Atletico Madrid’s Mateu Alemany travels to London to pursue Nicolas Jackson loan

When your starting striker goes down injured, you don’t send an email. You book a flight. That’s exactly what Atletico Madrid’s Director of Men’s Professional Football, Mateu Alemany, has done, traveling to London in person to try to hammer out a loan deal for Chelsea forward Nicolas Jackson. The 25-year-old Senegalese international has become one of the more intriguing transfer sagas of the summer window, with multiple clubs circling a player Chelsea signed from Villarreal back in 2023 for roughly £32 million. The problem for Atletico: they may not be first in line. Why Atletico needs Jackson now The urgency behind Alemany’s trip comes down to one name: Alexander Sørloth. The Norwegian striker’s injury has left a significant gap in Diego Simeone’s attack, and the window is ticking. Atletico aren’t looking to write a massive check. Their preference is a loan arrangement, ideally with some kind of option structure built in. That’s a reasonable ask for a player who just returned from a season-long loan at Bayern Munich, where he failed to trigger any permanent buy clause. Alemany, who took on the Atletico role in October 2025, has been tasked with navigating exactly these kinds of si...