Transfer Rumors

windkick wrote:Probably one of our most quite transfer windows

I have got a feeling that we will have a dig for Martinez and if he doesn't come we will be relying on Barta and Fontas to do the back up. Hopefully these two players start playing more regularly for us in preseason (Fontas is still yet to get the clear), gaining confidence into the season. I seriously hope to get a CB and it would stupid not to... Martinez wasn't my first choice defender though if we get him, Im happy because we have someone who has experience there (little though better none) and he has kept out good players when playing CB with Bilbao. Martinez is better than relying on B team... For sure, others my disagree.

Out of curiosity, why haven't Barca had a look at the likes of Howedes, and some of the other Bundesliga CBs? In general many of them are confident on the ball and good in defense.

RedOranje wrote:Out of curiosity, why haven't Barca had a look at the likes of Howedes, and some of the other Bundesliga CBs? In general many of them are confident on the ball and good in defense.

Because we aren't interested in them... Bro, we haven't been great in the transfer market for some time now... Its a gift of ours....

paxtonpale wrote: Martinez is better than relying on B team... For sure, others my disagree.

Agreed but the price is why everyone disagrees, 40m could buy TS or could have.

Bartra + Fontas, it seems... I Like... #poormatpol

Good Luck for Both, hope that they succeed at Barca.

RedOranje wrote:Out of curiosity, why haven't Barca had a look at the likes of Howedes, and some of the other Bundesliga CBs? In general many of them are confident on the ball and good in defense.

No idea.

Sometimes we appear so narrow-sighted in our targets. Maybe just my critical impression, but it seems we lock our eyes on one target with many one back option to that player and thats it.

If it fails, B team.

Its not the worst thing in the world, the B team have quality, but the niavity at times astounds me. We literally pass over 2 or 3 great deals that are begging for us to make every season.

Donuts wrote:

paxtonpale wrote: Martinez is better than relying on B team... For sure, others my disagree.

Agreed but the price is why everyone disagrees, 40m could buy TS or could have.

Rosell is a good dealer. Martinez of course is definately not worth 40m. His market value is around 25-30m. I have faith in Barta ad Muniesa (who is injuried). Fontas is one of my favourite players at Barca though at times he is unconvincing. He will have a better season tbh like Sanchez and Fabregas and I reckon he can excell at DM rather than CB tbh.

Can someone explain why they think Rosell is a good dealer?

Sold Touré for €24m. He was worth at least €35m back then
Sold Chygrynskiy for €15m (for €10m loss)
Fábregas for €34m
Sánchez for €26+11 million
Sold Cáceres for €3m (for €13.5m loss)
Sold Ibrahimović for €24m (for €42m loss)
Didn't make any money out of the Bojan or Romeu deals. Just glorified loan spells that will cause overall loss to the club if they wish for the players to return.
Let Márquez, Henry, Henrique and Hleb leave for free.

Mascherano for €19m was a bargain. The rest of them were standard. You want to know a good dealer?

The same Galliani that sold TS and Ibra for less than the price of Carroll and Downing?

I love how people use Carroll's price tag as a reference point, as if it was so fair and logical to even the most faithful Scousers.

There's more examples than that..... Selling Ibra for less than 20m euros is being ripped off.

Galliani is no master negotiator he is someone who has got a lucky on a few occasions and takes advantage of certain situations.

The only time he made an outstandingly good deal was when he signed Ibra from Barca and that was because Barca was desperate.

He got lucky and took advantage, nothing more nothing less.

It wasn't the case of AC Milan giving Thiago Silva and Ibrahimović go for cheap, but Liverpool getting ripped off on both deals.

Besides, Milan not only earned €62 million from the transfers by a letting 30 and 28 year old go but they sold their top two earners, saving more than €20 million per year as well.

62m for two players when they rejected 50m for TS alone less than 2 weeks earlier.

Master Negotiator indeed.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:62m for two players when they rejected 50m for TS alone less than 2 weeks earlier.

Master Negotiator indeed.

Yeah I'm sure all those rumours were true. Especially the €50m for Silva

Muniesa is now starting to seem like a cliche: tons of promise but it seems like he'll never develop as a footballer due to injuries.

Mole to my knowledge they rejected 40M for TS alone, not 50M.

danyjr wrote:

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:62m for two players when they rejected 50m for TS alone less than 2 weeks earlier.

Master Negotiator indeed.

Yeah I'm sure all those rumours were true. Especially the €50m for Silva

Yep because L'Equipe has an habit of making crap up for the sake of it

Why would anyone reject a €50 million offer only to accept a €40 million offer a week later?

Sure, believe whatever L'Equipe says even though 1) I don't trust a newspaper but I trust my brain (see above) and 2) I don't recall L'Equipe ever claiming that PSG actually offering Milan €50m for Silva alone.

I like Batra. People should stop complaining and give this kid a chance (him and Fontas) . What makes you think Hummels is not going to the next Chigrynski. All these defenders Konscieny, Agger, Hummels, Vermalean, J. martinez, will cost at least £ 30 million and for someone who will likely be just a sub, its ridiculous because ,think of it, --- we pay £ 30 million for CB X plus £ 10 mill in wages + bonuses , Or we could just trust in Pique, Puyol, Mascherano, Batra,Fontas and save about £35 million. We can still win the CL or laliga because we all know that we lost the league due to TOO MANY DRAWS AWAY FROM HOME. nothing to do with our CBs, more to do with Lack of firepower upfront!!!!!!!! Hummels, J Martinez, Agger, Vartoghen would not have helped us win those away liga matches or games vs a very defensive Chelsea. injuries to Villa and Pedro let us down not lack of a back up CB!!!!!!!.

With all these CBs, hummels, Agger, e.t.c. has anyone contempleted how they will fare in a HIGH-LINE keeping team like Barca???? We saw from AVB at chelsea that even good CBs like Terry, would struggle if they are not used to playing a high line. (remember Badstuber and Hummels vs BALOTELLI the EUROs).

I'm sure Tito and co. know more about what the team needs more than most Barca fans on these sites. Most of them just want a Pretty looking team on paper but there is more to BARCA than that. I thought we would all have learnt from our past experiences e.g Chigrynski (a clasic strong, powerful, experienced, good-passing defender , JUST LIKE HUMMELS).

I say to Barca- ''dont even spend more than £12 million on a CB this summer, if you cant find anyone stick to Batra and Fontas. Busquets, Pedro, Thiago have shown us that you dont necessarily need to have experience from other leagues to make it in the Barca team. On the other hand, Chygrinski, Ibrahimovic, Hleb, Afellay , have shown us that gained experience from other leagues can be way OVERRATED at times!!!

Yet that's all totally relevant to " galliani is a master negotiator " isnt it

where's there's many examples of this

also all your "facts" are based by what the media assume no one knows the fees apart from the clubs in question.

1. L'equipe is probably the most reliable source around and they did say it.

2. Milan did it because they were desperate because of the high wage bill.

these are all facts, you still havent backed up yours about galliani being a master negotiator.

would you mind telling what master strokes he's pulled ?

btw getting a player on a free isn't a master stroke its called taking advantage of someone's contract situation.

apart from the Ibra situation which again was taking advantage of a situation there is no show of master negotiation.

If he was such a master negotiator Milan wouldn't be forced to such buy average players like Bakaye and Constant.

gondov wrote:I like Batra. People should stop complaining and give this kid a chance (him and Fontas) . What makes you think Hummels is not going to the next Chigrynski. All these defenders Konscieny, Agger, Hummels, Vermalean, J. martinez, will cost at least £ 30 million and for someone who will likely be just a sub, its ridiculous because ,think of it, --- we pay £ 30 million for CB X plus £ 10 mill in wages + bonuses , Or we could just trust in Pique, Puyol, Mascherano, Batra,Fontas and save about £35 million. We can still win the CL or laliga because we all know that we lost the league due to TOO MANY DRAWS AWAY FROM HOME. nothing to do with our CBs, more to do with Lack of firepower upfront!!!!!!!! Hummels, J Martinez, Agger, Vartoghen would not have helped us win those away liga matches or games vs a very defensive Chelsea. injuries to Villa and Pedro let us down not lack of a back up CB!!!!!!!.

With all these CBs, hummels, Agger, e.t.c. has anyone contempleted how they will fare in a HIGH-LINE keeping team like Barca???? We saw from AVB at chelsea that even good CBs like Terry, would struggle if they are not used to playing a high line. (remember Badstuber and Hummels vs BALOTELLI the EUROs).

I'm sure Tito and co. know more about what the team needs more than most Barca fans on these sites. Most of them just want a Pretty looking team on paper but there is more to BARCA than that. I thought we would all have learnt from our past experiences e.g Chigrynski (a clasic strong, powerful, experienced, good-passing defender , JUST LIKE HUMMELS).

I say to Barca- ''dont even spend more than £12 million on a CB this summer, if you cant find anyone stick to Batra and Fontas. Busquets, Pedro, Thiago have shown us that you dont necessarily need to have experience from other leagues to make it in the Barca team. On the other hand, Chygrinski, Ibrahimovic, Hleb, Afellay , have shown us that gained experience from other leagues can be way OVERRATED at times!!!

Tbh, Agger could easily fit into a high defensive line. Vertoghen and Martinez as well. Yes, it was our lack of attacking power that didn't allow us to score as many goals as we hoped away from home though also we have troubles in defense. Injuries, consisteny, fatigue all hit in with our defense last season. We need a central defender. We have Villa, Afellay back from injury and hopefully Pedro back to full form, we may have the attacking flare as we all hoped. Also remember, its Fabregas and Sanchez's second season. They should both have a better season than last season. Also the youngesters may have a good preseason and bring that form into the occasional games that they may play. There should be not as much problems in our attack as we had last season. We shouldn't be relying as much on Messi this season at all. Spend the money in defense and let next season be spent in attack for the aging Villa...

gondov wrote:I like Batra. People should stop complaining and give this kid a chance (him and Fontas) . What makes you think Hummels is not going to the next Chigrynski. All these defenders Konscieny, Agger, Hummels, Vermalean, J. martinez, will cost at least £ 30 million and for someone who will likely be just a sub, its ridiculous because ,think of it, --- we pay £ 30 million for CB X plus £ 10 mill in wages + bonuses , Or we could just trust in Pique, Puyol, Mascherano, Batra,Fontas and save about £35 million. We can still win the CL or laliga because we all know that we lost the league due to TOO MANY DRAWS AWAY FROM HOME. nothing to do with our CBs, more to do with Lack of firepower upfront!!!!!!!! Hummels, J Martinez, Agger, Vartoghen would not have helped us win those away liga matches or games vs a very defensive Chelsea. injuries to Villa and Pedro let us down not lack of a back up CB!!!!!!!.

The problem is that Pique, Puyol and Fontas are too injury prone, and we have lost Abidal who could play CB, so it's not an unrealistic scenario that we would be stuck with a partnership of Mascherano - Bartra, good enough for most league games probably, but not for a CL final.

I disagree that all the options being talked about would be about 30M pounds. I can't see any one of them being more than 25M euros, with Hummels being the most expensive one and we're not going for him if rumors are to be believed. Javi Martinez would be 20-25M, Bayern has valued him at 22M euros and I think that's spot on, Agger would be even less.

You seem to be against all transfers because of a few bad ones, which is a ridiculous stance. I suppose we never should've signed Dani Alves then, he could have easily been another Chygrinwhatever!

Also, how has Afellay flopped yet? He has barely played. It's ironic to me that you're encouraging us to give canteranos a chance but not him...

BC. Your point is right.
Afellay has not flopped. His style is not suited imo to Barca imo and is better off with a Premier League side though that doesn't mean he is rubbish with Barca. He simply isn't suited though has been important in important games. He was injuried last season, doesnt mean he flopped. The game time he will have, Im sure he will do well.
Agger is probably our only realistic option in terms of money that we are linked with. Dede would easily fit our category though I don't think we are linked with him. Sahko would be great and is similar to Dede though again, we are not linked with him. Martinez would be decent if we got him for a decent price not the stupid total of 40m.

More or less agree with gondov's points but to say Barcelona performed sub-standard away from home solely because of their lack of firepower is underestimating their lacklustre defence. For all we know, Piqué has become complacent due to not having any kind of competition to keep his place in the starting line-up and Mascherano, while performed well in the majority of matches, is not a true centre back and still prone to mistakes, especially in leading the defensive and a lack of an instinctive feel for offside trap.

Add this to the fact that Barcelona were very vulnerable in set-pieces and long balls due to the lack of aerial presence and Alba's addition in defence certainly won't help the case.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:these are all facts, you still havent backed up yours about galliani being a master negotiator.

They are not facts but opinions and I won't entertain the idea of continuing a pointless argument with someone who's opinions are based on rumours and believes someone will accept an offer of €40m having rejected €50m a week earlier because he is desperate, let alone someone like Galliani.

tada!

gondov wrote:I like Batra. People should stop complaining and give this kid a chance (him and Fontas) . What makes you think Hummels is not going to the next Chigrynski. All these defenders Konscieny, Agger, Hummels, Vermalean, J. martinez, will cost at least £ 30 million and for someone who will likely be just a sub, its ridiculous because ,think of it, --- we pay £ 30 million for CB X plus £ 10 mill in wages + bonuses , Or we could just trust in Pique, Puyol, Mascherano, Batra,Fontas and save about £35 million. We can still win the CL or laliga because we all know that we lost the league due to TOO MANY DRAWS AWAY FROM HOME. nothing to do with our CBs, more to do with Lack of firepower upfront!!!!!!!! Hummels, J Martinez, Agger, Vartoghen would not have helped us win those away liga matches or games vs a very defensive Chelsea. injuries to Villa and Pedro let us down not lack of a back up CB!!!!!!!.

With all these CBs, hummels, Agger, e.t.c. has anyone contempleted how they will fare in a HIGH-LINE keeping team like Barca???? We saw from AVB at chelsea that even good CBs like Terry, would struggle if they are not used to playing a high line. (remember Badstuber and Hummels vs BALOTELLI the EUROs).

I'm sure Tito and co. know more about what the team needs more than most Barca fans on these sites. Most of them just want a Pretty looking team on paper but there is more to BARCA than that. I thought we would all have learnt from our past experiences e.g Chigrynski (a clasic strong, powerful, experienced, good-passing defender , JUST LIKE HUMMELS).

I say to Barca- ''dont even spend more than £12 million on a CB this summer, if you cant find anyone stick to Batra and Fontas. Busquets, Pedro, Thiago have shown us that you dont necessarily need to have experience from other leagues to make it in the Barca team. On the other hand, Chygrinski, Ibrahimovic, Hleb, Afellay , have shown us that gained experience from other leagues can be way OVERRATED at times!!!

Maybe because hummels plays for the national team of germany, is one of the most highly regarded CB's in the world? JUST a thought..

danyjr wrote:More or less agree with gondov's points but to say Barcelona performed sub-standard away from home solely because of their lack of firepower is underestimating their lacklustre defence. For all we know, Piqué has become complacent due to not having any kind of competition to keep his place in the starting line-up and Mascherano, while performed well in the majority of matches, is not a true centre back and still prone to mistakes, especially in leading the defensive and a lack of an instinctive feel for offside trap.

Add this to the fact that Barcelona were very vulnerable in set-pieces and long balls due to the lack of aerial presence and Alba's addition in defence certainly won't help the case.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:these are all facts, you still havent backed up yours about galliani being a master negotiator.

They are not facts but opinions and I won't entertain the idea of continuing a pointless argument with someone who's opinions are based on rumours and believes someone will accept an offer of €40m having rejected €50m a week earlier because he is desperate, let alone someone like Galliani.

tada!

Your points indicate exactly why we need another central defender. To Gondov, no need to use money this season for a striker because of a lack of attacking threat. We need a centreback and Danjyr pointed this out with his post.

I understand your points but.....remember, we also conceded fewer goals than Madrid, who won La Liga.

The past two years, we've played with Pique and Puyol at center back. For the past season and a half, Mascherano has joined them. And at various times, Abidal has been available to play center back as well. And over the past two years, we've conceded fewer goals than any team in Europe (having played more games).

The only one of these backs we've lost is Abidal. And we've added Alba, Fontas (who was only available for a little while last year), Montoya and Bartra. If not for the injury, we would have had Muniesa as well.

If our defense has been more effective than ANYBODY'S over the past two years, and has been strengthened, what's the BIG problem? I agree, it would be great if we could strengthen the defense further. But it just doesn't see to be the HUGE priority that everybody claims.