More About Next Year
By: Cesar | May 1st, 2009
Most Valencia fans are focused on this weekend’s match against Espanyol in Montjuïc.
But grant me a moment to focus on next season.
I know, I know. I just finished telling everyone transfer rumors do my head in.
And they do. They really do.
Most of them are baseless, pure speculation for the National Enquirer/Sun lover in us all.
That’s why yesterday’s Las Provincias interview with sporting director Fernando Gomez was so enlightening.
I don’t have the time to do a full translation. Use Google Translate, which is a decent tool for tight spots.
Two things stand out in the interview.
At one point, Gomez is asked if David Villa and David Silva will stay on the club.
Gomez says it depends on their overall cost to the club, based on the team’s budget.
Basically, it depends on how much of a percentage of the budget they take up. If Valencia’s budget is 100 million euros for next season and the two Davids take up 50% of that budget, lots of players will have to go in order to keep them.
Nothing extraordinarily new there. We have a large squad and need to trim it, the two Davids or not.
Gomez says so in the interview. He’s asked about the size of the squad and tells the interviewer it will be cut. But the cutting will be hard. It will be hard to release so much dead weight and hard to keep the Davids.
It’s no secret that coach Unai Emery wants a smaller squad. Not only that, I’m sure he’d like to bring in players that fit his style of play, guys like Almeria’s Negredo.
All of this is contingent on us getting to next season’s Champions League and securing our budget. So call this speculation if you will, but I believe it’s speculation coming straight from the horse’s mouth.
It will be hard to keep the Davids, but not impossible …
So we’ve done this before. Let’s try it again. Who stays and who goes? We’ll do this again after the season ends, but humor me … here’s my list … tell me what you think …
GK
Cesar – Stay
Guaita – Go
Renan – Stay
Two goalies. Although I’m still not sure if Cesar should stay for next season. He’s been good, no doubt. But what about age concerns?
Defense
Curro Torres – Go (he’ll stay at Manolo’s)
Marchena – Stay (prefer he be a DM)
Albiol – Stay (unless Liverpool want him for a good fee)
Alexis – Stay
Moretti – Stay (can’t believe I’m saying this)
Del Horno – GO … far, far away
Carleto – Loan?
Miguel – Go (sell him … sorry, but I’m souring on the guy)
Midfield
Edu – Go (just never stayed healthy enough)
Silva – Stay
Joaquin – Go (never replicated his Betis form)
Albelda – Go (thanks for everything. But time to go. A true Valencia legend)
Maduro – Stay
Fernandes – Stay
Baraja – Go (sorry, old man. Also a legend but the clock has struck 12)
Vicente – Stay
Pablo – Stay (this season’s revelation)
Hugo Viana – Stay (give him a shot)
Strikers
Angulo – Go
Morientes – Go
Villa – STAY! Please stay!
Mata – Stay
From our on-loan players, bring back Banega (midfield) (kicking and screaming if need be), ‘Iron’ David Navarro (Defense) and Miku (striker). Sell the rest, like Zigic and Sunny.
That would leave us with a squad of 17. Plug some holes here and there from the Negredo’s of the world and we have a team, people …
What do you think?
Now back to this weekend and Espanyol.
Today, Unai Emery said he’s scared of Espanyol. Well, not really. But kind of.
“I have a lot of respect for Espanyol at home. They are doing very well at the moment and any team that wants to beat them will have to fight a lot,” the official Valencia website quotes him as saying.
“I know their coach and [Mauricio] Pochettino is improving the team and I believe that he will help their game a lot.”
With regards to his own team, who sit fourth in the table and are just one points below Sevilla, Emery believes they have to forget about the result with Barcelona last weekend.
“We have to stop celebrating and forget our elation when we come into this match with Espanyol. On the pitch we have to be focused and intelligent to win. Now, the team is capable of going forward with confidence, and we should try to continue that. We depend on ourselves and this result is very important. The objective is to win every game left and to enjoy the moment,” he mused.
Fair enough.
A bunch of Valencia supporters are making the trip out to Barcelona to watch the match live. Anyone here going?
Amunt … should be a great weekend …
Oh, one more thing … who wins tomorrow’s match between Barcelona and Real Madrid? Predictions anyone?
I’m of the opinion that this match, along with the two Champions League semifinals, will NOT break Barcelona.
I think they’re strong, they’re hungry and they want to finish what they started.
2-2 and Madrid’s hopes for a Spanish title go away …
AMUNT!
Some Related Valencia Posts:
Category: Team News
Comments
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Even if we make CL id like to see them use at the very least a large part of those extra funds to relief the debt a little. The current debt situation is costing us loads of intrest and is not sustainable.
And remember Mestalla ground in now worth a lot less, we got that hole to fill.
@Kyle well Zigic might make a bit of money as well given his form lately.
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Our debt is getting higher by the day it seems. University of Barcelona prof examined all Liga debts and we are at 500 million give or take a few mil. Don’t exaggerate mates, plus this debt is certainly not undoable.
David Navarro runs out of contract this or next year, right?! Hope he will never wear a Valencia jersey again, next to the fact that he is a bad defender, he is also pussy for running when hitting a man. About Banega i agree, about Miku, how come everybody is that hyped about him??? I never see him play, so i wonder if u guys actually do…???
I say we also give Hugo Viana a shot, he can be great but he needs to be put more offensively which unfort is not possible in our squad. I’d say give Viana 1-2 months playing time and he’ll regain his old form for sure, he has got the gift, he just needs the stimulance to get it fired up again!
Tomorrow, i hope Barca wins, cause its the best for us! And i hope Villarreal won’t win, thats not good for us… So best thing would be if Villarreal loses, draw is ok but we need to be top 4 so the more points no. 5 and under lose, the bigger our chances are for finishing there…
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Cesar I like your list, maybe Guaita can be loaned to get additional experience. About Marchena, i don’t know about him staying…
I just hope we have the chance to keep Villa and Silva. -
@ JOHNNIE. We are 500 million in debt RIGHT NOW, PLUS it will cost 290 million to finish Nou Mestalla PLUS the 50 million loan we just got PLUS interest. 500 + 290 + 50 + interest = 850 million euros. It was in either Las Provincias or Superdeporte a couple months ago.
@ Llyod. Soemtimes clubs have a clause in a players contract to keep them an extra year. Sometimes the playes have a clause to stay another year. This is what Del Horno did. His contract said that if he wants to come back next year he can. If he wants to be released, he can do that as well. He choose to stay on for next year.
@ MARTIJN. Yea, I forgot about Zigic. My bad.
Fernando has a really weird head. It is like 10 times bigger than his face. LOL.
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I say that list is OK for me with couple changes.And I think we don’t need many new players.This squad if u take a better look is future of Valencia,club can depend on this players for next minimum 5-10 years.Renan 24 years,Albiol 23,Alexis 23,Fernandez 23,Silva 23,Pablo 24,Mata 21 This are 7 starters and oldest is 24!!! Don’t forget that Villa is only 27,Joaquin 27,Vicente 27,Maduro 24,Carleto 19 Come on guys,this is one of the best future clubs in the world,just give me 1 club in the world that is this young and perspective,and have a lot of experience at same time.NONE!!!Perfect mix of younger and older players.We just need few signings,like 1 striker,right back is defenitly worst position,I think Emery knows whats hes doing,he is playing with this older players now because of injuries,he would never put Albelda or Baraja or Marchena in 1st team if he had younger players at the moment.
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You know, I was doing exactly the same thing in the German Valencia board – only that I gave my wishlist for replacement, too. I did it some 3 weeks ago.
They go:
CB: Marchnena (7 Mio)
LB: Moretti (6 Mio), Del Horno (0,5 Mio)
RB: Miguel (8 Mio), Curro Torres (0 Mio)
DM: Albelda (2 Mio)
CM: Baraja (2 Mio), Hugo Viana (0,5 Mio)
RW: Joaquín (10 Mio), Angulo (0,5 Mio)
ST: Morientes (0 Mio), Zigic (16 Mio)In my opinion, this players are all replaceable – and it should not be too difficult. Either they can not help us at all (Curro Torres, Viana, …), they could but mean a high transfer income (Zigic) or their price-performance ratio is just painfully bad (Albelda, Baraja, Joaquín, Miguel, Marchena).
I have once red at sentimentche that there are several wage levels at Valencia CF. Believe me or not, but Baraja, Albelda, Joaquín, Marchena and Miguel are in the second highest, just after the two exceptions Silva and Villa. HERE we can and MUST save money! Don’t just look on the transfer income – look how much money one player get in one year!
This players would mean an transfer income of 52,5 Mio Euro. Most of the money we can save, some of it we should spend on
LB: Fernando Vega (4 Mio)
RB: Jesus Gámez (5 Mio)
RW: Pédro Leon (7 Mio)
ST: Alvaro Negredo (15 Mio).–> money income: 21,5 Mio Euro immediately and millions of Euros because their wages are lower!
The rest we could replace by the players who com eback from loan and some jewels of VCF Mestalla, our second team.
RB: choose one from: Ximo Navarro (RB and RW -> flexible), Lillo
CB: David Lombán
DM: choose one from: Montoro, Ximo (Sunny one more year on loan)
CM: Banega
Attacking Allrounder: Miku (@Johnnie Walker: 13 goals in 30 matches in la Segunda, played as right wing and supporting striker)
ST: choose one from: Toledo, OlcinaSo the only differences to your list are Marchena who leaves if I was Gomez (price-performance), Edu who stays (valuable despite of injuries, intelligent player) and Hugo Viana who leaves (Emery does not trust him, why should he stay?). The last one is a criteria of mine, too. Does Emery want him? Does he fit to his system? He should have the chance to make it come true. Zigic scores as if there was no tomorrow at Santander – Emery does not want him, though. He even scored for us regularly – but if Emery is of the opinion he slows down the play or is not quick enough he should get Navaro, no problem for me.
AMUNT!
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Screw transfer rumours, wishful thinking, wet dreams about new signings & the rest.
We’re here to go beserk watching our guys play & winning (& sometimes losing) matches (well, at least me), not gettin’ a degree in economics and holding a course in rescuing screwed managements.No offense, guys, but some of you look like you’re about to pass a phd titled “Football ethics and the spirit of capitalism”. I mean, if you feel like doing it, fire away, but it sure looks/reads funny.
Here’s my 10 cents:
I’m striving for a CL spot and keeping both Davids; we should be fine with a couple reinforcements in the middle/back, considering our situation and all. I’ll welcome anyone young who can fight like Kily Gonzales (the Danny Trejo lookalike) used to. I’m in love with Pablo more and more. Come one, we have a killer attacking line!! Villa, Silva, Pablo, Vicente, Mata. Center, left, right, all covered! Name me a team with a similar lineup and I’ll vomit on his arguments
Huh, that was deep. Off for a beer now.
Not let’s kick some Catalan ass Sunday! -
@ Quin
Pablo looks like Calimero, some how i just cant take him serious cause of that!And btw, if we could find a new Kily Gonzalez, i’d personally make sure we could get enough money to afford him, we so miss players like that and are rarely seen in football anyways. Btw Danny Trejo is a bad ass!
@ El_Valenciano
But did u actually see Miku play? Cause i know his stats, 13 out of 30 is not very impressive, not bad either but i just wanna know if he has skills. If he scores 5 goals and 8 penalties of those 13 than it aint thát good u know!? Is he something special i mean, does anybody know how he plays!?@ Kyle
My bad, tho my calculations were lower than SD’s, cause as far as i know it wont cost us another 290 million to finish Mestalla, plus our current debt (without the construction costs) is not 500 million. Seems to me some of these costs are calculated double in the 850 mil, but thats just as far as i know cause of this:4 years back our debt was 102 million. In Soler times he tripled it, making it around 300 million. Than the costs for the new stadium came which was around 250 million max of which we already paid some millions. So as far as i know, just the new loan of 50 million is added to that, but nothing more… Or where did we get the extra 250-300 million debt from!??
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@Quin: Sorry to say, but it’s all about economy – we have to trade with players like with cars. Change has to come to Valencia (harr harr, Obama-style). No way out, mate.
By the way: What’s about Sergio Garcia Mut? He is one of the topscorer of the Spanish youth teams (U17, U19). Should we give him a chance to play in the first team?
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@ JOHNNIE. I will look for that article tonight.
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Agree with your list Cesar with one exception. If it was up to me I would like to keep Sunny.
His so young and during the games he played under Koeman he was not half bad. I think given time he would be a wonder midfielder.
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I’m not sure you should let go of Sunny just yet. You can always cut the budget by loaning players out and he would be the perfect example of a player who will come back better after a loan and be more valuable in a year or two or possibly good enough to start matches. Of course you’d have to find a club who wants to play him first of all.
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As for Miku his record is decent in an inferior league but he’s not exactly a youngster just starting out – He’s 23 and not yet proven in the top division. And its a big step up.
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Re: Bane – Arsenal, Manchester United. You make a good point about having a young side with potential, but there are other sides with talented,experienced young players.
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As for transfers, I’d say its best to pick around 15 players to keep (A first 11, 3 subs +1 spare keeper) and of the rest, sell whoever you get the highest bids for. And then you can expect 1 or 2 nominal fee’d transfers in. I cant see how you’ll manage to sign say Negredo, whilst keeping both Villa and Silva though. He’d be a replacement.
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Personally I’d go with:
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Keep } Renan, Maduro, Alexis, Albiol, Moretti, Marchena, Fernandes, Vicente, Mata, Villa, Silva + Banega, Pablo and Michel I guess + Cesar for the spare keeper. Then sell off whoever the biggest bids come in for and keep those who dont inspire reasonable bids as backup and cup players or use them as make-weights and trades. -
Never keep marchena and sell albelda!marchena is stupid, he is seriously stupid, albelda on the other hand is not stupid but sometimes acts stupid!
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I completely agree with loaning Carleto, although I dont understand why they never let him play with the B team (like Olsen) as he is just sitting there doing nothing??
As for Renan, I really hate that him and Carleto are taking our precious non-EU seats when we could use them for better/more useful players. South America and Africa have a wealth of talent we could get for cheap (just look at Sevilla and Villrreal and their South American players!).
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Carleto fair enough as he doesnt play… So he does need a loan. Renan has been in the country 1 year. 1 more and he wont be taking up a non-eu spot. I think by the start of next season Banega wont be taking up a spot either – or maybe he has to wait till 2010 as he came in Jan?
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I couldn’t find the article I was looking for, but I found quite a few saying that our debt was 800 million in the summer of 2008 when Juan Villalonga was president. Here is one such article:
http://elocho.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/el-valencia-cf-vive-la-mayor-crisis-social-de-su-historia/
translated:
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Selling Sunny could be a tremondous error. He has so much to give even thought they don’t considerer him a lot. Too bad a better club didn’t take him. If he had the chance at EPl for instance, he would have become a great asset for any him in the eventual future. Or else, even Madrid could have used in their desperate attempt to replicate the lost of their so precious defensive midfielder: Claude Makélélé. But, I must say that Lassana Diarra is perfectly suited for the job now.
All that I can say, Valencia shouldn’t loose hope on Sunny. I hope that Emery can see what I saw in that little player form Nigeria.
Then, selling Miguel, according to me, would give the team a lot of income; true. However, who would replace him? If you decide to put a central defender in the right, then you’ll have one central defender missing. Yes, we can rotate. But, what if one of those defenders get hurt? Then, the team will be in serious trouble. Are you willing to let Marchena play regularly in the central park knowing that you won’t have any choice since you’ve sell Miguel? Why selling him? Why wouldn’t it be Moretti? Because Miguel is more valuable? Well, to me it’s more a bad idea to proceed that way.
Hugo Viana is old. You’re all complaining about the aging Baraja and Albelda and yet you want to put another 30 years old in their spot? Why? Because he has creativity that has faded away a lot time ago? If Emery is wise, I would sell him first. At least, Edu plays for like a period of three games. But, Viana does nothing. He has never been the player that fitted Valencia’s style apparently and as much as Emery will be concerned, he won’t be given a start.
Even thought Marchena is acting stupid something, he shouldn’t be sold. He can be converted as a DM when there are big games. But, for little relegation team, he could play central defense. He is, at some extend versatile. He has a certain attribute to play in the defensive midfield spot and I don’t think that emery would sell his chosen captain. (Even thought I strongly disagree his choice… Marchena is not fitted to be captain….)
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Sorry for the many mistakes. I posted my previous message to fast. Some errors are incoherent to what I meant. But oh well, at least you’ll understand the basic.
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I agree with your team basically Cesar, although i think we should keep sunny
Also I’m just watching a replay of Valencia Barca, and is anyone else loving Pablo, he’s been on fire recently, he definitely should be staying
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Getting rid of Miguel would be a serious error… when which he isn’t right now Miguel works perfectly in Emery’s system and is one of the best attacking rightbacks in Spain Miguel plays above his income bracket when fit. the people who need to be gotten rid of are the people who earn lots of money and do very little like Edu, Barja who age has caught up with, Albelda who is not effective any more, Hugo Viana who has always been a third rate player, Del Horno who is now just an average player, Vicente should also go because over the course of this season he has shown that he has degraded to the level of Just being a good sub the years of injuries have left him not being worth what he is paid Vicente is a shadow of his former self, Angulo also is not as good as he used to be and needs to be sold and the people who are on loan that failed to perform like Zigic who cant fit into Valencias squad and David Navarro is is a poor defender. Moro’s contract is up at the end of the season and he says he is leaving so that more salary off the books.
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Ya’ll have to watch the 2002 Valencia-Espanyol that basically clinched the title for us at the Mestalla … very emotional when Ruben Baraja scores to make the game 2-1 in the 80th minute … splendid atmosphere … the game’s at Foroche … check it out … http://foroche.com/
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I think we should get rid of Miguel. He never defends, and when he does, he is horrid at it. He can attack, but he is a defender. He has to defend, and he can’t. I think we should get a right back who can get forward, deliver a good pass, etc. but is more defensive minded. We are shite on defense. That way, the midfielders and wingers can get even more forward and not have to worry about getting caught. If I see Miguel get caught out of position one more time I will throw my computer out of the damn window.
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Kieran, where did you watch the replay? Is it available on the net?
Cesar, I remember watching that game. A goal down, a man down, and Real looking set to win a point, the title seemed lost. What a remarkable turn around. And you’re right, it was very emotional!
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Nithin, you can download entire matches at rojadirecta …
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Thanks Cesar. Got it.
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