Real Madrid transfer news: Club could use Borja as bait to sign Arsenal target Ricardo Rodriguez

Real Madrid are planning to take advantage of Wolfsburg's interest in signing Borja Mayoral on loan to secure the services of Ricardo Rodriguez, according to AS. Arsenal and Manchester City have both been linked with the Switzerland international in recent weeks but Los Blancos could win the race by sweetening the deal with the inclusion of the young Spanish star.

The Champions League winners have been heavily linked with the 23-year-old left-back since earlier this season when his father, who was born in Spain, claimed that the player dreamed about playing in La Liga.

Los Blancos were said to be closely monitoring the situation as they needed to sign a specialist back-up for Marcelo, after during the 2015-2016 campaign Zinedine Zidane was forced to use centre-back Nacho Fernandez, right-back Danilo and Alvaro Arbeloa to cope with the absences of the Brazilian.

Yet earlier in June Marca and AS reported that the French boss has instead opted to recall Fabio Coentrao from his loan spell at Monaco to cover the role.

The news looked to leave the path clear for Arsenal to sign the player amid reports on Kicker claiming that Arsene Wenger was considering activating his €25m (£21.2m, $27.6m) release clause to lure him to the Emirates Stadium.

Furthermore, Wolfsburg sporting director Klaus Allofs admitted then that the Bundesliga outfit were ready to sell the player after Rodriguez himself had asked him to leave, while the player added that it would be exciting to reunite with his international team-mate Granit Xhaka at Arsenal after his compatriot recently became the Gunners' first transfer of the summer.

However, the Gunners have since suffered a number of blows that appear to complicate any deal to sign the defender.

Firstly, Wolfsburg revealed that their £21.2m asking price was going to increase as the release clause in his contract expired on 1 July, then later The Daily Mail reported that Manchester City may also join the race to secure his services.

AS now reveals a new blow for Arsenal after claiming that Real Madrid have rekindled their interest in the player following learning that Coentrado is going to be out of action at least until November due to injury.

The Spanish publication claims that Real Madrid are therefore ready to take advantage of Wolfsburg's interest in Mayoral to get a first option to sign Rodriguez.

Klaus Allofs publicly admitted last week that they want to get the Real Madrid player on loan ahead of next season, but were asking Los Blancos to include an option to make the deal permanent at the end of the campaign to complete the deal.

Now AS says that Real Madrid looks ready to include that option in the loan agreement but only if in exchange Wolfsburg can facilitate the signing of Rodriguez.