Defender Pepe is the latest Real Madrid star to make a public declaration about the future of Sergio Ramos, saying ‘everyone’ at the club loves him and that he hopes he stays.
‘He looks good. Nobody can imagine a Real Madrid without him,’ Pepe is quoted as saying by Marca. ‘He’s our captain and I’m sure he’ll stay here with us. Everybody at the club loves him. I hope he stays because he’s our captain, the man we look up to.’
The charm offensive certainly appears to be in force and the repeated references to Ramos as the captain won’t be lost on those who have followed the saga.
Marca also claim that Florentino Perez is making Ramos his priority, which is really all the defender wanted at the start of the saga.
From their report ‘Rescuing Ramos’
‘Although Real Madrid have not forgotten De Gea, right now they have a hotter potato to handle.
Florentino Pérez is already in China. He arrived at the hotel even before the team did, who flew in from Melbourne. Before he focuses all his energies on signing the United keeper, the president is focused on sorting out the problem with Sergio Ramos.
The president’s presence at this point of the Real tour is highly significant. Florentino Pérez is the only person in the club who can sit down with the man from Seville and convince him that the Bernabéu is his home, that he is the team captain and that Real would be crippled if he left them.
Meanwhile, Sergio Ramos is set on leaving. The defender has made up his mind to try pastures new, highly upset with the club’s shenanigans against him these last few weeks. One of these is the changing of how the dressing room works without first asking for his approval. The captain feels left out and offended and doesn’t want to dirty the marvelous ten years that he has spent with ‘Los Blancos’ with the kind of ending that his friend Casillas had to suffer.
However, Florentino wants to take advantage of the feelings of togetherness that exist even stronger than usual when ‘Los Blancos’ are on tour, and talk with the player. The aim is to convince Ramos to forget United and to publicly declare his love for Real. This is the president’s big challenge, one of his biggest ever, aware that such a declaration would send ‘the Red Devils’ running. It might even help things out regarding De Gea. If Van Gaal is playing tough with the keeper, it is because he knows that Ramos is thinking long and hard about playing at Old Trafford.’
It seems at this point as if Ramos will be staying. After the reports of Sky’s La Liga correspondent Gerry Armstrong saying that the player simply wanted a new deal, Graham Hunter clarified to us that his existing information (as recently as last night) was that Ramos was still keen on the move.
And at this stage it seems like the only chance United have is if Ramos sincerely has made up his mind and has already considered his future as being in England. Given the certainty with which Real Madrid players are speaking, it seems as if this saga is done and dusted.
