Liverpool snub Inter in order to sell Mascherano to Barca
British sports tabloid The Daily Mail report that Liverpool will take revenge on Rafa Benitez by selling Argentina international Javier Mascherano to Barcelona instead of Inter Milan, their former boss Rafa Benitez’s new club.
Barcelona have reportedly emerged as the club most likely to sign Mascherano for £25 million and will fund the deal by selling Ivory Coast international Yaya Toure to Manchester City for a similar £25m.
The news will be received badly by Benitez, who signed Mascherano for Liverpool in 2008. He wanted the player at the San Siro but will instead pay for falling out with the Liverpool hierarchy before he left for Italy.
Mascherano, who has wanted to move for 12 months, refused to sign a new contract and continued off-field unrest will not persuade him to change his mind.
GET HIM!!! thats amazing news! rafa is crying right now! lol…. PEP U BETTER GET HIm!!! as marquez is thinking about leaving and busquets is not good enough if were going to compete for all trophies next year! we neeed a world class dm thats strong physically great in the tackle which mascherano is the best in the world when it comes to tackling!! plz pep do it immediately! ivory coast is out and i know yaya is going to sign with man city very soon now… (which sucks!)
Masch is one-dimensional. He doesn't provide us anything except rough challenges that will be a problem with Spanish refs.
I prefer Busquets that makes the difficult look easy and is a fantastic passer from his deep position.
I don't think Mascherano is worth this reported amount.
I don't get it … we sell Yaya and then get Masche. Yaya is not happy bcos of his bench role, will Masche happy w/ that role? And yeah, Busi is the best … in DIVING!!!
My thoughts exactly…
the one thing i do know is barca NEEDS a player who provides that distinct steel in DM…but our problem is busquets…up and coming "DM" who is "considered" a starter….no legitimate DM in their right mind would want to be behind him….
barca will get run through the middle by counters because of this conundrum unless they
A) find someone with this steel in the middle with a great touch and above average passing that wont mind sitting on the bench, or
B) come to their senses and realize busquets is a good backup until he develops a more physical side to his game…..
it doesn't seem any of those solutions will be met anytime soon
So you considered Guardiola a bad player then. A DM that does not provide "steel"
Go back to Premier League, fanboy!
I agree with all u said, NuBarcaKid.
And subs, I watched Barcelona many times in the 90s. Yes, Guardiola was not strongly built, but he tackled well and was 'tough' – it was hard to knock him down.
I like Busquets and he's got a tremendous potential. By bulking up and playing a more physical game he will be unstoppable!
Mascherano will be benched again……………Busquets is irreplecaple in the team……….
OFF TOPIC: Just had to get this out there
WHere are all those retards that said suarez was overatted and then some??? lol lol some of you are fools and only see football in the fickle of the mmoment. Suarez is a great #9 striker, he's not a winger as most of you want him to be but he's good at getting goals, whetther he's scoring in the dutch league or not, its quiet easy to see his talent as a goalscorer, NOT a winger. No wonder MOST of you always seem to have a problem with me. lol
another win for scrappy
xD
I'm not sure people said he was a bad player, but they said he doesn't do much besides finish – which is true. His goal didn't surprise me, as he is more than capable of finishing into the top corner.
Nah man, people here were crucifying him, saying how he's overatted, not barca material, said if villa and rooney were in the dutch league they'de score 60 goals in 30 games, etc etc. You can dig up and look at the "blaugrana report for france uruguay and see what im saying, i also mentioned on that forum that suarez needs to move to the "big 3" leagues to furthur develop his tactical side.( In big 3 i mean spain italy or germany…lol joke england)
The people who were completely hating on him must be people who only watched a few matches of his. His goal-scoring talent is terrific, and despite not playing in one of the big three leagues (Spain, Italy, Germany LOL), his abily to score is non-questionable.
For once i can agree with you o.0 ………. what day is it today?? =/
Well, besides the Toure-Busquets topic, there isn't all that much to argue about now is there?
guess so, not gonna go there tonight, but do u really think we can win another european championship with busquetts in midfield?? if so why?
Part 1: Well, I'm not an expert, so I won't be able to give any tactical reasons, but unlike other people, I don't feel at all uncomfortable or nervous when Busquets is playing. I feel perfectly fine with him in the team. I will admit, when Toure is on form, he is one of the best DMs in the world, and he should be a starter, but to me he didn't look too good this season, and he probably made just as many mistakes as Busquets, with much less playing time. Up until the Arsenal tie, I was still asking for Toure to be a starter, but Busquets convinced me 100% of his abilities during the games (I know, his mistake led to the first goal, but his display was terrific, and TBH Barcelona should have been leading the game 5-0 by that point, and he was put under a lot of pressure with that bad pass to him). If you look at them individually, Toure is faster, stronger, better in the air, harder to beat on a 1v1, more versatile, adds more a threat going forward, ect ect. So it is difficult to come up with a case for Busquets, but during a game, he seems very tactically aware, and he makes life difficult for the opponent by closing down their space.
Part 2: The fact that he is 22 and starting for the two best teams in the world says something to me. And it is clear to see that he is making an effort to improve his weaknesses. He seems stronger and faster, more difficult to beat in a 1v1, and his slide-tackling is really improving. He still makes bad decisions during matches, but the DM is a position usually reserved for very experienced players, and I think that since he is only 22 and one of the top ten, IMO, DMs in the world, he is a very admirable player. The only thing I hate about him is his play-acting, but most players today are divers, so I don't think that can be something bad specifically about Busquets.
scrappy, how did Pep win the CL playing as DM ???
Concerning the topic, If pep wont play yaya over busquetts, i dont see how masch will get a look in. Busquetts wont want to tackle cuz he's too girlish, and he always seems to go to ground and get protection from referess….which DM looks for protection from referees???? I've been closely examining his performances in the WC so far, and i really dont know why people think he's been having great performances, football is of attack and defence, in attack wize he's tehnically good on the ball, has a nice pass and links up well going forward, defensively he's a liability and only takes up space. He doesnt tackle, he doesnt track runners, he gets easily run around, horrible on 1 v 1's, most importantly he doesnt like the ruff tackle and as a result goes to ground too easily. He's the most frustrating player to watch becuz this position requires strenght and toughness which he has none of. When all is said and done, spains soft centre will cost them the WC
Perhaps, bcos Busi was a striker before was converted to DM by Pep. That's why she cries like Inzaghi and falls down like Ronaldo. He should follow the example of Tarzan or Luis Enrique or even Pep when he was still playing.
you seriously think busi hasn't been playing well this WC? Is spain's inability insofar to grab games by the scruff of the neck his fault and not our front line and creative mid's?
was being bounced from the CL his fault as well? or wait, no it must have been Ibras! Etoo and Toure are GONE, can we please get on with it?
Wow!!!are we going to spend 25 million for Mascherano who is going to get a bench role???
better buy someone like palacios….or it would result in another chygrynskiy
i personally would like Yaya to stay,but if not, Masch will be a very interesting sign for me. his playing style is something we don't have.with his mobility ,he can cover very wide area,especially the hole that Alves leaves. with him the whole team can move up deeper.we don't have to use him as DMF onry,he also can play as CMF just like Davids. he can play RSB if really need to as well.it's true that the best mid 3 combination is Iniesta,Xavi and a big strong guy, but it really depends on who we play.
best thing is to keep yaya, and to give him a fair chance like biscuits has had, but oh well maybe that's too late as it looks more than likely that yaya is going to leave:(
i just wanna ask 1 question to all who question Busquets' place in the team.. i can see that he plays in Pep's position and has the same physique as Pep when Pep was in the team.. talent wise also, Busquets seems to be equal to Pep.. then how come Pep became one of the legends and u guys feel that Busquets isn't good enuf to be in the starting 11 ???
and i very much can see that Busquets has performed really well for an under achieving Spain team so far.. (barring Villa and Iniesta)
yes…truly siad…..xavi wasn't as good as busquets when he was 22 years old….
but i can clearly see that he would be instrumental and a star within next 2-3 years
after seeing his recent perfomances.
Agee. In 5 years time, Busquets will become one of the best DMs in the world.
Maybe even sooner than that.
all i have to say is that things change with time, what might have worked back then is not guaranteed to work in the future.
tat may or may not happen.. but i dont understand the concept about a thin guy not having the physique to be DM at Barca crap.. tats why im wondering..
so many guys here think that the guys made for DM position are supposed to be monsters.. all im saying is, it hasn't always been like that and there are few examples too..
25-30 mil. e. for mascherano is too much. we better go for a younger dm like capoue, moussa or martinez.
We don't need Mascherano. We sold Yaya, cause he wasn't happy with his role, and Mascherano who is even more a star will be ok?..i don't think so. And he's not that great, especially for Barca, he's to short and with Iniesta and Xavi already not working. We need a big beast like Yaya, so that's way we should get that beast from France – Alou Diarra, M.Sissoko… It's proved that players from France was always great for us (Yaya, Marquez, Giuly,..)
Busquets s very pomising but neest hit the gym and bulk upndcome more aggressive if he is to be a world clasDM
Busquets certainly needs to stop being so flashy in dangerous positions and definitely needs to get rough with certain dangerous players and stop diving, the same can be said about alves but alves isn't reprimanded for his actions cause he didn't take out a better player from his position and provides a lot in attack. will he start before masch? i honestly don't know, pep seems very interested in masch but then again he was also very interested in chiggy.
Germany vs England 4-1 Highlights
the only quick solution that may appease most fans of barca is convert one of our current CB into a back up DM when needed….yes busquets is AMAZING for his age and especially position…but the key aspect of the DM position is a sense of "steel"…not necessarily bowl guys over….but that player themselve NOT getting bowled over so easily…you may say otherwise and i'll accept your rebuttal willingly, but i attribute the inter 3-1 loss to barca being completely overrun in the middle since no one SEEMED man enough to at least dominate that area…possession and all can get you so far but we allmust remember there is a physical aspect to the game….
busquets in about 2-3 years will have learned this and should be able to add that "steel" aspect of his game and once that happens…i just feel putting all this pressure on him at this stage in his career ALONE with no visible and suitable backup in case things go wrong is bad news and needs to be carefully addressed…i pray i eat my words but those are my thoughts as of now….