Monchi Forever! (or a while longer at least)

It has been reported that Monchi has extended until 2017.  His contract had been uncertain and there were some rumors that the Spanish football federation were trying to recruit him.

I’m really happy about this news.  He has undoubtedly made some mistakes recently.  But under Monchi this team has unquestionably seen unprecedented success.  I think that having stability in our GM, especially as things are sure to get crazy with Del Nido’s upcoming “vacation”, is an unambiguously good thing.

What does everyone think?  And what do we think of his most recent 3 million Euro signing Baba Diawara?

The state of la liga

I hate following up Theo’s great tactical breakdown so shortly after with something like this.  That conversation should keep going.  And plus, he promised us more installments anyway…

But, if you haven’t read it, this is a really good article from sports illustrated (?!?!?) on the state of la liga.  Troubling for sure.  Well worth the read.  And some mention of Sevilla as one of the “pretenders” (it hurts to read, but we can’t really argue…).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/sid_lowe/08/26/la.liga.preview/

On the imbalance of the league:

“Last season, second-place Madrid finished 25 points ahead of Valencia in third and 33 points ahead of Sevilla in fourth. In terms of points, those two sides, supposed challengers, were closer to relegation zone than the title.”

On Sevilla’s economic prospects:

“Of Spain’s 20 first-division clubs, only six have spent more than $6 million. And two of them are Valencia and Sevilla, third and fourth last season, respectively. Worse, while they have spent $33.4 million and $13.7 million, respectively, they have recovered $99.6 million and $18.4 million. In other words, their net spend is zero; they have sold more than they have signed. If Luis Fabiano departs from Sevilla — and with the club having been eliminated from the Champions League this week, someone is probably going to have to go — that figure will be even starker. And before you say, “Well, they’ve got cash, at least. Valencia did brilliantly, as now it has $66 million burning a hole in its pocket,” it hasn’t. That money is burning a hole in the bank’s pocket.”

Will be interesting to see what falls out over the next week or two.  If the team decides it needs to get better, or if it needs to cut its losses and hope we can scrape by this season and find our way back into the Champs League.

If we had to sell some players, who would you nominate?

Tiberio Guarente

We’ve just signed this young, Italian midfielder today from Atalanta.  As the internet (and others here) have been pointing out, he’s 24 years old and a product of their youth system, having played in the Serie A for the last 5 seasons.

Our wheelers/dealers Monchi and del Nido have secured him at the Nervión for the next 5 seasons for 5.5€ million.  He also will have a buy-out clause of 30€ million.  That’s the way we do: buy low, sell high.

This is good news, of course, as we saw our midfield depleted and tired at about two-thirds of the season.  Duscher and Romaric were not offering very much going forward, and Renato hasn’t been the great distributer he was during the last 4-5 seasons.  All in all, this is a good move.  We were also looking to sign Borja Valero from Mallorca, but it seems West Bromwich had been asking too much for too long and wore out our directors’ patience.

UEFA’s news outlet has said that Guarente is “strong in the tackle and creative on the ball”.  Welp, he should match up well with our central enforcer Zoroka if that is indeed the case.   This brings our summer signing list to 2: Mouhamadou Dabo and this dude Guarente.  ¡VAMOS!!!