Three emergency centre-back options for Real Madrid following David Alaba’s injury – report

The spate of injuries continue to haunt Real Madrid as they lost defensive mainstay David Alaba to an ACL injury this past weekend during the game against Villarreal.

The Austrian international’s season is over and with Eder Militao also out with an ACL injury, Los Blancos are left with just two senior defenders in Antonio Rudiger and Nacho Fernandez.

Naturally, there had been talks of Real Madrid going for a new defender during the January transfer window to bolster the squad.

But as per the latest reports, the decision has been made to not sign a new player in the winter and instead look for solutions from within the squad.

Three emergency options
As such, El Larguero is reporting that Carlo Ancelotti will count on three players from the first-team squad as emergency options for the centre-back position, if something were happen to one of Rudiger or Nacho moving forward.

The three names who will be asked to fill in at centre-back in the coming months are midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni, and full-backs Dani Carvajal and Ferland Mendy.

Tchouameni is no stranger to playing at centre-back at Real Madrid, having already done so once in the current campaign when he relied on VR technology to prepare for the role.

As for Mendy, the left-back is an astute defender and has slotted in at centre-half in the past at the Santiago Bernabeu.

However, along with Alaba, he too picked up an injury last week, which is a cause for concern for Real Madrid. The Frenchman’s dodgy fitness record means he could be a bit of a wildcard for Ancelotti & co.

Carvajal might not appear to be the best option at centre-back and his moving away from the right-back position would also hurt Los Blancos to a great extent. But his dogged and determined nature can help Real Madrid.

Given the number of games coming up in a cramped schedule, it would be in the Merengues’ best interest to bring in a new defender in January.