Criticism of Jovic Transfer: “Get Replacement Players”

Predrag Mijatovic, former striker and sports director of Real Madrid, has criticised the commitment of Eintracht Frankfurt’s Luka Jovic by the royals. He told Spanish radio station Cadena SER, “We’re hiring substitutes.” The change of Jovic for a transfer fee of 60 million euros was completed this week.

For the former world-class attacker, the Serb behind Karim Benzema is only the second option for the Madrileneans.

“You have to be patient with him. You can’t expect him to score 20 goals in the first season,” said Mijatovic. Benzema has been a fixture in the centre of the Real storm since it changed ten years ago.

For Mijatovic, the Jovic transfer is more a deal at the request of the club management than at the request of coach Zinedine Zidane.

“I’m not sure if Zidane knows Jovic very well,” said Mijatovic, who predicted that the coach would have “a lot of work” to put together a powerful team for the coming season.

Jovic had scored 17 goals at Eintracht Frankfurt last season in 32 Bundesliga games and prepared six more goals.