Real Madrid finished 2021 in style. They came out as first-placed out of their Champions League group, they were victorious on an always unpleasant visit to Bilbao. With 46 points and only one defeat, Los Blancos confidently hold the top of La Liga and are rushing towards a new crown. Reigning champions Atletico Madrid are as much as 17 points behind, Barcelona 18, which means that Sevilla are their only serious rival for the throne. And when that is the case, then there is no doubt that Real Madrid are the absolute favorites.Having all that in mind at the Santiago Bernabeu, they can calmly enter the January transfer window (January 3rd). It is well known that Florentino Perez is not preparing for a big boom until the summer (bringing in Kylian Mbape, possibly Erling Haaland), but during the upcoming transfer period they will try to strengthen the defensive line.Carleto The Pennywise: Ancelotti insists he doesn’t need any new signingsThe German whose contract with Chelsea expires – Antonio Rudiger – has been the target of Real Madrid for a long time. But he is not the only one in their focus. Spanish outlet Marca, with the help of a program that uses artificial intelligence – as part of the football laboratory Olocip – made a list of five other names that would best fit into the current Real Madrid squad. So, it is not about the players that Perez and Carlo Ancelotti want, but about those who – as the program estimates – would fit the Royal Club and its current philosophy, taking into account several key parameters.Olocip came to the conclusion that the position of the centre defender is currently the weakest part of the team. While Eder Militao and David Alaba had great performances – according to same parameters – Nacho and Vallejo are the lowest rated players in the entire team.”We used our valuation model developed through artificial intelligence to find the defender who would best fit Ancelotti’s team. This predictive model performs a qualitative analysis (the value that each action of a given player contributes to the team) that allows us to find out the real impact of research to a certain team”, reads the text of the respectable newspaper.”In order to get the best signing, we have filtered central defenders from more than 50 competitions around the world under the age of 28 and with more than 500 minutes played this season.”The new Galacticos era can begin… If all wishes are grantedMore than 2,400 defenders came out as a result of the search, and the results showed that the five most compatible with Ancelotti’s current tactics would be Jules Kounde from Seville, Marcos Senesi from Feyenoord, Pau Torres from Villarreal, Manuel Akanji from Dortmund and Sven Botman from Lille.Analyzing the performance of these five in the last six months, the predictive model indicates that Jules Kounde would be the player with the most influence on the defence of Los Blancos. According to this program, the young Frenchman would generate the greatest values in interceptions, tackles, blocked shots, aerial duels…Kounde is also the most expensive player from this list (80 million USD), he has the highest overall rating (97/100), but in terms of offensive characteristics/possibilities, he is significantly below Sven Botman.Demir and Barcelona summer romance at it’s endThe Dutchman (195cm) arrived in Lille last summer from the young team of Ajax for less than 11 million USD. His current market value is around 40 million USD.When it comes to playmaking from the back-line, Pau Torres (99/100) is unrivaled, a guy who will undoubtedly soon become one of the most expensive defenders in the world. Manchester United has been showing interest in him for a long time, and Transfermarkt values him highly – 67 million USD.Sun, 02/01, 16.00: (7.00) GETAFE (4.00) REAL MADRID (1.57)Marcos Senesi and Manuel Akanji received one very low grade each. Argentine for offensive characteristics, the Swiss for defense. Both, however, can brag with excellent attack-organizing skills.These are computer predictions. And now let’s wait a bit and see what Don Florentino says.
