"El Nino" stays in the picture
Tuesday, 03 July 07, 07:22 PM
It's official. There's a new kid in town and his name is Fernando. Rafa has sent out the call and "Towers" has answered. I haven't posted a blog entry in a while as I was awaiting some concrete news. It's arrived with a bang, not disimilar to the sound of castanets being snapped.
I'm very excited about our new number 9. Fergie has been chasing him for years so I'd imagine he's pissed off that he spunked £53m of his summer budget already. Jose and Chelsea held talks with him last summer. Both Ballague and Hunter have reported the fee as being £20m rather than the £26.5m being quoted in the press. The Echo also quotes the fee at £20m and says he took a pay cut which is a good sign.
Luis Garcia is heading in the other direction for a fee of around £4.5m. I'm sorry to see little Luis go but he wanted to return home and he's only got a year left on his contract. He's off to Spain to drink Sangria, as the song says. Here's my favourite of his many goals which came against Juve. Watch out for the mad music on that clip.
Cisse appears to have gone to Marseille on a permanent deal. This isn't much of a surprise but we still haven't got any confirmation of the price. I'm sure it won't be what we would have hoped had he not broken his leg twice.
Momo has signed a new deal at Anfield. I thought that there was a chance that he'd leave given the signing of Lucas from Gremio. Does this mean that Stevie is going to be playing mainly on the right this year?
The youth recruitment drive shows no sign of letting up and time soon. The latest Spanish (could be Basque) starlet on his way to L4 is Mikel San Jose. He's 18, a centre back and has signed from Atletico Bilbao.
Dani Pacheco is also on his way out of Iberia. Barcelona have lost quite a few young players to the premiership over the years. Now we've poached one for ourselves. Pacheco is a 16 year old striker who is nicknamed the killer. He is half Czech and half Catalan, a Czechalan if you will.
Bulgarian midfielder Mihail Alexandrov will be winging his way here from CSKA Sofia in the near future. I can't say that I know too much about him but he's 18 and another "one for the future".
There is considerable talk that Gabriel Heinze is going to leave Utd for Liverpool. I thought he was a superb player until his injury but hasn't been the same since. He would be more reliable than Riise at left back but I don't think he'd offer us the same going forward. Either way, I can't see Sir Ex Lax letting this happen unless Heinze buys himself out of his contract.
Mañana.
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Statement of intent... I suppose, but Eto'o would have been a proper statement of intent. I see Torres' potential as much as anyone, but to pay that kind of money and pay these kinds of wages to
someone who is still essentially unproven... well, moneywise... I guess that is a statement of intent.
I see Torres at £20m as a much safer bet than Nani and Anderson at over £17m each.
It has the potential to be a big disaster for Liverpool and what is it with the enormous transfer fee? Is he worth that much? Good for Atletico for cashing in. I think Atletico will be an exciting
team to watch next season.
That's one way of looking at it, but the fee was definitely more than 20m. Nani and Anderson were both expensive, but they're 18-19, and their wages won't be anything close to what Torres is getting
(and Torres is getting MASSIVE wages). I don't deny that Torres has potential, but he's almost 24 now... and people keep talking up his potential, but the fact is that he's not really made much
progress in the last 3 years or so. He's scored 20 in 49, 13 in 40 and 15 in 40 over the last 3 seasons... that's not overwhelming. I understand the price is high, but he doesn't justify the wages
either. It's not like he's a creative playmaking forward either. I agree it's probably due to Atletico's inconsistency and chopping and changing, but there's a good chance that he's one of those
players who "might never be".
Spanish players tend to not make it in the premiership for some reason and I think Torres is a huge gamble but Mr. Benitez likes his Spanish players. I recall a British Liverpool fan referring to the
stadium where Liverpool play as Costa del Anfield because of the number of Spaniards in the team.
As I said before, Torres is a great joke. The guys is 24 and scored only 75 times playing for Atletico at Spanish League - and he never scored more than 20 goals in one season. Sorry, but he really
sucks. Congratulations to Liverpool, at least now they have someone to play alongside the "marvelous" Crouch...maybe he can sell some shirts to recover part of the investment...but I doubt he can
make the goals Liverpool fans are expecting.
21 Comments
Congratulations... it's exciting, but i'm still gawking at the transfer fee and the wages.
Cheers. It's a big statement of intent from the American owners. It flies in the face of some of the doom mongers who said we were broke.