Atletico rejected big-money bids

Aguero and Forlan: Summer interest

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Atletico Madrid have confirmed they rejected big-money bids for Sergio Aguero and Diego Forlan from Chelsea and Real Madrid, respectively, last summer.

Atletico have suffered a poor start to the Liga season and they now concede they were unable to strengthen their squad after shunning the interest in their key players.

Los Colchoneros' delegate general Miguel Angel Gil Marin has revealed Atletico chose to keep their star names and were keen to add to the squad with money raised from offloading fringe players.

With bids totalling €86million (£77.7m) for the duo from Chelsea and Real Madrid, Atletico were proud of having seen off the interest to hang on to their key men, but with no other major sales the squad now needs more strengthening.

Two bids

"There were two bids in the summer," Gil Marin told Marca. "Chelsea wanted Aguero and Real Madrid wanted Diego Forlan.

"Chelsea offered €45m plus €5m in bonuses for Aguero and Real Madrid offered €36m for Forlan.

"Madrid's president [Florentino Perez] told us he would not meet Forlan's buy-out clause because he did not want a public confrontation between the club.

"They hoped we would accept their first offer and in a deal that would have included us having the pick of a number of players, one of whom was Alvaro Negredo."

Gil Marin was asked if Atletico do not sell in the winter transfer window, then would they be forced to listen to offers in the summer if they were not in the Champions League again.

"It will not be a must, but it is obvious that there are cycles with teams and with players," he replied.

"If any player wants to look for a new challenge then Atletico would evaluate it.

Problem

"The problem in the summer was that we chose not to sell five players; Aguero, Forlan, Simao, Paulo Assuncao and Tomas Ujfalusi.

"We then told the sporting director that he could buy players that we needed with money raised from the sale of other players, but the market was at a standstill and we could not sell."

Atletico have won just one game in their opening 10 matches of the season, in all competitions, and replaced coach Abel Resino with Quique Sanchez Flores last week.

The new boss may be given some money to spend in January while Atletico will re-evaluate the position of their most valuable players in the summer.

"I don't think it is poor planning. I don't think we are short of players. Our problem has been exaggerated and people are talking about a crisis that does not exist," Gil Marin continued.

"If we have to we'll correct things in the winter transfer market."