Fabinho set for €20 million Atlético move?

Reports suggest some cover from Juanfran could be on the way

Posted by on June 4th, 2016 in Rumours -

Monaco's defender Fabinho

Monaco's defender Fabinho

Atlético Madrid could be set to bring in Monaco’s Fabinho as some much needed cover in the full-back position, according to transfer rumours coming out of Italy.

Fabinho has been linked with Napoli and both Manchester clubs in the last twelve months, after some solid performances in Ligue 1. The youngster has previously turned out for Rio Ave, and once for Real Madrid.

However it seems that Atlético could be the defender’s next destination, after a bid of €20 million was made by los Colchoneros, according to GianlucaDiMarzio.com

On his official site, Di Marzio’s team wrote that Atlético had doubled Napoli’s offer of €10 million for the 22-year-old, and are keen to open talks shortly with Monaco.

Atlético are well stocked in the centre of midfield, but have Jesús Gámez as the only experienced full-back as backup.

Guilherme Siqueira is currently six months into an 18 month loan deal with Valencia, whilst Atleti chose not to take up the option to sign Cristian Ansaldi permanently from Zenit after his plagued season with the club in 2014/15.

Whilst Lucas Hernández is also an option to slot in at left-back, Juanfran and Filipe Luís combined for 67 appearances between them for Atlético in the league last season, and 22 out of a possible 26 appearances in the Champions League.

A youngster himself with plenty of energy, the lanky Fabinho possesses great pace, and the ability to get forward to put crosses into dangerous positions. Sounds like he would fit right in to the current style.

This could potentially be another promising youngster to add to the best defence in Europe, joining José Giménez and Lucas Hernández as ones for Atleti’s future.

Atlético last dealt with Monaco last summer to tremendous success, bringing in Yannick Ferreira Carrasco. Let’s hope for more of the same!


  • Koke

    A step in the right direction. Filipe and Juanfran are (in my unbiased opinion) the best left and right back respectively in the world right now, but they are both getting older and we have no obvious replacements lined up. Unlike literally every other position on the field, we don’t have loads of young talent. In my fantasy dream world, I would love to sign David Alaba for left back and Hector Bellerin for right back, but I’m not sure they would be willing to come to Atleti. Other great options in my opinion would be Ricardo Rodriguez or Jordan Amavi for the left and Joao Cancelo or our own Javi Manquillo for the right. Or who knows? Maybe we can even get someone to pull a Juanfran and convert a talented, hardworking winger into a full back again. As for Lucas, I think his future lies in the heart of defense, not at left back.

  • Karlp

    To anyone that has watched Manquillo (because I haven’t, only seen his Youtube clip), how good is his prospect? Is it better to loan him for 1 more year or not?

    I mean he just turned 22. I say we spare 1 place for him (LB/RB) for next year as he played regularly as LB this year.

  • Ahmad Hossainy

    I also wanted to talk about Manquillo, shouldn’t we discuss him before discussing any possible new signing and the back right ?!
    Reports from Spain are claiming that Simeone is not counting on him for next season, but same reports are also claiming that he has offers from Juve and Roma among others, and he did play for Liverpool and OM, so is he good enough to play for those clubs but not for us ?! or is it like Oliver’s case : “not a Simeone player” ?!
    I mean isn’t he even as good as Lucas ?!

    I watched only one game for him in Ligue 1 this season and a couple of games in Europa League, I can’t make a fair judgment, but he wasn’t that bad in those games, despite the horrible season OM had .

    Did anybody watch him enough this season ?! maybe someone from France .
    Billy used to follow our loanees -especially our canteranos- closely, I don’t know if he still did that this season .

  • Ahmad Hossainy

    I also wanted to talk about Bellerin, but unlike @Koke, I don’t think it’s a fantasy, yeah, maybe Alaba, we are not a club that can sign a key player from a club like Bayern, but signing Bellerin is possible, difficult, but possible, we compete for and win win big trophies, Arsenal don’t, and we can at least match his salary at Arsenal, we all know that Arsenal don’t pay as much as Man Utd, Chelsea & Man City. and those are the two main reasons that pushed their big names to leave in the last few years . And he is Spanish .

    According to many sources : Bellerin’s salary is 15K £ per week, i.e : 750K £ per season, or 958K € per season, and they are ready to pump it to 45K £ per week, 2.25M £ per season or 2.87M €, if this is true then it would be very stupid not to try to sign him .

    As I said in a previous comment : we need to have ambition .
    We must change some things in our mentality, in some aspects, we don’t act as a big club, Arsenal are not bigger than us, Real, Barca, Bayern & Man Utd are, but Arsenal are not, even if they had a bigger budget than ours, because their board and Wenger are running it as a small club, so it’s not OK that they made offers for our RB in the last two seasons, it should be us who make an offer for theirs .

    In each of the last two seasons we spent over 100 million on transfers, but on 10 players in 2014/15 and on 7 players in 2015/16, let’s spend this same amount this season but only on 3 players, 3 world-class players, a striker, an AM and a fullback, either left or right, and if we don’t have more money to sign another fullback then let’s cover that other side with Manquillo/Lucas for only next season .

    I would be very happy and very optimistic if I read this summer that we made an official offer for Bellerin, even if they said no .

  • Ahmad Hossainy

    Or is Fabinho better than Bellerin ?!
    I don’t have the slightest idea about Fabinho, but I watch a lot of EPL, as I mentioned before : I watch it more than La Liga, and I’m an Atleti fan ! that’s how much I find La Liga boring and the EPL entertaining, and in my opinion : Bellerin is already among the best 6 or 7 RBs in the world despite being only 21, and I’m sure soon he will be in the top 3 .

  • nandes

    Now that Dani Alves has left, I think it’s a given that Bellerín will return to Barcelona

  • Ahmad Hossainy

    It would make sense, but I haven’t read anything about Barca’s interest in him, not just these days but the whole season, and I really can’t understand why !

    But still, let’s compete Barca for him, we will probably lose, but let’s compete, the way we have been competing them on the pitch .
    That’s my point .

  • Usavicente Calderon

    Unless someone leaves this summer, our defense needs to fixes. The money needs to be used for a striker. Lucas has been superb.