Is Martin Zubimendi joining Real Madrid? January transfer ‘possible’ for £77m-rated midfielder – Football Whispers Index score

Jose Mourinho has asked Real Madrid's board to sign a midfielder, and Spanish newspaper Sport identified Martin Zubimendi as the club's primary target on 14 October, but the 27-year-old's situation is more complicated than the headline suggests.

Mikel Arteta has publicly ruled out a January sale, Arsenal are under no financial pressure to negotiate, and Zubimendi himself has sent contradictory signals about whether he even wants to leave the Emirates.

Martin Zubimendi to Real Madrid rated ‘Possible'

The Football Whispers Index scores every transfer rumour across five weighted factors. Read how it works here.

The score has fallen seven points since the original assessment, from 63 to 56, and the reason is straightforward: Arsenal's position has hardened while Real Madrid's interest has softened.

Arteta has gone on the record, via Football Insider on 17 September, insisting Zubimendi is not for sale in January, and Bernabeu Digital reported that the midfielder has slipped down Real Madrid's shortlist as the club weighs whether a mid-season deal is worth the expense and disruption.

Everything that makes this rumour alive — Mourinho's internal request, Zubimendi's playing-time frustration, the Spanish press coverage — is real, but none of it has been confirmed by a tier-one journalist, and the strongest signal from the selling club's side is a wall rather than a door.

Financial viability

Real Madrid posted €1.221 billion in operating revenue for 2025-26, the highest figure ever recorded by a football club, and a €75m fee for Zubimendi would represent just over 6% of that total — well within the range the club has operated in for recent signings.

The wage side is even simpler: Zubimendi earns around £120,000 a week at Arsenal, which would place him comfortably in the lower half of Real Madrid's wage structure, far below Mbappe's reported earnings and no strain on a squad that already carries several high earners.

Where the deal gets harder is the contract: four years remaining until June 2030 gives Arsenal every reason to set a high floor and walk away from anything below it, and the €75m asking price reported by CaughtOffside is only marginally above what they paid for him in 2025.

Real Madrid's financial position is strong enough to absorb the fee, but they would be paying a premium for a player who cost Arsenal €70m barely a year ago, which is not the kind of value deal they typically pursue outside the Galactico bracket.

Buying club need

The case for Real Madrid needing a midfielder rests on one specific problem: they have struggled to control the tempo of matches this season, and Mourinho has told the board he wants reinforcement in the pivot role.

Joaquin Maroto, speaking on Cadena SER on 15 October, described Zubimendi as “the only midfield signing that fits Real Madrid right now,” and the reasoning centres on profile rather than depth — Tchouameni, Camavinga, Valverde and Bellingham give Real Madrid four international midfielders, but none is a natural deep-lying playmaker in the mould Zubimendi occupied at Arsenal last season.

The counter-argument is obvious: this is a rotation upgrade, not a squad emergency, and Real Madrid have historically been reluctant to spend €75m on a player who would be competing with Tchouameni for one starting position rather than filling a gap nobody else can cover.

Sport's description of Zubimendi as “a potential successor to Rodri for Spain” carries weight, though, because Barcelona's signing of Rodri this summer left a vacancy in the national team setup that Zubimendi is the most natural candidate to fill, and Real Madrid have historically valued that kind of international-team positioning.

Player motivation

The playing-time case for Zubimendi to move is strong and getting stronger: he has zero Premier League starts this season, was deployed at right-back in the Carabao Cup against Ipswich — a clear signal of how far he has fallen from the midfield hierarchy — and both Bruno Guimaraes and 19-year-old Myles Lewis-Skelly are ahead of him in Arteta's plans.

CaughtOffside reported on 1 October, citing Spanish outlet Nacional, that Zubimendi wants to leave and has identified Real Madrid as his preferred destination, but Nacional is not a high-tier source for Premier League movements, and the report came without a direct quote from the player or his representatives.

TEAMtalk muddied the picture further by reporting earlier in October that Zubimendi was prepared to fight for his place, and would only seriously consider leaving if he remained outside the starting XI by January — a conditional stance that is a long way from the kind of transfer request that forces a selling club's hand.

Arteta himself told reporters that his aim was to “prevent draining his energy at the end of the season,” framing Zubimendi's absence as workload management after 57 matches in 2025-26 rather than a demotion, and Football Insider reported on 17 September that the manager has privately ruled out sanctioning a January departure.

Selling club incentive

This is the pillar that, combined with the lack of tier-one reporting, holds the score down, and it should, because Arsenal have no reason to sell and have said as much.

Revenue is over €822m, the squad cost ratio is comfortably within the 85% limit, and Arteta has publicly framed Zubimendi's reduced role as a deliberate management strategy rather than an invitation to bid — the “draining his energy” quote gives Arsenal a narrative that lets them refuse offers without looking like they are holding a player hostage.

The arrival of Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle this summer and the emergence of Lewis-Skelly as a genuine first-team midfielder means Arsenal already have the depth that Zubimendi used to provide, which weakens their case for keeping him but also weakens their need to recoup his fee urgently.

If anything shifts Arsenal's position, it will be the maths: Zubimendi cost €70m in 2025, and a sale at €75m or above would represent a profit on a player who is no longer starting, which is exactly the kind of business model that built this squad in the first place.

Market momentum

The sourcing for this rumour is mid-tier and contradictory, which is the clearest reason the score sits in the middle of Possible rather than close to Likely.

Sport, a Barcelona-based newspaper, named Zubimendi and Scott McTominay as Real Madrid's top midfield targets in its 14 October print edition, and TEAMtalk relayed the report three days later, while FootballTransfers cited Cadena SER pundits Joaquin Maroto and Dani Garrido as saying Mourinho is already pushing for a midfielder internally.

Set against that, Bernabeu Digital — a Madrid-focused outlet with decent access to the club's thinking — reported that Zubimendi has actually slipped down the shortlist ahead of January, with Real Madrid reassessing whether the cost and disruption of a mid-season deal makes sense when they could wait for the summer.

The absence of any tier-one confirmation is the most telling signal: Fabrizio Romano, David Ornstein and Matteo Moretto have all covered Real Madrid's transfer plans extensively this season, and none of them has reported that the club has made any approach to Arsenal or to Zubimendi's representatives.

The competition for Zubimendi's signature is also worth tracking: TEAMtalk reported that Chelsea, via Xabi Alonso's admiration for the player from their shared time in the Spanish system, are watching the situation, but no concrete Chelsea approach has been reported either.

Martin Zubimendi to Real Madrid: Will or won't it happen?

This is a rumour being driven by circumstance on one side and desire on the other, but the two sides have not met in the middle and may not meet at all.

Real Madrid want a midfielder, and Zubimendi is the right profile at the right moment, but they have not made an approach, and Bernabeu Digital's report that he has slipped down the shortlist suggests the club may prefer to wait for a summer deal or pivot to an alternative entirely.

The next two months will be decisive: if Zubimendi is still on the bench in December and publicly says something beyond the carefully managed frustration he has shown so far, the score moves up sharply, but if Arteta finds a way to reintegrate him — even as a rotation option for the Champions League knockout rounds — the January story dies and the conversation shifts to summer 2027 at the earliest.