Julen Lopetegui’s tenure at Real Madrid is seen with much distaste. Real Madrid were trophyless in the 2018-19 season after winning the UEFA Champions League for a record 3 times in a row in the prior season. During his time, a lot of the big name players showed complacence and the squad suffered for it. The club lost several matches to the bottom half teams and arguably, because of that bad momentum, they won only 1 of their last five La Liga matches, finishing 3rd in the league. However, some good did come out Julen Lopetegui’s time. He experimented with man-management giving chances to a lot of young players like Odriozola, Vinicius Jr, Reguilon and Dani Ceballos. As a result, a lot of young players got exposure and proved that there’s a lot of potential on the Real Madrid bench. Recently 22-year-old Dani Ceballos was loaned out to Arsenal from Los Blancos and it seems a lot of good things could come out of it.
Dani Ceballos was brilliant in the 2018-19 season. Despite playing 23 games, a large chunk of which was as a substitute, he really made his presence felt. He proved to be a very vital midfielder, with a great sense of both attack and defense. His passing and dribbling were precise along with speed and stamina. Ceballos contributed to both attack and defence and often went in for the challenges to halt the opposition for gaining moment. He often fell back pretty far to defend while also advancing towards the centre of attack if the situation called for it. His contributions on both offense and defence were very high, making him a very solid and useful central midfielder.
In 23 La Liga games, he scored 3 goals. His passing was brilliant with an accuracy of 92.6 % in the league. The Spaniard averaged 1 Key pass per game and 1.4 tackles per game with Real Madrid at the La Liga. His U-21 stats were very impressive with 2 goals and 2 assists in 5 games, completing 3.8 dribbles per game.
Leaving Madrid (and why it’s a good thing):
Dani Ceballos was loaned out to Arsenal without an option to buy. This looks like a good move because it would give the 22-year-old a lot of exposure and he could bring that back with him on his return. If Ceballos proves to be a big hit in the PL, when he comes back to Madrid this move could potentially pay dividends for the club. A large part of this is the fact that the PL is a bit more aggression-based and the clubs have bigger stadiums and more intensive crowds there. It’s simply different at the Premier League over at England and therein lies the advantage.
As far as transfers go, it’s no secret that Real have spent a lot this summer. They are at the top with £272 million spent already on players like Hazard, Mendy, Rodrygo, Militao, Jovic and Kubo. With players like Modric, Casemiro, and Kroos not looking to leave the club, it was going to be obvious that a budding player like Ceballos would be benched out a lot. Instead in Arsenal, he would simply get to play more and develop more as a player. Then after the loan, he could be re-integrated back into the Real squad, because they will eventually have to sell a lot of players. That’s where Ceballos would fit in.
Factoring in with the Gunners:
Ceballos has been known to play multiple positions. He can play standard Central Midfield, attacking midfield and is even know to veer to the left midfield and even the wing when the play gets more attack-heavy. He also falls back to defend and try to sweep players and thwart opposing momentum as much as possible. Out of the top 10 teams, only two teams got scored against more times than Arsenal (MUN, WHU) and these defensive capabilities would really come in handy over at North-London. Because of his great passing, you could easily see him playing some through-balls to the footballers up front like Lacazette and Aubameyang and even Gabriel Martinelli(new signing). He could fall back and provide assistance to players like Koscielny or Sokratis. He could link up with Kolasinac when he plays the midfield or left midfield position and overwhelm the opposition from the left area. This would give Emery a lot of choices to tinker with and help Arsenal gain a UCL spot by the end of the season.
All in all, Ceballos’ move looks like a great move for all parties involved. Arsenal get to have a great rising player bolster their squad while they rally their forces for future seasons. Real Madrid could reap the benefits on his return and also currently, won’t have an excessive amount of players in need of playtime. Ceballos gets to have the exposure and possibly more playtime and he will get to use his playtime to improve his game. Simply a fantastic move on all important counts.
