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Pablo departing Malaga's training camp in Garderen.
Pablo Fornals leaves training camp ahead of Villarreal transfer

Pablo Fornals leaves training camp ahead of Villarreal transfer

The LaLiga side have agreed to pay the midfielder's 12-million-euro release clause and will leave Malaga with just 16 first-team players

sergio cortés

Monday, 24 July 2017, 16:39

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Midfielder Pablo Fornals has left Malaga's training camp in the Netherlands ahead of a 12-million-euro move to league rivals Villarreal.

The player communicated his wish to move to both sporting director Francesc Arnau and coach Míchel and said his farewells to his collegues before leaving the camp just before 1pm on Monday afternoon.

This was despite the player featuring in Malaga's 1-0 friendly defeat to Duisburg on Sunday. Though it was apparent that the player would be leaving (as of Friday when the news first broke), it was understood that a delay in sourcing the funds on Villarreal's part would hold up the deal. These difficulties, however, have now been overcome. His five-year deal with Villarreal will be officialised imminently.

Pablo is the third key player to depart this summer after Sandro joined Everton for six million euros and Ignacio Camacho left for Wolfsburg in a deal potentially upwards of 13 million.

With less than a month to go until the start of the season, Malaga have a lot of business still to do and will be hard pushed to recruit players of a similar calibre to those who have left.

In fact, Míchel's squad, currently training in Garderen, boasts just 16 first-team players guaranteed of a place while the futures of Cifu, Mikel, Chory Castro and Michael Santos remain in the balance.

Head coach Míchel has grown increasingly frustrated, firstly by the failure to sign Jorge Meré, and now by Pablo's departure. He believes the club's slowness in the market is costing them and a heated meeting with Arnau is understood to have taken place.

The sporting director has since returned to Malaga.

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