West Ham transfer news: James Rodriguez facing 'complicated' Real Madrid future, says Zinedine Zidane

West Ham have been linked with a surprise move for the Real Madrid midfielder

James Rodriguez faces an uncertain future at Real Madrid (Getty)

James Rodriguez faces a deeply uncertain future at Real Madrid after his manager, Zinedine Zidane, admitted that the size of his squad leaves his situation “complicated” amid reports of a move to the Premier League.

Rodriguez has been linked with both Manchester United and Chelsea after being starved of regular first-team action, while French champions Paris Saint-Germain are also reported to be keeping an eye on the Colombia midfielder's future as they look to revamp improve their squad to launch the Unai Emery era and try to crack the Champions League conundrum.

More recently, Premier League side West Ham were linked with a surprise move for the 25-year-old, who set Real Madrid back £63m in 2014 after he impressed at the World Cup in Brazil to become the fourth most expensive player in history.

With West Ham’s interest in mind, Zidane’s recent comments will be music to the Hammers’ ears as he hinted that the Colombia international could have to face the prospect of being sold due to the fact that the current Real head coach can’t fit him into his first XI.

“The idea with James is the same as with everyone else - he's a Real Madrid player,” said Zidane.

“I'm not going to tell you that James is a starter. He's an important player. We'll see what happens this year, I have a big squad and it's complicated.

“I have to play the most competitive side I can and I'll do the same thing this season, that's my responsibility.”

The pressures put on any Real manager are well documented, though Zidane coped well enough with them to take over from Rafa Benitez in January and lead his former club to the Champions League trophy. However, any pressure to play Rodriguez, given his large transfer fee, appeared to disappear and fans made it clear that they preferred the likes of Isco and Gareth Bale in the starting line-up.


 Zidane admits Rodriguez's situation is 'complicated' 
 (Getty)

It’s because of this that Rodriguez was limited to just 26 appearances in La Liga last season, although he did return a tally of seven goals and eight assists along the way. Rodriguez is yet to return from his post-season holiday, having been on Copa America duty during the summer for his country, and he will not feature on the tour that sees Real play Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich in pre-season.

It’s expected that talks will be held with Rodriguez once he returns to the club, although Zidane could look to sell Rodriguez in order to free up space in his squad to bring in a new signing, with Real yet to enter the transfer market this summer.