Athletic Club were in desperate need of reinforcements in defence, and now face a nervous wait to see if their reinforcements will arrive after the transfer deadline. The window closed at midnight on Monday in Spain, but the future of Aymeric Laporte, the summer’s headline recruit, remains uncertain.
Laporte has been linked with a return to Athletic since before the end of the season, and the 31-year-old has already agreed personal terms on a three-year contract with his first club. The Spain international was backed to secure a return from Saudi Arabia before the end of the window, but at the time of writing, Athletic have not announced the signing, and neither have La Liga confirmed it.
In spite of that, transfer expert Fabrizio Romano has assured that a deal to take the Al-Nassr central defender back to Bilbao has been wrapped up. This news only came in the final hour of the transfer window though. Cadena SER say that La Liga are briefing that the documentation arrived in time to complete the move for Laporte, but now the league must review and sign off on the deal. They say that deal is awaiting international clearance from the RFEF, and that he may not be registered for another couple of days, but that the deal was done in time. The issue would be is that there is no scope for correcting any errors in the documentation.
Currently Ernesto Valverde only has two senior central defenders available, between Dani Vivian and Aitor Paredes. Yeray Alvarez is still banned awaiting the resolution of his doping case with UEFA, and thus unavailable. Meanwhile Unai Egiluz, who had returned from loan to be part of the first team will miss most of the season through a cruciate ligament injury, making Laporte’s arrival a matter of tantamount importance.