THE LATEST NEWS OF THE MARKET (article in English and Español)

Finally, Manchester City is becoming the protagonist of this market after its incredible bid for Kaka, who showed common sense and declined the offer from this team, which frankly do not know where it is going, because really I do not understand its criteria to sign player, because of course Kaka is a superstar, but ¿does City-it is the second top scorer of the Premier and it is one of the teams with more goals received-need a player like Kaka? I think the answer is no and at this moment the City´s priority must be to sign important and experienced defensive player-Wayne Bridge has not these characteristics-and especially it needs a goalkeeper, a central defender and some defensive midfielder-it seems that it will acquire soon a good central midfielder, the Dutch Nigel de Jong, who will arrive from Hamburg SV with a transfer fee of around 20 million euros-. When the Manchester City´s director have a balanced team, they will can think about superstars, since they will see an attractive team with many chances to win the Premiership, but at this moment City must think about good players like the last acquisition, Craig Bellamy, who is a correct player, although I do not understand his arrival, because it is absurd to spend 15 million euros for him when you have in the squad player like: Robinho, Darius Vassell, Benjani, Martin Petrov, Felipe Caicedo, Jo, Bojinov...well, this is Manchester City at this moment-it is having a complicated season as we predict 5 months ago on the article: ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE, THE SPECTACLE IS HERE!(This article is available in English and Español)- . On the other hand, in England, besides the acquisition of Manchester City and Hull City-the “incredible Hull” has signed the left experienced player Kevin Kilbane and the United Angolan Manchester United´s striker Manucho-, the main important news arrives from “modest” teams like Blackburn Rovers-it wants to solve its defensive problems (it received 36 goals in 21games), with the arrival of experienced French central defender Gaël Givet(he is a bit slow and besides he arrives to Blackburn without any game played this season with Olympique Marseille) and Stoke City, which has both defensive and offensive problems and at this moment it is looking for the solution to improve its poor number of goals scored-it scored19 goals in 21 games played- with the arrival of a classic of the British football, James Beattie (transfer of 4 million euros)-he is far from his best performance showed during his Southampton´s period (he scored 23 goals in the season 02-03), but he can be useful for Stoke- and the arrival of the experienced left winger Matthew Etherington, who arrives from West Ham Untied after a transfer of 3 million euros.

Alongside Manchester City, the other protagonist during last days is Espanyol Barcelona, where we are seeing a chaotic season “thanks” to the labour of coaches like Tintín Marquez and Mane and it seems that finally the president has taken a good decision, because he chose Mauricio Roberto Pochettino as the new coach-although he has not experienced as coach, Pochettino can make a good work because he knows very well the players of the team(even he played with some of these players) and he has the adequate character and it is sure that Espanyol will play hard and with winning mentality (ahh, and without the horrible defender Mari Lacruz).So we will see a new Espanyol and it will be very different from the Mane´s period, whose arrival can be described as frivolity, being the main responsible the general director, Pedro Tomás, who must start to take decision based only in sportive reasons. Besides Espanyol, Recreativo de Huelva is another Spanish team with some news during these last days, since it signed on loan a good Argentine midfielder, Cristian "Chaco" Maidana, who can play in any position of the midfield.

In addition, the Italian market has some news too, being the most important the arrival of Pablo Daniel Osvaldo to Bologna FC-I do not understand the decisions of Fiorentina, because it has sold during this month 2 good striker, who have important future, because Pazzini and Osvaldo are current under 21 Italian National team players. We'll see what will be the future of the 15 million euros received by Fiore for these 2 players-,the arrival of the Chilean offensive midfielder Fabian Orellana to Udinese Calcio from Audax Italiano, which will receive 4 million euros-it continues the connection between Udinese and the Chilean football because Orellana will play alongside Alexis Sanchez, Nicolas Corvetto and Mauricio Isla (even as another Chilean player like Sebastian Pinto could arrive to Udine in the past- and the arrival on loan of the young Brazilian right back Felipe Mattioni to AC Milan-it is a good decision to have this player on loan in order to see if he can be a useful player for the Italian Giant-.

Other Leagues:

Turkey: The most remarkable news during the last days were: the transfer to Besiktas of the young Swedish offensive player Erkan Zengin-he is a player of the Swedish national under21 team and arrives on loan from Hammarby to give rest Tello, Delgado or Simsek-, the extension of the contract with Fenerbahçe of the veterans Roberto Carlos and Alex-I think that Luis Aragones should look for another left back because Roberto Carlos is far from his best level. The continuity of the elegant Alex is a good news, because it is very difficult to find a player with his tremendous quality- and the arrival of the powerful Yannick Kamana to Sivasspor( The leader of the Süper Lig wants to strengthen the offensive line with new players to help Mehmet Yildiz and Pini Balili).

Belgium: Racing Genk wants to improve its scorer´s level and it bets with the return to the Belgian league of Stijn Huysegems-it is a pity that this promising striker(he played very well when he was a Lierse´s player) has not showed all this quality in Dutch league (he played at AZ, Feyenoord and FC Twente )and of Tom de Mul- the truth is that he did not play well in Sevilla FC where he showed a worse level than Jesus Navas. So, it will be a great chance for De Mul to recover confidence and to improve as a player-.

Finally, other important news are the arrival of veteran Sylvain Wiltord to Olympique Marseille-he is 34 year´s old, so I think that he will not have many chances to play and his role will be to give a rest Niang, Bakary Kone and Brandao- the signature of the experienced central Goran Gavrancic with Partizan Belgrade and the movements in the Dutch league- on one hand, PSV needs to improve its offensive level and we will see if the solution is the powerful Swedish Ola Toivonen (he is a player of the Swedish under 21 national team and he arrives to PSV thanks to the 3,5 million euros paid to Malmoe FF, where he made a good season) and on other hand Ajax must improve its defensive level to be a serious alternative to AZ and therefore it acquired the veteran and experienced central defender Wielaert Robe, who arrives from FC Twente ( by the way, the experienced Danish winger Dennis Rommedahl will play on loan from Ajax at Nec).
Well, many news and of course we will pay attention to the next transfers- .

Other articles about the winter market:
THE MARKET IS HERE (article in English and Español)
THE WINTER MARKET STARTS (article in English and Español)
A GREAT SUNDAY (article in English and Español)

A REVISION OF THE TRANSFERS DURING THE LAST WEEK (article in English and Español)

Cheers,

J&F