One member of the midfield ranks at La Liga giants Real Madrid is already considered close to untouchable when it comes to starting status in new manager José Mourinho’s XI.

That’s according to Diario AS, who highlight Federico Valverde as the player in question.

The subject of the engine room puzzle has of course proven a prominent talking point in Spain’s capital across the early weeks of the new season.

With a number of altogether differing profiles at his disposal, the aforementioned José Mourinho has been forced to play around with his options, in search of the right balance in the middle of the park.

Jude Bellingham is considered a lock as the most advanced midfielder in Real’s line-up, leaving the likes of Eduardo Camavinga, Bernardo Silva, Aurélien Tchouaméni, Arda Güler and Fede Valverde to battle it out for the two ‘pivot’ roles.

As alluded to above, though, it would appear that, in fact, only one of these slots truly remains up for grabs at present. As per a report from Spanish outlet AS:

‘As for the double pivot, based on what we’ve seen so far, Valverde is non-negotiable.’