Alphonse Areola may now be settled at West Ham United with a contract until 2027, plus an option for a further year, but there was a time when his career seemed a little all over the place.
From 2013 he had loans from PSG to Lens, Bastia, Villarreal, Real Madrid, Fulham and West Ham, before moving to the latter on a permanent deal in 2022.
Before his loan move to Real Madrid, Areola thought he was ready to battle to be PSG’s long term first choice. He thought that was the way forward after gaining experience elsewhere, but according to the player’s wife, Marrion, the French club mislead him and that ended up in another loan.
Le Parisien quote her as saying: “I have a very bad memory and it’s when Alphonse signed for Real Madrid. We were super happy, but it was the way everything was done that was very complicated to manage. I remember we were having dinner with friends and Alphonse received a phone call from Raiola, his agent told him: ‘Go to Madrid’.
“PSG had just signed Keylor Navas and we found out when there were 48 hours left until the transfer window closed. That didn’t really leave us time to look for another team.”
PSG taking Navas left Madrid short, and the idea was Areola would fill that hole. It wasn’t the actual move to Los Blancos which was a problem for the goalkeeper, but how he’d been kept in the dark.
Marrio continued: “For a month and a half, Alphonse had the feeling that PSG were looking for another goalkeeper. That’s why he went to see Leonardo and Tuchel to ask if they were really counting on him and they said not to worry. Alphonse, innocently, believed it. He never spoke about it but I think he’s still hurt today. We spent that night weighing up the pros and cons, but who would have said no to Real Madrid? In the morning Zidane called him and the truth is that his face lit up. Real Madrid saved him, because he was really in a bad way.”
Maybe, given how settled Areola is at West Ham these days, it’s a good job those Thomas Tuchel and Hammers rumours came to nothing this summer.
