how about gilardino from parma. he is a hard worker, strong and would benefit from the creativity of our midfield. he may be expensive though
he will be too expensive, one of the big italian clubs will pick him up, i see him replacing cassano at roma.
at the moment it will be hard to find quality EU players in Jan. who ever we sign must fit the system. anelka is a good player but his attitude sucks. real would never give us moro. how about defoe from spurs. he has a good attitude and is a goal scorer . he may not like spain after what happened in madrid. i think real are not interested in marcheraeno any more after poor scouting reports. ernst is good . germans are efficient he would be a good buy and he is only 23.
I'm with you. Of all the guys being bandied about, I think Anelka would be the worst pickup. He's not good enough to displace Eto'o from the starting lineup, which means he's going to be a reserve. Problem is, he doesn't have the mentality to be a reserve and will cause disharmony among the team. He's the wrong guy, and at 8 million pounds (rumored), too expensive to boot. A shame, because I'd love to have him, but I think you're right. Just signed a new contract, so he won't be coming. Also, he's at a point in his career where starting is probably more important to him than playing for a "big" club. I think this is a smoke screen. Granted, JM hasn't had the best autumn at River, but he's still clearly the best young defensive midfielder in the world and a surefire upgrade for the Comedicos. They'd be fools not to go after him. (insert punchline here) I agree with this. The one mistake a lot of people here are making, IMHO, is that they feel we should be looking for an impact player. That's not the case - we need a water carrier, which is what Ernst does. Nothing fancy or beautiful, he just wins the ball and gets it to the creators. He allows the other midfield players to play more freely, which is exactly what we want. As for our forward backup, I'm going to be one of the few pro-Batistuta voices here. He wants to be here, will be cheap, and will be happy to be a backup. We don't need a long-term plan, we need a guy who'll be here until May. We don't need a 90 minute player, we need a 15 minute player. We don't need someone to run and create, we need someone to stand in front of the net and finish - that's it. Batigol, though he's old, can still finish and, my guess is, still give 15 good minutes a week against even the best clubs. Look at it this way: You don't drive a nail with a sledgehammer. That's what picking up Gilardino or Bojinov would be. For what we need Batigol is the right tool for the job. (Incidently, I still think Torrado is the right tool for our midfield job as well, but that seems to have been ruled out. Too bad, but I've got confidence that Rijkaard will get the job done).
I disagree, I think we have to accept the fact that Larsson at best will be around through next season, and Saviola is not looking to fit Rikjaard's plans, I think getting Bojinov would be a great pickup to come in and learn under not just Eto'o, but a veteran like Larsson while he's still around. EU or not, i think it would be smart to pickup a young striker soon. I was hoping for Robinho, i think he would have been a perfect fit, but Bojinov would probably be second. Also, I'm not to clear on the rules, so someone correct me, but isn't the rule in La Liga that you can have more than 3 non-EU players, there just can't be more than 3 on the field at a time? if thats true then Bojinov could play as long as a current non-EU player came off. Messi is sufficient coverage for Champions League, i don't see Eto'o going down injured, i hear he's made of rubber.
i loved batigoal he was the best argentine player since maradona. the short term solution will not work however. saviola looks set to leave and eto will eventually get tired and will need rest. so we must get a guy who can play 90 mins and will be around a while. a young player who can learn from larson and eto. if the kid plays well he could start i do not believe he would only be a bench player. i read on planet soccer that perez( madrid president) stated that none of the barca signings would get a starting position on his team. someone tell him this is football not madrids next top model!
http://www.goal.com/NewsDetail.aspx?idNews=37636&progr=0 great news about Kompany, but it makes it sound like this would be a summer transfer.
riddle me this , if bojinov goes on to become one of the best in the world what are barca gonna do to appease him? sell him? change the formation so that he can play? sit eto'o?
how f'n awesome would this be, even if in the summer. there is a chance that it would be this january tho, anderlecht is out of the CL and UEFA Cup. they are also 7pts off of 1st. idk what will happen though. that team is going to lose so many players this summer; kompany, aruna, wilhemsson, and sum1 who is escaping me i think.
My vote is for Carew......i think it would be a change to have a player of his physical stature come into the game with 15 to go and entertain the crowd with his air assult. I think he is good enough to do the job, humble enough to sit on the bench ( he let Valencia treat him second rate and let him go...roma had no need for him, now thr turks dont like him). He also has all to prove and some serious talent to show, i think he would be interesting on the wing if he played there for barca. But i think there is no need to sign a super star but rather a player who has proven he can finish and I think Frank could tap the most out of him. As for Overmars, the only point I was trying to prove is he did nothing in a Barca shirt... I know he was great at Arsenal, but they had to have been aware of his knee condition when letting him go to Barca, because to my knowledge, he was injured more than he was available here. Point being, he knew he wasnt the same player, so he shouldnt have been trying to play the same way (when he was healthy), he should have been smarter with the ball....but mad props to what he was prior to Barca.
Confirmed also by Sport and EMD: http://www.sport.es/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=34&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=169663&idseccio_PK=637&h= There is much to much talk around Anelka: http://www.sport.es/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=34&idioma=CAS&idnoticia_PK=169665&idseccio_PK=637&h=
Kompany looks good (at least on paper) http://www.marca.es/edicion/noticia/0,2458,569445,00.html http://www.elmundodeportivo.es/20041206/NOTICIA185426419.html
It boggles my mind how most everyone here assumes Saviola won't come back. I, for one, am 99.97% sure he'll be back next season, if not earlier.
can you tell me why you think he will be at barcelona? i shall tell you why i think he wont: 1) FR loves his 4-3-3 and i doubt he would want to change it to appease/fit saviola 2) Saviola will not be playing RW for barca 3) saviola or eto'o are too good to play second fiddle to someone 4) barca just put in a bunch of money in for eto'o, using saviola would make that wasteful 5) it pretty much would mean sergio garcia has no future at barca. dont get me wrong, i think saviola may be better than eto'o and i love him, i just dont see it happening.
I dont think Saviola is better than Eto'o. The reason behind this is Eto'o has been in the top 3 of scoring in La Liga for the past three years and he played on a crappy team last term. Saviola had played on a stacked Barca team and still could not equal what Eto'o was doing. For a head to head comparison, take a look at the el clasico match from last year with Saviola compared to Eto'o this year. Saviola was always a non-factor against madrid, there defense took him out of the game each time....Eto'o performed well this year and has always ( i use this cause this is the only common quality opponent). Eto'o is also a better striker from the stand point he can play in the big games and preform. I cant recall a time when Saviola was doing this consistently.....his goals last year came in bunches against the crappier opponents. I still think Saviola is good, but Eto'o is head over heels better than the little argie.
agree the rabbit is not rated on the same level as eto, eto has always been an extra ordinaly player even when he was with mallorca, scored some really superb goals for them, if i can recall the last time i saw saviola play consistently in a season was during the argentine apertura, 2000-01 season, he was simply outstanding with riverplate with great link up play and supported by valencia`s wizard aimar. i rate him some how but he has since failed to produce the form he showed in the apertura.
i do agree with you that as for now real looks like they made a big blunder by signing samuel and woodgate, it`s really hard to imagine how samuel has lost form, with roma he was rock solid, i didn`t even want him ending up with real madrid , i still think he will rediscover his former best that`s if real don`t get knocked out of the champ league come wednesday, hehehe i see thier season turning to total disaster. as for woodgate, highly rated, one of the best central defenders in the game to me but injury prone, if he was fully fit he will be a great buy, technically brilliant reader of the game and defence organizer and very calm under pressure, his vision at the back remind me of the legendary acmilan sweeper franco baresi or even i you can look at the way the former dortmund`s german international mathias sammer played. i really rate woodgate highly but injuries have taken a big toll on him.
Yeah I agree. Since barca doesn't have a decent left-winger, Rivaldo is an excellent choice. Rivaldo costs too much. Although he is in a downhill, his left foot is still alive.
well i disagree with you here about saviola, "Anywhere he goes, he can score at any time." hah, okay " such a reliable player" i can say he is reliable at times but not consistent now and what i was saying is that he was at his brilliant best back then in 1999 just before we signed him, watching the 1997-98,98-99 apertura seasons he was prolific for riverplate. it `was his partnership with the likes of former juventus marksman marcelo salas the ma, with valencia`s aimar, midfield anchorman sergio berti, mercelo escudelo, the industrious leonardo astrada and of course the mesmerising playmaker marcelo gallardo, all argentine internationals at the time, this team was just breathtaking with saviola playing a great role in it. he was really highly rated when we signed him at the start of the 2001-2002 season, we had so much expectations from him because his strike rate with riverplate was outstanding, however he failed to fit in the side as there was to much competition for places that 2001-02 season, we had rivaldo, kluivert, dani who was injury prone and geovanni so he really never settled well. it was during 2002-03 season with rivaldo gone to acmilan that his twin partnership with kluivert produced some good goals from saviola at a consistent level some how comparable to his final year with riverplate, in 2003-04 season he tried but he really never produced that sparkling form and well if he had been such a reliable player during that season who scores goals any time, well then i think rijkaard made a big big mistake by loaning his best player to monaco for this 2004-05 season. which i think his loan move was justfied and you can see that his replacement eto has been brilliant for us so far at are consistent level.
note also that the only reason they are thinking of bringing back saviola is because of our current injury crisis and also his form this season in the le championnart hasn`t been that impressive, yes he has scored some goals for monaco in the champ league but Mohamed Kallon has been more prolific for deschamps men and only injuries affecting his fine start to the season, still 11 goals in a few starts compared to saviola`s 5 goals tells the whole story, even the likes of uruguayan Javier Chevanton and another target man Emmanuel Adebayor have more goals than the rabbit, he only need to reproduce his former best which he is struggling to do, but yes he is a good player. also reflect back on how villareal`s argentine playmaker riquelme was playing for boca before we signed him and how he is playing now, no one doubts that riquelme is an extra quality player but he also has struggled in europe yet he was more than just outstanding for boca even leading them to the inter continental championship glory when they beat real madrid in tokyo in 2000, that boca junior side that had the likes of hugo ibarra, sabastian battaglia, marcelo delgado and the goal grabber martin palermo