The people of Vigo had advanced the incorporation of the former striker of Vila-real Toko Ekambi, who has finally ended up opting for the Stade Rennais, where he will play on loan from Olympique de Lyon. With that door closed, Celta will have to continue tracking down a replacement for Denis Suárez in the coming days. “They have told Denis that when they close the signing he will be released”, admits to ARA a person close to the footballer, who has been looking for an exit from the club for months. From the player’s environment, however, they warn that, for now, “neither his departure nor the termination of the club is closed, everything is conditional on the arrival of another player”. Without relief, therefore, there will be no exit. In other words, it is still not ruled out that Denis could finish the season in Vigo.
Espanyol is the team best positioned to take Denis Suárez for free. The white-and-blue club aspires to act as a bridge between Celta and Villarreal, where, if nothing goes wrong, they will play the next three seasons from July. Espanyol, therefore, would incorporate the free player and would only have to assume the next five months of salary. An economically feasible operation for a player with a high market value. The Spaniards have prevailed over other teams that also wanted him in the face of this winter market. The white-and-blue entity already tried to sign him last summer, once Celta sent the footballer away, but the high financial demands of the Galician club, which refused to give him or leave him leave free, they thwarted his exit.
This, in fact, was the starting point with which Celta started this January market. The president of the Vigo club, Carlos Mouriño, had been stuck in this position for months, but Celta’s sports advisor, Luis Ocampos, has convinced him that the best option is to let him go now and not prolong a situation that does not favor the club, the dressing room or the footballer. “It’s hard when you can’t play, you’ve been going through a difficult situation on a day-to-day basis for several months,” they admit from their environment.
Mouriño and Denis have been facing each other for months with public statements against each other. It all started after Bryan Bugarín, a 12-year-old boy, left the Galician club’s academy last summer to go to Real Madrid. A signing that, due to the player’s potential, was even announced on white social networks. The problem came when Mouriño accused Suárez of going against the interests of the club, for being a client of the same representation agency (Intermedia Sport Player), which handled the signing of Bugarín for Madrid.
Mouriño charged the agency with the “auction” it did with the talent and even hinted that Denis had received a commission for the operation. The episode exploded even more when the 28-year-old player applauded the statement made by the agency of which he is a client in which he criticized the president of Celta and asked him for a rectification. Some applause to which was added Iago Aspas, star of the team and also a client of the same agency, but he has not suffered the same repercussions as Suárez, who lives apart from the dynamics of the squad due to all the controversy. Last season, he played in every League game and was one of the highlights of the Vigo team (four goals and six assists).
This year, however, he has not been called to any game. His last official minutes, in fact, were in Mestalla, in May 2022. He has therefore accumulated eight months without playing. Knowing how he will respond to this inactivity is precisely one of the great unknowns of a signing from whom Espanyol expects an immediate performance, if they end up signing him. RDT, who also accumulated several months without competing, was only able to play 28 minutes in the first four games that Rayo Vallecano played this January because he suffered from some discomfort in his knee.
