Carlo Ancelotti confirms Real Madrid's stance on signing new centre-back

Carlo Ancelotti has revealed that Real Madrid do not intend to sign a centre-back during the January transfer window.

Madrid are currently enduring an injury crisis at the heart of their defence. Eder Militao suffered an ACL injury in the first week of the season which has left him battling to return before the end of the current campaign, while David Alaba is set to miss the remainder of the season after suffering the same injury in December.

Immediately after Alaba's injury, Ancelotti hinted at a desire to sign a new centre-back this month but, ahead of Madrid's return to action against Mallorca on Wednesday, the boss revealed there are no plans to bolster at the back.

"At this moment, we aren't considering signing another centre-back," said Ancelotti.

"We're lacking important players, but we have another two who we believe in, Nacho [Fernandez] and Antonio [Rudiger], and two others who can play there, [Aurelien] Tchouameni and [Dani] Carvajal. So right now, we aren't considering a signing."

As well as a quiet January, Ancelotti also hinted that Madrid won't do much business during the summer transfer window either, insisting that the club will be focusing on renewing the contracts of veteran players above all else.

"First of all there are players whose contracts are up, they'll choose what they want to do. I'm talking about [Toni] Kroos, Nacho and Luka Modric," he said.

"The future is already written, there isn't much to do. This team is already heading in the right direction, with very interesting young players. We aren't thinking about June yet, but there isn't much to do."

Modric has been heavily linked with a move to Saudi Arabia over the last few months ahead of his contract expiration in the summer, with his agent previously admitting that a transfer was "possible".

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