El Pipita wrote:

The 25-year-old, who has since excelled at new club Manchester City, was tipped to be closing in on a move to the Santiago Bernabeu during the summer of 2010, but according to the Mestalla outfit's supremo, any potential deal was vetoed by the 48-year-old coach.

"I have to say that Silva did have the feeling that an agreement was to be reached, as Real Madrid had the will and willingness to sign him, but with the change of coach, everything stopped," Llorente told AS.

"It was then that Manchester City came in and closed the transaction.

"Let's say that although we had several discussions with Madrid for the transfer of Silva and saw that they wanted it, one day they called us and told us their priorities had changed, and then, of course, negotiations broke down and we studied other offers."

There have been some suggestions that Valencia deliberately made negotiations with Madrid difficult, but Llorente dismissed the rumours, expressing the belief that their forthcoming opponents undervalue native players.

"Here at Valencia, we feel that Real Madrid would rather pay more for a player from a foreign club than from Spain," he stated.

Full interview: http://www.goal.com/en/news/12/spain/2011/11/17/2761452/valencia-president-manuel-llorente-jose-mourinhos-arrival-at

futbol_bill wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Silva needs the ball at his feet a lot... with CR7, Ozil, Alonso and Benz (when he plays), that's too many. You need guys who are off the ball players.

And that explains why he wants to bring in Neymar to replace Di Maria?????????

futbol_bill wrote:I know you guys don't like to hear anything bad about Mou, but he did make some mistakes when he came here. He wanted the new players to be his not unlike Perez wanting to get rid of Calderon signings.

Selecting Di Maria over Silva was simply a mistake. Silva was and is a much better player. Agreeing to Pedro Leon deal and having Canales join club (he was set to remain for another year at Racing unless new coach wanted him on team) were wrong decisions. He had the ability to say no to both of these.

Anyways what's done is done and we haven't lost any trophies because of these mistakes.

@babun, the price for Silva and Di maria was the same 30M. I don't think there is a bias against Spanish players just that Mou does have a favorism towards Portugal (in di Maria case, he had played in Portugal). I don't think Mou knew a lot about Spanish players (other than those in CL or WC) prior to coming here.

Speaking about that, the other day, the coach of youth seleccion said about VDB that he not only knows every spanish available WC player, he gets regular updates on youth and it said he even knows about talent under 16. If he ever retires from NT, we should hire him back as a talent scout.

futbol_bill wrote:

babun1024 wrote:VDB is required to know everything about any Spanish talent because he is the NT coach I'd like him back as well if he doesn't hold grudges
Bill, you still didn't get the point about Di Maria. Silva is the better player overall but he is no winger like Di Maria. We need someone like Di Maria in our system
The choice was Ozil or Silva... Mou chose Ozil
Again, you're targeting the wrong player, it's Ozil or another AM in our system. Silva or Canales, if he were brought to succeed, they should've outperformed Ozil anyway

No you're wrong, Silva plays wing at Man City and with seleccion. He did play Cam occasionally at Valencia, but he also played on wing as well. Like most Spanish wingers, they tend to cut to middle a lot, but he is a winger. The choice for that wing with madrid was Silva, Di maria and Navas. El Nido said no re Navas, Mou said no re Silva. The Cam position was to be Kaka, Van Der Vaart and Canales until Ozil was found. Silva was never being consider re CAM.

Sure Di maria sticks to his wing a little more and probably has a little more speed, but there isn't any doubt as to who is the better player. Perhaps Mou felt he wouldn't stick to the wing (like Pedro Leon's mistake with Mou), but have you noticed what Di Maria does when he gets the ball. He puts his head down and dribbles always to the left (towards the centre). You tell me what the difference re wingers with this in mind.

futbol_bill wrote:I know you guys don't like to hear anything bad about Mou, but he did make some mistakes when he came here. He wanted the new players to be his not unlike Perez wanting to get rid of Calderon signings.

Selecting Di Maria over Silva was simply a mistake. Silva was and is a much better player. Agreeing to Pedro Leon deal and having Canales join club (he was set to remain for another year at Racing unless new coach wanted him on team) were wrong decisions. He had the ability to say no to both of these.

mtfootball wrote:So it was because of Mourinho.

futbol_bill wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Silva needs the ball at his feet a lot... with CR7, Ozil, Alonso and Benz (when he plays), that's too many. You need guys who are off the ball players.

And that explains why he wants to bring in Neymar to replace Di Maria?????????

El Pipita wrote:Reason why we didn't sign Silva wasn't Ozil. Di Maria was our first signing while Ozil was the last. Ozil has been brought due to his world cup performance and our lack of creativity. Kaka was injured and VDV wasn't good enough for AMF so we had to find a AMF.

The debate regarding Di Maria/Silva/Navas started before WC. Mou had to change our formation to 4-2-3-1 so from the first day he was searching for a winger and in that time none of us were looking for Ozil. in fact i doubt many of us known Ozil before his world cup performance.