Seydou Keita: Official Presentation
By: Isaiah | June 26th, 2008
Seydou Keita was officially presented to the press today. The FCB official has all the pics, of course. While he doesn’t have a number yet, neither his international number (12) nor his old Sevilla number (21) are currently in use at Barça. Maybe he likes a different one, though…
Regardless, welcome to the club, Keita! May your stay be wonderful and full of more goals against Real Madrid!
Category: Team News
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share
      |
Comments
-
Welcome to Barca, officially, Seydou. In a three-man midfield he can play in either the holding position, with Toure and Marquez as his competition, or as the left of the two more attacking positions, along with Xavi, Iniesta and an unnamed alternative.
Toure will definitely be the first choice DM. He was awesome last season and should be the same monster this one.
Marquez offers something slightly different. He long range passing is probably the best of the three and he has a bit of bite. He isn’t as physically dominating as Toure and not as good offensively as either of the others. Keita will probably only play the role against weaker teams I would presume.As one of the two attacking midfielders he offers something totally different from the alternatives. While Xavi and Iniesta are very good technically, Keita is much more powerful and, as Txiki said, adds balance. In the matches against more aggressive teams expect to see a Xavi/Toure/Keita threesome which would be rock solid. I would be surprised to see him start game 1 but he will certainly ay a big part in the squad.
Finally Txiki feeds us some crumbs… three more signings.
He admits interest in Adebayor, but as has been said previously €35million? no chance. Huntelaar, Gomez and Berbatov seem like much better value.
He admits that Arshavin is a good player, duh, but wouldn’t really say more because of the Euro semi final. Not to worry, there’s another press conference tommorrow for the presentation of Caceres. Maybe he can say more about Arshavin at that because of Russia’s exit. It could also be that Silva is the first choice which wouldn’t surprise me. Then we would have another few days to wait.
And then there’s the attacking midfielder, which I couldn’t comprehend being Hleb. He is too similar to Arshavin and Silva and not as good as either. Hernanes is proving very difficult to transfer so it’s looking less likely that this deal is going ahead. Joao Moutinho is another mighty mite but is talented – can’t see us paying €25million for him though. I don’t know where that leaves us…Posted from
Ireland
-
Great post Ciaran!
As far as a wide midfielder go, for me it’s clear:
1. Silva (Very unlikely)
2. Arshavin (He didn’t do much against Spain but it’s hard to fault him when the rest of his team was just as bad, I still think he would fit in and is a cule which does matter)
and Hleb as a distant third, as Arshavin is the same age and won’t be any more expensive.Posted from
Argentina -
Well here’s a very interesting comment from Mr Guardiola:
“I am sure that all great players are compatible and Arshavin would get along fine with Hleb.”
That’s very interesting to hear. Personally I thought it would be one or the other, but it seems that Pep wants both. And the fact that he mentioned Hleb so casually makes it seem that he is pretty much ours, but he probably got asked whether or not they could get along. Still, it’s something to talk about
Posted from
Australia -
First of all, welcome Keita! Midfield looks very strong now.
I hope Silva will come to Barca, he is much better than Arshavin or Hleb. As we know just few russians can adapt to european football. So it’s very big risk about Arshavin.
And I hope that Eto’o will stay. He is top scorer and very good forward. I don’t think Adebayor will be better. Maybe just Villa could be at same level.Posted from
Latvia -
This is the signing that most excites me. Keita has done wonders at Sevilla. He’s a lot of the reason that Kanoute and Fabiano have been so effective. I think he’ll have the same effect for us.
Silva ain’t coming, Villa ain’t coming. I don’t think that the forward we sign will be another wee one. We have plenty of midgets running around already.
Arshavin’s match yesterday spoke to some of my reservations about the player. We’ll see how he adapts when he comes. Note that I say “when.” Zenit is amenable, we want him, he wants us, the only question is how quickly the deal can happen.
Guardiola, I think, is thinking midfield depth when he talks about Hleb. He, like us, saw last season and how thin we were in the midfield. Ronaldinho and Deco were injured and suddenly, all we had were Xavi and Iniesta on the attacking side. Over the course of a long season being contested on three fronts (Liga, Europe, Copa) you need to be able to rotate good players in and out.
Adebayor isn’t happening. He’s now saying that he’s Arsenal until the end of his contract, and that as a kid in Togo he never thought of playing just for money, blah, blah, blah. Translation? Arsenal wouldn’t budge on my crazy-ass transfer fee, and I want to make too much money. Another season proving myself would be just the ticket. Whee!
Buzz is that AC Milan, because they’re out of the Adebayor sweepstakes, are back in the Ronaldinho sweeps. Galliani needs a high-profile signing, and there really aren’t that many out there that can immediately change the profile of a club. Ronaldinho is one. The question is transfer fees.
Deco is looking more and more like Chelsea, and Eto’o is rumored to be a Mourinho target over at Inter. They want a big-time striker signing, with the uncertainty behind Ibrahimovic. Is there a bigger-profile striker available right now than Eto’o?
If any of the big three are in the colors next season, I’ll be stunned. They’d probably be, as well.
Now for Arshavin. Russia was shit yesterday, in part because Spain’s strengths played to their weaknesses. Spain’s players were just as fast, and better with the ball. Hard to argue with that. Arshavin had a few moments that showed his quality, but make no mistake about it, he’s a risk, as I said in another set of comments. But the price will be right, so he’ll be worth it.
Rosell is slamming the Arshavin interest, the Adebayor interest, putting Ronaldinho up for sale, what Laporta had for breakfast, pretty much anything that has been done under the current president’s tenure. He also says that the elections, rather that destabilizing the club, would stabilize the club, that the club has been unstable for the past two years now.
Well, screw him. There’s a post coming on this political nonsense, as well as the official welcome post for Martin Caceres, who was presented at the Nou Camp.
Posted from
United States -
wanna see him leash those long range shots…
Posted from
Qatar -
Keita..come back =(
Posted from
United States
Comments are closed
Home 
