Simeone Vows To Make Alvarez Feel Important Again Amid Barcelona Exit Talk

Julian Alvarez missed his third consecutive Atletico Madrid training session on Friday morning, and this time there was no disguising what it meant for the club’s preparations. The Argentina forward will not travel for Saturday’s match at Sevilla, and Diego Simeone spent his pre-match press conference doing something he rarely has to do for a fit, available player: promising to welcome him back.

“From the moment he returns to training, I will do everything I can to make him feel important,” Simeone said. It was a strikingly personal comment for a manager known more for tactical detail than sentiment, and it reflected a situation that has gone well beyond a routine team-news update.

Two statements in 24 hours

Atletico Madrid released two separate public statements within 24 hours insisting Alvarez will not be sold to Barcelona, an unusually forceful intervention for a club that would normally let transfer speculation play out without direct comment. The repeated denials have done little to quiet the noise around the forward, and a move to Arsenal now looks like his most realistic route out of the club should he push to leave.

Alvarez has not been described by the club as injured. He has instead been characterised as not currently in good health, a phrase that leaves plenty unsaid but has been enough for Atletico to withdraw him from selection entirely rather than risk involving him under the circumstances.

Simeone’s message: “Everything can be turned around”

Asked directly about Alvarez’s situation, Simeone chose his words carefully but left no doubt about where he stands. “As long as you have your health, everything in life can be turned around,” he said, a comment that read as much like reassurance aimed at his player as it did an answer to reporters.

He continued in the same tone when pressed further on the forward’s absence. “I’m still in the same position, hoping, from a sporting point of view, to be able to help him in the best way so that he continues to be the very important player he is for us,” Simeone said. It is a measured statement, but one that confirms Atletico’s manager still regards Alvarez as central to his plans rather than a player already halfway out of the door.

Confirming his unavailability for the weekend fixture, Simeone was direct about what Saturday’s match would look like without him. “Julian will not be there against Sevilla, who have just won two games and will be high with confidence,” he said, acknowledging that Atletico face an in-form opponent at a difficult moment to be missing one of their most productive attackers.

A squad already missing Sorloth

Alvarez’s absence is compounded by the fact Atletico are already without another key forward. Alexander Sorloth is sidelined through injury, and Simeone did not pretend the timing was convenient. “Sorloth’s absence hurts us. He’s very important for us,” he said. “In this situation with Julian, it has much more impact.”

Rather than pointing to a single replacement, Simeone described the response as a collective effort. “The team will try collectively to find solutions to score goals and win. We are working with them on that awareness. We are going to try to improve it collectively,” he said, effectively confirming that no like-for-like alternative exists in the current squad for either forward, let alone both at once.

Asked whether the uncertainty around Alvarez was affecting the wider dressing room, Simeone pushed back on the idea directly. “Honestly, no,” he said. “The boys are working very well, especially the World Cup players. The team played good matches against Malaga and Villarreal and we are focused on playing a good match against Sevilla.” It was a clear attempt to draw a line between the speculation surrounding one player and the mood of the squad as a whole heading into the weekend.

What Alvarez has meant to Atletico

The scale of the disruption becomes clearer when set against what Alvarez delivered last season. The 26 year old made 49 appearances in all competitions for Atletico and scored 20 goals, numbers that made him one of the club’s most reliable attacking outlets and a key reason Simeone built much of his forward play around him. Replacing that kind of output, even for a handful of matches, is not something Atletico can do by simply shuffling the same group of players into unfamiliar positions.

That is part of why the two statements denying a move to Barcelona carried so much significance. A club does not typically go out of its way twice in a single day to shut down speculation about a squad player. Atletico’s insistence that Alvarez is not for sale to a direct domestic rival suggests the club still sees him as central to their season, even while his current situation keeps him out of the side entirely.

How Alvarez became central to the project

Atletico signed Alvarez from Manchester City in August 2024 in a deal worth up to £82m, with £64m paid up front and the rest structured in add-ons. He arrived on a six-year contract, a term that reflected how central the club intended him to be to Simeone’s plans for years to come rather than a short-term addition to freshen up the attack.

The fee represented a considerable return for City, who had signed Alvarez from River Plate for around £14m in January 2022. He went on to collect six trophies in his time at the club, scoring 36 goals in 103 appearances and forming part of the squad that won the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup treble in 2023. He had also won the World Cup with Argentina the year before that, scoring in the semi-final win over Croatia before lifting the trophy in Qatar.

That combination of club and international pedigree is precisely why Atletico moved so quickly to shut down talk of a Barcelona switch. A forward with Alvarez’s trophy record and World Cup status leaving for a direct domestic rival, rather than a foreign club, would represent a very different kind of loss for Atletico than a standard squad departure, which helps explain why the club felt the need to issue two separate statements inside a single day rather than let the speculation run its course.

Romero’s early days at the club

Amid the uncertainty over Alvarez, Atletico’s other major summer arrival is continuing his own adjustment. Cristian Romero, signed from Tottenham for a fee of around £34.2m this summer, will travel with the squad to Sevilla. Simeone was measured about how quickly the defender should be expected to settle into a new league and a new dressing room.

“He needs time to find his best form and we will not speed up the time to rush him, so that he feels that he is in a position to perform as well as he should,” Simeone said of Romero, striking a notably patient and unhurried tone compared with the urgency surrounding the Alvarez situation. It underlines a broader point about how differently Simeone is handling two very different circumstances within the same squad: a defender settling in on his own timeline, and a forward whose immediate future remains genuinely unclear.

A weekend without certainty

For now, Atletico travel to Sevilla without two of their most important attacking players, against opponents who arrive full of confidence after back-to-back wins. Simeone’s comments throughout the week have carried a consistent message: patience with Alvarez, defence of the group’s focus, and repeated denial that a sale to Barcelona is under consideration.

The two wins Simeone referenced, against Malaga and Villarreal, have kept Atletico in a reasonable position early in the season, and the manager’s insistence that the squad is unaffected by the speculation around Alvarez will be tested properly for the first time against a Sevilla side that has found its own early-season form. Losing at the Sanchez Pizjuan would sharpen the questions Simeone has spent the week trying to deflect, while a positive result would go some way to backing up his public confidence in a squad missing two of its most productive forwards.

What happens next depends largely on information the club has chosen not to share in detail. Alvarez’s description as not currently in good health, paired with two forceful statements ruling out a Barcelona move and persistent talk of Arsenal interest, leaves a situation with more questions than answers heading into the weekend. Simeone’s own words, that everything in life can be turned around as long as your health allows it, suggest a manager choosing his language with real care around a player he still very much wants to keep.

Until Alvarez does return to training, Atletico’s attack will have to find its goals elsewhere, and Simeone’s public tone, patient, protective and repeatedly focused on the player’s wellbeing above his availability, offers the clearest sign yet of how seriously the club is treating a situation it clearly hopes resolves itself before too much of the season passes it by.