Espanyol not only has not signed yet in the summer market, the only club that has not moved, but has also let several players leave the squad, the last one, in the absence of official status, is Sergi Darder, fundamental in the gear of the team, without a doubt the footballer with the highest quality in the squad. The perica entity has agreed on Thursday the transfer of its captain to Mallorca.
As the Balearic newspaper Última Hora has advanced, the vermilion team met the parakeet requirements with an offer of eight million fixed plus two variables, below the 15 million clause. The Mallorcan, born in Artá, will add talent to the solid block formed by Javier Aguirre and his departure from Espanyol will significantly reduce the potential of the blue and whites on their return to the Second Division.
The captain, trained in the Perica youth academy, will leave the club after six seasons in the first team and after playing 245 games in which he has scored 25 goals and provided 25 assists. This last season, in which he signed seven goals, he was the most used player on the squad. He played all the games of the previous season, always starting in the League, and was only substituted in a total of nine games.
The midfielder will head to Palma in the next few hours, so he will not be at the league debut for Luis García's men this Sunday in Albacete. Espanyol will begin their attempt to return to the First Division with a depleted squad where, out of necessity, the players from the youth academy have taken a leading role.
Darder, mentally tired after a second relegation with the parrots and in search of new goals, did not want to take advantage of the transfer contemplated in his contract to find a profitable sale for the club. The Spaniard wanted a good amount of money to enter the box that would allow the team to be reinforced in search of promotion to the First Division.
Until now, the message from both Luis García and the sports director, Fran Garagarza, has been conservative, both confident in the block in the absence of small tweaks that can be added in the last days of the market. However, the money brought in by Darder could alter the transfer strategy of an irregular Espanyol in the preseason, closed falsely with a resounding defeat against Utrecht (3-0).
