Mourinho eyeing Van de Ven? Madness or masterplan?

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WagerWizard

Community Member
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Jan 4, 2025
Seen this one doing the rounds and, as usual, it feels a bit all over the place. Mourinho supposedly wants Micky van de Ven at Real Madrid, with Konaté and Dumfries already in the mix, and the fee being floated anywhere between €50m and €85m is a massive spread.

On paper it sounds like a very Mourinho move if he wants to load up the defence, but Van de Ven does not exactly scream old-school stop everything football. If the player is actually keen to leave then fair enough, but it still feels like one of those rumours that has a few too many moving parts to take seriously.

Either way, it is a proper weird one. Real, Mourinho, Van de Ven, and a price range that might as well be a guess — feels like everyone is just chucking names at the wall at this point.
 
The tactical fit is the biggest question for me. Van de Ven looks far more suited to a high line and recovery defending than a deep block, so if Mourinho is really building around him it feels a bit odd. Maybe the idea is simple pace insurance, but it still looks mismatched.
 
I do not think he is as overrated as some are making out. He has clear strengths, and a lot depends on the system around him.
 
I was in the pub last night and this exact sort of rumour came up because one lad swore blind he had seen it on his feed and the whole table just started laughing because it sounds like one of those transfer stories that gets bigger every hour, by the end of the night we were all convinced someone at the paper had just thrown darts at a board with names on it and somehow landed on Van de Ven, Konate and Dumfries all in one go, proper madness really because if you told me a year ago Mourinho would be linked with that sort of back line I would have said you were having me on and yet here we are with people arguing about his asking price like it is a normal thing to do
 
Not gonna lie i keep reading this and thinking it has to be nonsense because the whole thing feels so random like one minute it is Konate then Dumfries then Van de Ven and now people are acting like it is all lined up and ready to go, proper strange one
 
If the fee is really that wide, it tells you nobody has a proper handle on the valuation yet. The more interesting part is whether he actually suits the defensive ideas being attached to Mourinho, because that is where the whole story starts to wobble.
 
Mourinho collecting defenders like pokemon now lads next thing you know he wants a left back, a right back and a spare centre half just in case lol
 
A measured read on it is that Madrid are clearly trying to refresh the back line and if a player of Van de Ven's profile is available then of course people will talk, but the whole thing still feels exaggerated by the way these reports are framed, and then you look at the fee range and it becomes even messier because that kind of gap usually means nobody is actually close to a deal, which is why I find the whole story hard to take at face value, and honestly that is before you even get into the weird part where every transfer window turns into a game of who can link the same three clubs with the same four players and pretend it is insider knowledge, proper circus stuff really
 
nah i dont agree with all this he cant defend stuff, if youre watching him only for mistakes you can say that about half the league tbh and the pace alone gives you a platform most cbs dont have so this whole finished merchant chat is a bit much
 
I can see why people are sceptical, but pace at centre-back is valuable and that can cover a lot of problems. At the same time, if the reports about his level of interest are wrong, the whole discussion may be pointless anyway.
 
Van de Ven getting talked about like he is some sort of generational defender is exactly the sort of thing that winds me up because people see a bit of pace and suddenly he is worth all the money in the world, but the actual defending part matters and if you are asking that much for a centre back then he needs to be the whole package, not just the lad who looks rapid when chasing back after he has already been beaten, and I am sorry but all these rumours just feel like an excuse for Madrid to chase shiny names again while ignoring the obvious issues, and if Spurs actually think this is a good moment to sell then fair enough but I still do not see him as the answer to anything at that level
 
This feels like one of those links that gets bigger because people know the names involved rather than because the move makes sense, imo
 
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