No Winter Signings - Mijatovic

Real Madrid had a traumatic summer in the transfer market by their standards. They failed to sign any of their major targets, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, David Villa and Santi Cazorla, and they also lost their prized asset, Robinho.

But boosted by the cash from the sale of the Brazilian to Manchester City on the last day of the shopping window, Madrid were expected to open their cheque books come Christmas time for the January trade period and numerous names have even been linked with a move to the Spanish capital, including Lukas Podolski and more recently, Aaron Lennon.

The club’s sports director Predrag Mijatovic, however, has now revealed in an interview with RealMadrid TV that the reining La Liga champions will not be looking to bring in any new faces during the mid-season break.

“Real Madrid will not make any signings in the winter transfer market,” was his blunt reply when asked by the interviewer.

“We have a group of 24 players and at this stage, we do not have the intentions of recruiting any new players, although in football, you never know,” he explained further.

Mijatovic was then asked to access the club’s failed summer transfer activities, starting with David Villa.

“We made an offer for him, one which we considered sufficient, but his club Valencia made a counter-offer which made it impossible for us to negotiate. We were not about to go mad for him.

“As for Cazorla, I was specifically ordered by the president not to be forced to pay his buy-out clause because Real Madrid are great not just because of our achievements but also because of our control and authority.

“And for Cristiano Ronaldo, it was obvious that we wanted to sign him but Manchester United opposed strongly to his sale,” Mijatovic detailed.

Finally, the Montenegrin reiterated that there is no tension between the coach, Bernd Schuster and himself.

“My relation with Schuster is excellent. We are both top people in charge of our own duties and we speak daily about everything that’s on our agenda,” he assured.

KS Leong