😃 | #watfordfc's new number 7️⃣!@gerardeulofeu 🐝 pic.twitter.com/B6Mq0iA0oK— Watford Football Club (@WatfordFC) January 30, 2018
La UD Las Palmas, el FC Barcelona y Sergi Samper acuerdan la finalización de la cesión.https://t.co/qyNoNoKZrZ pic.twitter.com/tdMKfZpPAR— UD Las Palmas (@UDLP_Oficial) January 31, 2018 Not that it matters much but with Sergi Samper out for the rest of the season Las Palmas and Barça have agreed to terminate the player's loan spell. So he will be recovering under Barça's watch.
Glad we can oversee his recovery, hope Las Palmas is still responsible for his salary (at least as much of it as they were paying). Should not be able to cut a loan short mid season without a penalty.
Interesting video cast summarizing status of the loaned out players, mostly the younger ones who may be back, though even That Man Named Douglas gets a mention:
Why on earth would they take Douglas back when we have Samedo , Roberto and Vidal ?? Plus Douglas was worse than useless .
The problem is that we have Douglas under contract till 2019, and he has failed to impress at the clubs we've loaned him out to, so it is not about us bringing him back. It is that we are stuck with him if we cannot find someone to borrow him (and we probably have to pay part of his salary) or buy him. I mean there were scary rumors that Benfica were going to return him to us in January (cut the loan short) which thankfully did not happen. The best shot is that someone is willing to sign him to a cheaper but longer term deal for no transfer fee if Douglas and FCB mutually rescind the last year of his contract; but Douglas's only incentive to do that is he would get to pick his next club and he'd get to sign for more years.
That was nice to see, however, the draw let Lazio slip past them into 4th, and (supposedly) we need Inter to qualify for CL with a 4th place finish. If they do that then supposedly they are required to buy Rafinha for a pretty penny (supposedly 35M Euros). If they fail to advance they are supposedly not obligated to buy him for that much and if they still want him (seems they would) will likely try to get a reduced fee.
Quick update of loan-outs via Whoscored, most will never play for Barca but their playing time and ratings may help indicate how much they might be worth (if I do this again I might instead use the Transfermarkt ratings which guess at value) Marlon 22 y.o. CB also played RB a couple times 21 matches with Nice 6.44 https://www.whoscored.com/Players/131382/Show/Marlon-Santos Samper 23 y.o. DM with Las Palmas only 5 matches before ACL tear 6.79 https://www.whoscored.com/Players/135243/Show/Sergi-Samper Munir 22 y.o. Center Forward with Alaves in 28 matches 6.72 https://www.whoscored.com/Players/143158/Show/Munir-El-Haddadi Deulofeu 23 y.o. attacking mid with Watford in 4 PL matches 7.44 (vs. 6.8 with Barca) https://www.whoscored.com/Players/98317/Show/Gerard-Deulofeu Douglas 27 y.o. RB only appeared in 5 matches for Benfica 6.78 https://www.whoscored.com/Players/74533/Show/Douglas Arda Turan - 31 left mid 6 matches with Basaksehir 7.02, not coming back but we hope to get a fee when he is sold https://www.whoscored.com/Players/21501/Show/Arda-Turan Rafinha 25 y.o. central attacking mid with Inter for 7 matches 6.68 https://www.whoscored.com/Players/106590/Show/Rafinha
Today, Rafinha scored the 0-2 in an 0-4 Serie A win vs Udinese. Inter is 5th, a Europa League group stage place.
Inter gained 2 points on Lazio today, Roma has not played yet. Inter plays Lazio on the last game of the season in Rome, if they can win that game (big if) they should vault into CL spots (they are 2 points back of Lazio right now, 1 behind Roma but Roma plays later / has game in hand). Supposedly if Inter makes CL they must buy Rafinha for 35M. They want to buy him but want to pay us less, we don't really want him back (IMHO), so we should all root for Inter to qualify for CL.
Rafinha's dad asks for clarity on status, just win the last game (at Lazio) and Rafinha has all the clarity he needs (as it gets them into CL which supposedly makes his 35M buyout option mandatory for Inter to exercise) http://www.marca.com/en/football/barcelona/2018/05/17/5afd6a73e5fdeac4068b4691.html
Rafinha should have stayed and played instead of Gomes. With his short spell at Inter he has shown his class.
I agree he is better than Gomes, but I don't think he wants to come back for a Gomes role (as in spot duty), nor do I think he has shown starter quality at Barca. So personally I'd be happy getting 35M for him. But I don't want to take the 20M or so Inter is likely to offer if they don't make CL. We know Iniesta is gone, we hope Gomes is gone. We either promote or loan out Samper, Alena, and Oriol Busquets. Starters are Busquets, Coutinho, and Rakitic. Supported by Paulinho, Denis, Sergi Roberto if he'd rejoin midfield, Arthur if/when he joins, and any of the youth players we don't loan out. In front of them are Messi, Suarez, Griezmann if he joins, Dembele, Alcacer (probably sold esp. if we add Griezmann), Vidal (probably sold), and possibly Arnaiz from Barca B. Plus we own Munir still. Hard to see much space for Rafinha, plus he'll want to be a starter or first mid off bench.
tomorrow is the deadline for Inter to complete the signing of Rafinha and its not looking like they are going to pull the trigger. otherwise he will return to Barca
Since the qualified for CL they are supposed to be obligated to sign him for the fixed price, failure to do that would be a huge issue and could get them brought up on disciplinary charges. But they are trying to negotiate a lower price possibly by including other players or first refusals on players. Really not impressed by them but i don't see Rafinha in blaugrana again.
7 goals in 4 games so far for Paco with Dortmund. Scored a hat-trick today, including the winner in stoppage time vs Augsburg.
Hah, yeah, we were discussing this earlier today in the Transfer thread because I couldn't find/didn't see this thread. @Gilmango says there that BvB have a cheap purchase option, which at the moment is looking like a real bummer.
Is it true that if we buy Pogba in January he would be eligible to play for us in the KO games? Get it done Ernesto!
If we bought Pogba Valverde probably wouldn't play him and go with Rakitic and Sergi Roberto instead ..
Arda Turan in the news for all the wrong reasons, still suspended https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2018/10/10/5bbe5fa4e5fdea5e358b4568.html Last May this happened: TURKISH football authorities on Thursday banned the country’s best known player Arda Turan, on loan at Super Lig contenders Basaksehir from Barcelona, for a record 16 games after he shoved and verbally abused a referee. Turan -- who will now miss the last two rounds of this season and almost half of next season -- was banned for 10 matches for attacking the assistant referee, three matches for insulting him and another three matches for threatening him.
Scored the winner in the 3-2 win against Bayern , there is no way in hell they won't buy him because i don't think they can find a better forward that is extremely cheap like him , but what do we care we have freaking Munir to replace Suarez in the future
In the massive title-deciding fixture on the final day of play in the Chinese Super League Paulinho The God scored a brace in the first half to put Guangzhou Evergrande 3-2 up against league leaders Shanghai SIPG. But the party-pooping jealous referee gifted Shanghai a penalty for a ridiculous non-existent foul supposedly committed by The God which allowed Shanghai to equalize at 4-4 en route to a 5-4 defeat for The God's team and the corrupt CSL title going to the team that wore all-white. View the highlights at your peril.