Barcelona Want A Holding Midfielder, Who Could They Mean?

Chris Wright

24th, August 2010

13 Comments

BARCELONA coach Pep Guardiola has refused to comment on his club’s pursuit of Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano, but has admitted that a nice new defensive midfielder would be a perfect addition to his squad.

Mascherano opted out of Liverpool’s defeat at the hands of those nouvelle riche oiks Manchester City last night, fuelling speculation that he is on the verge of moving to the Camp Nou, however Guardiola still refuses to be drawn on the issue;

“If a defensive midfielder arrives the needs of the team will be resolved. If one arrives I will be satisfied.

You’ll have to ask [Barca’s sporting director Andoni] Zubizarreta. I will only speak about Mascherano when he’s here, if he comes.”

Quite frankly, I’ll be glad when this transfer window closes as I’m getting rather tired of all the dry-humping going on this time round.

In other Catalan news, it looks increasingly likely that sullen striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic will be on his way back to Italy after just one year with the Spanish champions.

Ibra joined Barca from Inter Milan last year, but it’s the Nerazzuri‘s bestest pals in the whole world AC Milan that have confirmed that they are in advanced talks with the player’s representatives over a big-money return to Serie A.

Posted in Barcelona, Liverpool, Transfers & Rumours

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13 Comments

  1. PhilandoTorres says:

    It was an obscene deal that brought Ibrahimovic to Barca. 70-odd mil AND Eto’o? Fuck me, no wonder Barca are up financial shit creek.

    No doubt Milan will fork out £5 billion to bring the most overrated and overpriced footballer of all time to the San Siro.

  2. johnny says:

    Get your facts straight before you say anything, or else you’re only spreading your ignorance.

    The Ibrahimovic deal WAS appaling, but it was 45 mil. + Eto’o – euro, that is.

  3. John Barnes says:

    Mascherano won’t even start for Barca, I don’t really see why they are even trying to get him, he will want very high wages, will be behind Busquets in the starting XI and is a very un Barca player (ie has no great technique)

  4. niallodinho says:

    Barca are up financial shit creek? When was the last time a club that was in financial mess buy a player for 20m after buying another for 40m? Barca are still one of the richest clubs in the world, it is just that the new president has come in and got the auditors to prepare the accounts in a very pesimistic manner eg fully providing for the 80m lawsuit with the tv company. it is in rossells interest to say that laporta was irresponsible so that he can seem like the one that saved the club. Its all just politics. And it was 40m plus eto… and eto was worth nothing as his contract was up at the end of the season so laporta had to do the deal. he wanted to buy villa but valencia backed out at the last minute.

  5. PhilandoTorres says:

    From the world’s most accurate encyclopedia;

    “He signed a 5-year contract, for €46 million ($65 million) and the exchange of Eto’o (valued at €20 million) and loan of Alyaksandr Hleb (with an option to buy for a €10 million fee), with a €250 million release clause, making Ibrahimović worth €66 million ($94 million).

    Hleb refused the transfer and was later loaned out to Stuttgart, and Barcelona added a reported €3 million fee as compensation, making Ibrahimović worth a final total of €69 million ($99 million).”

    Admittedly, I should have said ‘just under 70 mil’ rather than ’70-odd mil’.

    And, for a little ‘financial madness’ bonus;

    “He signed for an annual salary of €14.5 million including bonuses”

  6. niallodinho says:

    lol at philando torres u just proved everyones point.

    u claimed it was seventy plus etoo, now like the clown u are, u proved it was 40 odd plus etoo.

    you are obviously touched…go back to school

  7. PhilandoTorres says:

    Obviously I didn’t have to say ‘AND Eto’o’ because he was part of the deal, so I was wrong on that score, but the fact remains that the deal was worth 69 mil. I refer you to my first two sentences;

    “It was an obscene deal that brought Ibrahimovic to Barca. 70-odd mil AND Eto’o?”

    I think the word ‘deal’ makes an appearence.

    So, linguistic ambiguity gets me off a hook I put myself on. I could be a shit lawyer at this rate.

  8. niallodinho says:

    http://www.britishcouncil.org/parents-help-books-picture-books.htm

    this might help with your english learning skills.

    that 70 m value is if u value etoo at 20 odd million which barca couldnt as he had told them he would see out the remainder of his contract and leave for free at the end of the year. id say in barcas book he was in for 10m and also his 10m wage would have cancelled out ibras wage so we wont add that into the “deal”.

    the price was around 50m in my eyes, euro obviously, and if barca were to sell now they would get at least 30m euro leaving a total losss on the the 1 year deal at 20m. Still obviously a bad piece of business by barca but not as bad as it looks at first glance and u have to remember ibra scored a lot of crucial goals last season and contributed to winning the league.

  9. PhilandoTorres says:

    That coming from a man who starts sentences with lower case letters?

    Barca did value him at 20 mil – this is fact. So ‘we’ will add that into the deal. As Barca and Inter did.

    “the price was around 50m in my eyes”

    I can see I’ve been having an argument of semantics with a stickler for empirical facts here.

    If it helps, I’ll re-type my opening sentences as I should have in the first place;

    It was an obscene deal that brought Ibrahimovic to Barca. 69 million Euros? Fuck me… etc.

    With any luck, that should bring to an end a tedious dispute, even by internet standards.

  10. niallodinho says:

    lol, ur too thick to even belittle…

  11. PhilandoTorres says:

    Luckily, you’re just the right amount of thick to belittle.

    ‘lol’, ‘ur’ etc. does not a genius make.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Niallodinho is right actually. The deal was 70 million in capital including Eto’o. Not 70 million plus Eto’o. It was just a simple slip of the tongue though, nothing to get into an argument about…

  13. […] it looking increasingly likely that their want-away holding man Javier Mascherano will join Barcelona in the non-to-distant […]

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