Marco Asensio has opened the door to a possible Real Madrid exit this summer following a report that Manchester United had been offered a transfer by the player’s agent Jorge Mendes.
Los Blancos defeated Liverpool in the Champions League final on Saturday night to cap a memorable season for Carlo Ancelotti's side. The success came within a month of Real Madrid securing their 35th La Liga title with four rounds of action remaining as they cantered to the success.
However, the clearout at Real Madrid has already begun this summer as they look to majorly slim down their squad. Gareth Bale is leaving the Spanish and European champions upon the expiration of his contract, bringing an end to his nine-year stay in the Spanish capital. Real Madrid club captain Marcelo has said his goodbyes to the club after it was confirmed he was leaving this summer at the end of his contract. Isco has also left the club, while Eden Hazard and Luka Jovic are other forwards who may be moved on.
The situation of Asensio is less clear; he is now aged 26 and in what are theoretically the prime years of his career. Yet he started just half of the club’s 38 La Liga matches last season and just twice in the Champions League, while he did not feature at all in the final. Earlier this season, he admitted that he was less than happy with his lack of continuity at the club.
A report from La Sexta’s El Chiringuito TV show has now claimed that Asensio has been offered a summer transfer to Manchester United through his agent Mendes. That would theoretically see him link up with former Madrid teammates Raphael Varane and Cristiano Ronaldo, with whom he combined so devastatingly in Spain while he shares the same representative as the Portuguese ace.
Speaking to Diario AS on his future, Asensio said: “I have one more year in my contract yet here we are talking about me leaving Real Madrid. This is an important moment for me, I will not deny it. I am more mature and not only on the field, this is an important moment and I will have to make important decisions.
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“Me and my family know that I have to keep growing and moving forward. I want to achieve important things in football and they help me do that.”
Asked whether he wanted more game-time, the forward added: “Considering how this season went and what I experienced during my career, it’s true that I want more, I’m hungry for more and I would retire if it wasn’t like this, but I have many more challenges to achieve.
“I want to be the best player I can become and that’s why I keep working. I think this season it paid off even though I probably didn’t play many minutes. I want to play more and contribute more to the team.
“I know what our coach thinks. He’s happy about my season and he trusts me, this is something he told me himself. It’s true that I didn’t have the time to think and consider many things because of the Champions League final and the celebrations, but when these next two weeks with the national team end, we will talk about it all.
“This is something that my agent is taking care of. When the upcoming games with Spain are over, we will have to think about it. I want to keep growing and I want to achieve more things.”
Asensio joined Madrid in 2014 but spent his first two seasons at the club on loan spells at Mallorca and Espanyol, meaning that he was not a member of the first-team squad in Ancelotti’s first spell in the dugout.
Asensio was somewhat of a young prodigy at Madrid and he bagged double figures in his first two full seasons with the club between 2016 and 2018. He suffered a dip in form the following campaign before suffering a LCL knee ligament injury in summer 2019 - which ruled him out of action for a year.
