Seven days to get a player to Russia
The Ligue 1 window is shut. Monaco’s selling is not. Nice-Matin reports that Aleksandr Golovin is expected to leave the Rock within days for a return to Russia.
Zenit Saint Petersburg and Spartak Moscow are the two names in circulation. Both are working against a hard deadline, because the Russian window closes on September 10. That leaves a week to agree a fee, agree terms and file the paperwork.
Golovin is said to be receptive. Foot Mercato had already flagged conversations with Zenit and with Saudi clubs earlier in the summer, with Monaco valuing him around 25 million euros. He arrived on the Rock in 2018 and is under contract until 2029.
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Football reasoning barely enters into it. France’s financial watchdog capped Monaco’s wage bill at the end of June. The club need cash arriving and salaries leaving. Golovin sits near the top of the payroll, which makes him the shortest route to both.
He is not alone. Thilo Kehrer went out on loan to Ajax on Wednesday. Pape Cabral, 19, is close to a move to Al-Ahli worth roughly 10 million euros. Every departure shaves something off the total.
All of it has been squeezed into the closing stretch of a messy summer, one that already contains Lamine Camara’s collapsed move to Chelsea and a Folarin Balogun switch to Everton that never happened.
Filipe Luis loses his creator
On the pitch the loss stings. Golovin has started every game this season and the new coach has built the space behind the strikers around him. Eight years in the principality made the Russian one of the voices the dressing room actually listens to.
A replacement is already being lined up. Hicham Boudaoui is expected in from Nice as a joker signing, a route that costs less than a conventional transfer and therefore fits the mood at the club perfectly. Whether Monaco can satisfy the auditors without gutting their own starting eleven gets answered inside the next week.
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