Mourinho Targets Mateus Fernandes for Real Madrid's New Project
Jose Mourinho has started to sketch out his next Real Madrid, and one name keeps circling back onto his notepad: Mateus Fernandes.
According to AS, the Portuguese coach has identified the West Ham United midfielder as a priority target should Florentino Perez win the upcoming presidential election and hand him the keys to a new project at the Bernabéu. This is not a casual recommendation. It is part of a broader vision Mourinho is already pushing behind the scenes, a blueprint built on specific profiles rather than star names for the sake of it.
A rare bright light in a dark West Ham season
West Ham’s season collapsed. The club slid out of the Premier League and into the second tier, a brutal fall that tends to stain everyone involved.
Fernandes resisted that narrative.
At 21, he put together a genuine breakthrough campaign in England’s top flight. Across 36 Premier League appearances, he scored three goals and provided four assists, but the numbers only tell part of the story. Week after week, he emerged as one of the few consistent positives in a side drifting toward relegation, showing he could affect the game both with and without the ball.
His energy, his range, his willingness to take responsibility in difficult moments — all of it pushed him onto the radar of Europe’s elite. Scouts noticed. So did Mourinho.
AS reports that the Real Madrid coach-in-waiting is particularly taken by Fernandes’ profile, seeing in his compatriot many of the attributes he demands from a midfielder at the Bernabéu: intensity, tactical discipline, and the capacity to link phases of play rather than simply decorate them.
Madrid, Mendes and a complicated market
Relegation usually invites predators. West Ham’s drop into the Championship has inevitably opened the door to conversations about exits, and Fernandes sits near the top of that list of potential departures.
There is another layer here. Relations between Real Madrid and Jorge Mendes, the super-agent who has long moved in the same orbit as Mourinho, are said to be on an upward curve again. That could smooth talks, or at least remove some of the political friction that has complicated big deals in the past.
But this is no bargain-bin opportunity.
The initial price being floated sits around the £80 million mark, a figure that instantly tests how serious any suitor really is. It is the first barrier and a deliberate one, especially with Liverpool and Arsenal also tracking the midfielder’s situation closely. Both Premier League clubs have been monitoring him and would not hesitate to act if the numbers and timing fell into place.
So any Madrid move would be a fight, not a formality.
Why Mourinho is pushing
Mourinho’s interest goes beyond nationality or familiarity with Mendes’ stable. He sees a specific solution to a specific problem.
Real Madrid’s midfield last season lacked certain ingredients: sustained energy across 90 minutes, defensive balance in transitions, and a bit of raw character when games tilted into chaos. Fernandes, in Mourinho’s eyes, ticks those boxes. He is not just a passer or a runner; he is a connector, someone who can press, recover, and then drive the ball into dangerous zones.
For a coach who builds teams from the spine outward, that matters. An £80 million outlay becomes easier to justify if the player is viewed as a long-term pillar rather than a rotation option.
The question now is simple and brutal: if Perez returns to power and hands Mourinho the mandate he craves, will Real Madrid push through the noise, the competition, and the price to land Mateus Fernandes — or will one of England’s giants steal a march on a midfielder who has already proved he can shine in a struggling side?
