Comments on: It’s official: Dani Alves is in the house

By: jake

jake — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:24:04 +0000

Great thoughts. It is pretty illogical to drastically change a relatively youthful team that dominated the league for one ridiculously priced, arrogant, egotistical player.

By: john

john — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:30:28 +0000

I’m firmly, firmly against it. Especially when players like Robinho or Sergio Ramos enter the conversation. All in all, we have a team that’s clicking, that just won consecutive titles, and have at least a decent bid on European success.

While I’m not terribly concerned about the impact Ronaldo might have in the locker room, I’m more worried about what will happen on the pitch. Assuming Ronaldo’s role will be a right winger, as we’re stocked on the left and center of midfield, we’d be going from a team who’s forward strength was the left side, creative strength’s middle and left, to a team that would most likely focus it’s attacks toward the right. That’s not a huge shift, but it will take a long time to adjust, and most likely ruin (not help) Madrid’s immediate hopes of European success.

Another reason I’m opposed, is that I’m a fan who’s happy to see Madrid leave the Galactico era. With a lot of our youth developing and returning to the Bernabeu (Grenaro, De la Red, Torres, and possibly Garcia) and the bright youth recently brought in (Sneijder, Drenthe, Robben), adding in a Galctico will displace kids like that, who could grow with the team. I’m opposed.

And lastly, I’m of the camp that believe La Liga will humble a player of Ronaldo’s talent. After years of partial success in La Liga, Torres can go to the EPL and make it look easy; I sincerely doubt a player can accomplish the reverse. If Ronaldo comes to Spain, he’ll probably, well, make the EPL look easy. (For this same reason – Isaiah – I think Henry deserves more credit, and – Kevin – you all should stay far, far away from Adebayor.)

Thanks for asking jake, and sorry if my response is a bit lengthy

By: jake

jake — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:03:02 +0000

I agree with you john, but I still think that he has the talent to shine in any team in the world. And john, I’ve been wondering, do you want Ronaldo? It seems that alot of RM fans are split, and I was just curious as to what you thought.

By: john

john — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:55:41 +0000

Oh, man – I think Sevilla was completely built around Alves, in a way that realized a lot of the talent around him. Sevilla’s style of play was exactly Alves’ stength: charging directly up the field. It was like watching a pack of horses, and it was thrilling, and Alves was the leader of the pack.

By: frem

frem — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:10:36 +0000

alves is easily the best right back in the world going up, he is also one of the best in defense. Since attacking rightbacks are so important in CL its a very smart move.
Now we have the right, centre(toure, keita, iniesta, xavi) and the defense sorted. The left is still much weaker then many teams especially in CL competition and attack is great if you want an early service kind of play which barce doesnt do, get a target man to bring the wingers into play and goals will be scored.

By: Kxevin

Kxevin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:06:41 +0000

Word is that the Glazers have all but said “sell Ronaldo,” recognizing that if they are offered crazy money for a player, they’d be crazy not to take it. Man U fans will find that Ronaldo is not irreplacable.

And John, I would argue that Sevilla wasn’t really built around any one player, which made them so dangerous. Yes, Alves was a big part of their attack, and he’ll be a big part of our attack. I suspect that part of why we got him is to add some aspects of that fast vertical game to our bag of tricks.

I think he’s going to kick ass and take names. I can’t wait.

By: jake

jake — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:36:13 +0000

john, you are definately right that Alves probably won’t shine like he did at Sevilla, but I still think that he can be a key player. He is the best wing-back in the world, and I think he can be deadly in any system.

Good comments Ciaran. I would assume that Txiki knew who was leaving. He did say that Deco, Ronnie and Eto’o would leave, and it is only logical to assume that he knew about the others. And we really only need to replace four players. Ezquerro doesn’t count.

And believe me, I have been hoping for Nasri for a long time. I would take him over Arshavin, Silva or Moutinho any day of the week. I was really hoping that he had a good Euro so that he would demand more wages and screw Arsenal over. Still, I would love to ambush their plans. It would be karma for stealing our youth products.

And Robinho would be hilarious, but I don’t want that ego anywhere near our team. I would love him to screw over the Evil Empire, though. That might put a dent in their Ronaldo plans.

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:57:11 +0000

We may also take note of the fact that Samir Nasri still hasn’t completed his move to Arsenal se may be another option for the midfield role. He could push up to a forward role too even though he does not score many goals. His immensely talented and said before that we were his favourite team to watch. The way we play football made us the team he enjoyed most.

On another note, Robinho is rumoured to be thinking about buying out his EE contract for a mere €10million and walking away from them because of the way they treated him. Ha ha ha. I love when this sort of thing happens to them. They are broke, by all accounts, and instead of raising funds by selling him for around €25-30million as reported he’ll just walk away with his middle finger raised.
Not that it would happen or that I want it to but I’d wet myself laughing if he joined us. It would be hilarious.

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:20:07 +0000

Word from Txiki is that Henrique will be loaned out if the transfer happens, I’m guessing to a low-to-mid table team in La Liga. It would make sense. Get him some European experience and let him play 30+ games in his first season as a real tester. An example learned from Villareal who made a cool €14million profit on Caceres for one season not even having to pay his wages.

If Arshavin joins Chelsea then we’ll look somewhere else but I do think that he would be a good ‘fit’ into our system. I do think that for €15million it’s not really a gamble as he brought Russia both to the Euro’s long with playing a couple of great games there and won the Uefa Cup for Zenit. There are alternatives but he may be the best value.
Inter still haven’t tied up Roma’s Mancini so he may be another value option, probably available a €15million also.

When Txiki said that he still wanted an attacking midfielder, a left winger and a no.9 I wonder did he take into account all the probable outgoing players…
Zambrotta for Alves, Thuram for Caceres, Edmilson for Pique and Keita for Deco so far. We will still probably lose Gudjohnsen, Ronaldinho and Eto’o, Giovani was sold and Ezquerro’s contract expired.
That means replacing five players with three. With all of the talk about depth, we don’t have a lot of depth upfront. I would still sign two forwards and a versatile attacking midfielder who can also play on the wing… Arshain or Silva. Then a forward to play on either wing like Palacio or Sergio Garcia and the big no.9 like Huntelaar or Berbatov.
But I’m not the one spending the money…

By: john

john — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:26:36 +0000

Although I think Alves will be a quality signing for Barca, and a true threat to their opponents, I doubt he’ll have the same impact he had with Sevilla. Bear in mind that that Sevilla team was built around Alves, whereas in Barcelona he’ll be just one piece of the puzzle. Also, Barcelona like to play possession, passing and lateral football, while Sevilla’s system was fast paced vertical attacking. Alves will have a very different role to play, one I think he can adapt to, but I’d temper my anticipation if I were a Barcelona fan.