THE MARKET IS HERE (article in English and Español)

Many European teams are now resting and reflecting about the negative aspects of the team during the first half of the season and whether they can improve their performance since next January thanks to the arrival of some new player. It is clear that many teams will need new player to be competitive team but of course there will be concrete teams, which will be the kings of this winter´s market, since the performance showed is very poor until this moment and they need important changes.

For the moment, the main protagonist is being Real Madrid that even though the "big" football director, Pedja Mijatovic, said in September that "We will not sign during the winter market", the club is working without break to try to straighten the direction during the second half of the season to finish with a decent level and in the second position of the standing-of course it is a bit absurd to think about the possibility to be the Spanish Champion-. Until this moment, Real Madrid has spent all the money received from Robinho when he was transferred to Manchester City, since Real Madrid paid 40 million euros to buy the "injured" Klass-Jan Huntelaar (20 million) and Lassana "Lass" Diarra (20 million), who arrive to replace the long-term injured Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Mahamadou Diarra-we spoke about these 2 new Real Madrid´s player in other articles of this blog and we said that we like Huntelaar(he is a good striker with a great instinct to score, being always in the correct place)and that we are not convinced about the Lass´s arrival, cause he is an expensive player and besides he did not show anything until this moment, although it is true that he did not have many chance to play neither at Chelsea nor Arsenal or Portsmouth ....and in addition we do not think that he is better than Javi Garcia-. Moreover, Real Madrid has recovered the young Dani Parejo who was wasted the time at Queens Park Rangers-the team of Briatore- and we will see if he can be a valuable player for Real Madrid, whose priority is now to sign a right midfielder-winger (it is difficult to understand that the football director, Pedja Mijatovic needs 3-4 months to see this lack, which was evident since august…¿How much money does he receive for his great work?)and obviously many name-Ashley Jones(Aston Villa), Milos Krasic(CSKA Moscow,) Mancini (Inter), Dario Srna (Schachtjar Donezk) or Aaron Lennon (Tottenham Hotspur)-sound as a future Real Madrid´s player. We will see in the following days if some of these player arrives to Real Madrid and how much money Real Madrid will pay for him-of course if you pay 20 million euros to buy Lass, it is normal that the other teams want more money to sell better players- or if finally the young Miguel Palanca will be the owner of the Real Madrid right´s side.

Alongside the Real Madrid´s news, the football´s fans are waiting to see the newness from the richest team of the world, Manchester City, whose performance is being very poor and it needs urgently new players to give consistency to the team and to be in a better place of the standing. We already said in an article last September(ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE, THE SPECTACLE IS HERE!(This article is available in English and Español))that we disagreed with the views of the City´s player, Elano Blumer-he understood that the City did not need any other players and it could aspire to the title of the Premier-, because we believed that Manchester City was a very unbalanced team with many strikers (it is the second Premier´s top scorer), but without enough good defensive players and there are the results so far (in Premiership: 5 wins, 3 draws and 10!!! Defeats).So, we hope that the owners of the club, the Abu Dhabi Investment and Development United Group Limited, tidy up the situation and spend the necessary money to bring the adequate players- I think that the priority should be a goalkeeper, 2 experienced defensive players and 1 or 2 defensive midfielders, but of course we'll see which will be the ideas of the owners and if players like Buffon, Arda Turan, David Villa, Frings, Afellay or Kolo Toure will arrive to the City of Manchester-.

In addition we will also pay attention to developments at AC Milan, since besides the arrival of David Beckham (I think it is a good transfer, because he is a worker player and he can play as right midfielder and even as central midfielder or right back as shown during his Real Madrid´s period), it should focus on to build a new defensive line and alongside the possible arrival of the Brazilian central defender Thiago Silva (he plays at Fluminense), AC Milan needs something more to tidy up the defensive problems(it received a 1 goal per game, being the worst of the Serie A´s top 6); if Chelsea FC strengthens its attack-I still maintain that Nicolas Anelka is not a reliable player for the important games and we will see if players like Michael Owen, Karim Benzema and David Villa arrive to Stamford Bridge-; and the future of players such as Lukas Podolski(he is tired of the lack of minutes at FC Bayern and he want the transfer to can have more chances to play, being FC Koln the main candidate to sign this good player, whose Bayern´s situation is strange, because for example Podolski plays very well with the German National team-31 goals in 60 games-, but when he is at Bayern, he does not have chances to play-neither with Jürgen Klinsmann, who was brave and he gave the opportunity to Lukas during the World Cup 2006- and especially since next January when the good American striker London Donovan arrive to Munich .So, a new team is the best solution for Lukas and even Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said yesterday that the transfer can the best solution(anyway, we will see if FC Koln will see his destination of if Lukas will play in other team like Arsenal, Olympique Marseille, Stuttgart, Everton, Tottenham , Manchester City, Liverpool or Juventus, ...); or as Vedad Ibisevic-the TSG Hoffenheim´s striker is one of the fashionable players, because it is not easy to score 18 goals in 17 Bundesliga´s games and of course he is on the agendas of big clubs as Inter Milan-; or as the defensive midfielder Simon Rolfes(Bayer Leverkusen)-he sounds as AC Milan´s future player-; or as the good Croatian striker Ivica Olic-his contract expires next summer and it is possible that SV Hamburg try to get some performance and it sell this players to teams like Juventus, Liverpool FC, Villarreal CF, FC Schalke or Tottenham-; or the stars of Standard de Liege- the Belgian team is a fashionable team thanks to its good Uefa Cup and obviously many teams seem interested in players like the midfielder Steven Defour (teams such as Atletico Madrid, Fiorentina, Ajax, Arsenal and Aston Villa), or forward Milan Jovanovic (Sevilla, Real Madrid, FC Bayern and Aston Villa) and Dieumerci Mbokani Bezu (Olympique Marseille could be his destination); or what will happen in the Turkish top teams- we'll see if Fenerbahçe sings a new goalkeeper(Volkan Demirel is playing horrible) and if it strengthen the defensive line(there is a rumour about the possible transfer of the Chelsea´s central defender, Alex) to be a serious alternative to Galatasaray (which will check if Galatasaray achieves to retain all the stars, because there are a lot of rumours about players like the complete midfielder Arda Turan(AC Milan can be his new club) or the hard central defender Servet Cetin(Olympique Marseille can be his destination) and even if it strengthen the team with some new player like Mehmet Topuz (Kayserispor and Turkish National team´s midfielder) or Lucas Rodrigo Biglia(the RSC Anderlecht´s midfielder sounds as future player of Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Besiktas or Bursaspor) . In addition we will see the future of other Süper Lig important players as the good Sivasspor´s striker, Mehmet Yildiz,-it is possible that it is time to see this competitive player in an Istambul´s team-or the promising striker's Bursaspor, Sercan Yildirim, who is on the agendas of teams like Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City or Fenerbahçe-.

So, many questions whose answers we will know during the following weeks and for the moment the only confirmed transaction are alongside the arrivals to Real Madrid and the transfer of Beckham and Donovan: the experienced Tomas Galasek (Czech centre midfielder ) and Paul Stalteri and the promising Belgian goalkeeper Logan Bailly to Borussia Mönchengladbach; the goalkeeper Timo Hildebrand to TSG Hoffenheim; the Romanian central defender Burco Ovidiu to Energie Cottbus; the Italian-German offensive midfielder Giovani Federico, who look for minutes and he arrives alongside the centre midfielder Marco Engelhardt(player of the German National team) to Karlsruher SC; the Cameroonian Kweuke Leonard, whose good season at Slovakia opens the Bundesliga´s door and he will play at Eintracht Frankfurt; the Serbian left player the Serbian Zoran Tosic, who arrives to Manchester United from Partizan Belgrade ( 5 million euros); the Guinean defender Kamil Zayatte, who arrives toHull City from Young Boys (3.5 million euros); the good midfielder Toni Moral to Racing de Santander; the Brazilian left player Thiago Carleto, who, after some days at trial, convinced Unay Emery and he will play for Valencia CF; the Brazilian striker Adriano, who arrives to Malaga from International Porto Alegre; the experienced Greek striker Dimitrios Papadopoulos, who arrives to US Lecce from Panathinaikos; the correct Czech striker Vaclav Sverkos to FC Sochaux (2 million euros); the powerful and experienced striker Jean-Claude Darcheville who returns to France to play for FC Valenciennes; the proper Icelandic striker Veiga Pall Gunnarsson to AS Nancy (1.9 million euros); the Ivorian centre midfielder Emerse Fae to OGC Nice; the goalkeeper Bojan Isailovic(player of the Serbian national team)to Gençlerbirliği Ankara.

We will be very attentive to all the news and we will explain.

Cheers,

J&F