Florentino Perez’s plans for Real Madrid frontline when Kylian Mbappe arrives

Real Madrid are no doubt already making plans for Kylian Mbappe’s arrival, and while Carlo Ancelotti will no doubt be waiting until the end of the season before he focuses on where to accommodate the Frenchman, President Florentino Perez already has a few ideas in mind.

There had been a series of reports over the past year that Los Blancos might consider selling one of Vinicius Junior, or more recently Rodrygo Goes, in order to free up space in the starting XI for Mbappe. Matteo Moretto confirmed to Football España that there were no plans in place to do so.

Relevo have back this up, claiming that only an extortionate offer could see Real Madrid part with one of their younger talents, which includes Eduardo Camavinga, Aurelien Tchouameni, Eder Militao, and Fede Valverde.

Equally, it looks as if it might be one of the midfielders that suffers most from the arrival of Mbappe. Rather than Rodrygo dropping out of the line-up, it could be further back that the Frenchman’s arrival has consequences. ‘We’ll play with five forwards then like we did with di Stefano’ Perez has joked, although how much of it was humour is up for debate.

The Real Madrid president has intimated that the two line-ups he would prefer to see would be a 4-2-3-1, with Bellingham behind a front three of Vinicius, Mbappe and Rodrygo, or a 4-3-3, with Bellingham further back and the same front three. It would mean Ancelotti would have to choose just two of Fede Valverde, Toni Kroos, Aurelien Tchouameni and Eduardo Camavinga.

One of the Italian’s greatest assets is his ability to manage up, and he will either have to find a way of accommodating all of those pieces into a balanced line-up, or persuading Perez that they are more likely to win things with Camavinga, Kroos or Tchouameni in the side than Rodrygo in all likelihood.