future can be reopened in the coming days.
That’s where things stand over in Spain, and it’s just a waiting game for now.
Are the Lukaku claims there to put pressure on Real Madrid?
They don’t seem all that bothered about selling Morata, and Zidane wouldn’t mind having him next season either, which also applies for James Rodriguez.
