Camp Nou Comings & Goings - Rumors & Speculation & elections

I'd be more than happy to see Kluivert shown the door and for some of ManU's cash spent to strengthen the squad. I am pretty worried about our midfield and defense next season and would love to see some quality there. I also would love to see Barca make a run for D'Alessandro. He is really coming into his own for River Plate this year. The money we recieve for a Kluivert sale should be enough to cover his purchase and the purchase of a new center back.

 

sticky? pida y le será concedido!

 

I dont know what to say about PK leaving to ManU, are they blind or insane?

I agree Mike, "el cabezón" (he is also known as "Mandrake") would be a huge addition to our squad also Gabriel Milito or Philippe Mexes or Christian Chivu wouldnt hurt!

I wish we have a good deal regarding all those we want to send out of Cataluña, who knows maybe a package Christanval plus cash for Mexes (maybe we are lucky enough and Auxerre want to sell us their two jewels and Cisse comes too!) or a special deal Rochemback+Geovanni+Alfonso+10 bucks a quarter and a nickel for Crespo!

 

My wish list:

1) Mexes

2) A young Latin American: either Kaka, D'allesandro, or Robinho

3) Makaay

 

Welllllll, the new twist seems to be that there is a clause in PK's contract which would allow him to get out of the current deal for under 2 million Euros if FCB cuts his wages after May 15.

http://www.planetfootball.com/article.asp?id=145122&cpid=23&title=Kluivert+reveals+contract+deadline

You need a compass to navigate some of these contracts, so who knows, but that sounds like a big red flag to me.

I'd do backflips if we could land either Gallas or Mexes. I just don't know if that kind of money will get slung around this off-season. It would address a big need though.

You guys seen much of Deco? I think Porto will likely want to cash in but I wonder if they'd take someone like Riquelme on loan as part of a deal. I know Depor was trying to woo him earlier this spring. This kid has looked brilliant recently and he would make up some goals if we were to lose a 'delantero'.

 

i think youre overestimating how much PK would bring - with transfer fees headed back down due to clubs taking a more frugal stance, IMO 8 million pounds is about the best youre gonna do (not that i think its a fair price - kluivert would be WORTH twice that to manU)

 

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=266335&cc=5739

Some info on the financial crisis in there. anywhere from 55 to 98 million euros is what it sounds like. That is just amazing to me. Barca is a big club and while the wage bill is certainly large it certainly isnt the biggest in the world. I guess we will be lucky to get one or two of the names we are throwing out and may have to sell half the squad to get them.

But hey, maybe the city of Barcelona can chip in, buy our training ground for 200 million euros and then build us a new state of the art training facility somewhere else in the city. That should take care of the problem, and hey it wouldnt be the first time something like that happened in spain.

 

Mike beat me to it; unless the incoming president has a ton of money up his sleeve I see Barca as sellers this year, not buyers, especially with no Champs League income for next season.

Kluivert is Barca's leading scorer this year and since Ferguson seems committed to only playing one striker in Europe, and he has a good striker, why would he take PK?

Now, if Man U wanted to swap Veron for Kluivert, that would be fine with me.

Tony

 

not much surprise here. Cocu has been told that his contract will not be renewed following the end of the season.

http://www.tribalfootball.com/may/spanishnews4070503.html

By the way, have you guys been struck by how adamant kluivert is that he wants to stay at Barca. He is frustrating as anything to watch but you have to applaud his love for Barca.

 

Soñar no cuesta!

I wouldnt mind to see the following players in a blaugrana outfit: Mateja Kezman, Christian Chivu, Roy Makaay, Victor Sikora, Mark van Bommel, Rafael van Der Vaart, Edgar Davids, Jaap Stam, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Djibril Cisse, Steve Marlet, Patrick Vieira, Phillipe Mexes, Vincent Candela, Steed Malbranque, Sylvain Wiltord, Eric Carriere, Sidney Govou, Thierry Henry, Louis Boa Morte, Pedro Resendez Pauleta, Manuel Rui Costa, Nuno Gomes, Hernan Crespo, Roberto Fabian Ayala, Ivan Heinze, Walter Samuel, Fabricio Coloccini, Pablo Aimar, Andres D'Alessandro, Cristian Gonzalez, Lionel Scaloni, Fernando Cavenaghi, Ariel Garce, Marcelo Gallardo, Ariel Ortega, Gabriel Milito, Diego Crosa, Facundo Sava, Ernesto Farías, Lucas Castromán, Mario Jardel, Junior Baiano, Gilberto Silva, Denilson, Juninho Pernambucano, Ronaldinho Gaucho, Marcelinho Carioca, Kaká, Robinho, Diego, Juan, Lucio, Marcio Amoroso, Edmilson, Alessandro Del Piero, Christian Vieri, Christian Manfredini, Alessandro Nesta, Fabio Cannavaro, Vincenzo Montella, Oliver Kahn, Christoph Metzelder, Christian Worns, Sebastian Deisler, Dietmar Hamman, Thomas Rosicky, Pavel Nedved, Jan Koller, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Anders Svensson, Markus Allback, Owen Hargreaves, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Antonio Notario, Ruben Baraja, Fernando Morientes, Jose Antonio Reyes, Javier DePedro, Vicente Rodriguez, Xabi Alonso, Juan Carlos Valerón, Alvaro Novo, Ivan Helguera, Albert Riera, Diego Tristan, Albert Luque, Samuel Etoo, Ibrahim Bakayoko, Ahmed Hosam "Mido", Shola Ameobi, Lomana LuaLua, Vikash Dorasoo, Shunsuke Nakamura, Hidetoshi Nakata, Claudio Pizarro, Nolberto Solano, David Pizarro, Roque SantaCruz, Mario Yepes, Ivan Cordoba, Diego Alonso, Rafael Marquez, and Im sure there are more I'd like to add...

 

Buy the training ground for 200 million? Seems a tad much.

Oh well, the financial troubles are all over Europe.

 

AFCA,
that was the joke in the comment. Several years ago madrid were in a situation almost as precarious as the one barcelona finds themseleves in. they had a presidential election Perez announced that he had a precontract with Luis Figo. This led him to victory and shorty after this Figo arrived, the city of Madrid bought Madrid's training facility for a ridiculous price thereby clearing the club's enormous debt and allowing them to have the financial resources to purchase the players they have in recent years.

 

Mario, I will go out on a limb and predict that you will see at least one of those players in a blaugrana uniform in the future!

 

Financially, they were much worse than us; however, i think that the problems at barca right now transcend the monetary situation and are quite possibly as bad and pervasive as any major club (outside of perhaps Lazio) have seen in the past few seasons.

 

That's it in a nutshell. Even during the down periods the Madrilenos have always kept their dirty linen out of the public eye, and there's the whole 'castizo' element that some people interpret as arrogance, but the fact is they don't waiver in the storm. The next Barça president has to have some of those same qualities and they have to rethink the existing board structure.

On the pitch, well, maybe I've always been a bit naive about it but to steal the old baseball analogy I think you need to be strong up the middle and build around that. Great keeper, great center-back, a good creative midfielder and a reliable striker and you will be on your way. Right now the keeper position is 'iffey', our center-back situation is bad, the midfielders just now seem to be in the same spot from week to week but the striking is fine. It wouldn't take 60 million euros to fix the situation. FCB is an incredible institution and guys will come there to play if they feel respected and they get a chance to play. Its just that the last 3 years have been nothing but over-paying for young guys who have a lot of potential and then everyone in the media freaks out when they can't crack the starting 11. Buy two damn players who you KNOW will be contributing on the pitch every week (Kahn or Chivu, anyone?) and build from there.

Getting down off the soapbox now.

jc

 

I'm almost sure you already read the article in which Robinho states he would like to sign for Barca! actually he dreams about it! I'll coment aboout the financial situation later, right now Im not at home.

 

I read that article and as much as I love the kid lets not forget he is still young and could probably use another year of first team football in Brasil before making it into Barca's first team. I think Jay has a point that we need to really buy some guys who are established and give fill the gaps we have.

For this same reason I think making a move for D'alessandro would also be bad. He is a great player buy would probably take a year to adjust to european football. As much as I would love to see him in a barca jersey I just dont know if this is the right year for these young guys to come in to the club.

I am sure you disagree Mario, and I am torn with this too, but I think that this summer in particular is going to be one in which we need to go out and buy a couple of solid players who can contribute week in and week out.