Thierry Henry alleges that Real Madrid opted to offload Raphael Varane to Manchester United citing a ‘knee issue’.
During his illustrious 10-year tenure at Madrid, Varane amassed 18 trophies and served as a pivotal figure before departing in the summer of 2021.
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United secured the services of the 30-year-old, who played a significant role in France’s 2018 World Cup triumph, in a £42 million transfer.
Despite making 89 appearances across all competitions for United since joining, Henry contends that Madrid grew concerned about a possible ‘knee issue’ with the defender.
‘There’s one thing you have to give them [Real Madrid] a lot of credit for, the ability they have to make sure they build a team with keeping some of the old guard with them to make sure that they can explain to the guys coming, the young guys coming,’ Henry told CBS Sports.
‘If you look at it, if [Kylian] Mbappe goes there, they’re going to have a team that can be dominating Europe and dominating their league for maybe six to seven years because they’ll all be young, Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, if Mbappe goes there, Rodrygo, [Federico] Valverde, [Aurelien] Tchouameni.
‘The one thing they do ever so well is they know when to get rid of players.
‘I am not talking about the players that are logical to get rid of. I am talking about it was time for [Cristiano] Ronaldo. It was time for Casemiro. It was time for [Mesut] Ozil. It was time for Varane, which was more, I think, of a knee issue, if I understand well.
‘But if you think about those three – [Luka] Modric, [Toni] Kroos and Casemiro – they sold the youngest one. Why would you sell the youngest one?
‘Well, they notified that those two can help the Valverde, the Tchouameni, [Eduardo] Camavinga and they do that ever-so-well and you have to give them credit because when you get rid of the players that I mentioned before, they were outstanding players at that time for your team.’
