There seems to be more than a concerted press April fools joke in reports that Real Madrid are lining up a summer bid for Chelsea’s Didier Drogba.
Back page transfer tales both in Spain and England have suggested the Bernabeu money-men are weighing up a £15m purchase of the Ivorian hitman to appease relations with coach Jose Mourinho.
The Special One wasn’t particularly impressed when his side began the campaign with just two front-line strikers and those fears were realised before the turn of the year when Gonzalo Higuain was injured leaving los Blancos with just the previously erratic Karim Benzema to spearhead the attack.
Benzema has since been a revelation, scoring freely in la Liga and the Champions League but once Emmanuel Adebayor’s temporary stay comes to an end, Mourinho will be back in the hunt for another goal-getter to help pursue Barcelona.
That has meant a ‘who’s-who’ of forward names being linked with a move to the capital, but the suggestions are that Mourinho has illicitly requested his former warhorse Drogba. Not willing to upset the Portuguese tactician any further, Florentino Perez is expected to sanction the coup.
Perennially around this time - and especially during moribund international breaks - speculation surfaces about Mourinho’s happiness at whichever club he happens to be at, with whispers from various quarters suggesting he’ll be seeking a new post. The strike-rate of such rumours are debatable, yet four clubs in seven years and a host of potential and willing suitors means that a move elsewhere can never be categorically dismissed.
Privy to Mourinho’s meanderings have been his relations with club executives and again we are led to believe it is not all smiles and tea-cups between Mourinho, Florentino Perez and Jorge Valdano. The dynamic duo will be acutely aware that Mourinho’s demise from Chelsea was hastened when he was gifted a present he didn’t want - Andrei Shevchenko - and things went downhill from there.
Procuring Drogba wouldn’t be hard with the Londoners likely to reshape significantly this summer, but such a transfer does ask questions about Mourinho’s long term strategies at clubs.
Drogba has just turned 33 and is in arguably his worst season in a Blues shirt. After scoring almost 40 goals last term, injuries, loss of form and the arrival of Fernando Torres means the former Marseille man has scored just six times from open play this season and just twice since the turn of the year.
A change can be as good as a rest for a footballer but it is difficult to see - should it happen - how Drogba’s signature can be anything other than an impact solution for Real. Ricardo Carvalho was bought under similar pretense and Drogba could only provide a season or two’s top class service and would present no re-sale value.
The immediacy of improving Real’s side is paramount to Mourinho’s logics, but do such short-term signings reflect on his long-term visions to stay in Madrid?
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