Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Welcome Toure Yaya and associated news

No, that's not a typo. The younger Toure has announced that he would like to be known as Toure Yaya while at Barca, and that's what's going on his no.17 shirt as well. The 24 year old was presented today after finalizing his 9 million euro move from AS Monaco.

I've only ever watched him play at the World Cup, but have heard very good things about his ability, and it's good to see the management aren't blind to our needs in the defensive midfield position. Hopefully he'll prove to be a success for us.

The club have apparently told youth academy product Thiago Motta he is surplus to requirements with the capture of Toure. Motta was a very promising young player when he 'graduated' into the first team (he's actually been capped for Brazil a couple of times), but horrible luck with long-term injuries have derailed his development and his inconsistency when not injured has been frustrating the fans for the last few seasons. It's sad to see a youth system product pushed out in favour of a big-money signing, but in this case it was inevitable, despite Motta being a particular favourite of Rijkaard's.

The same announcement would seem to indicate that Rafael Marquez and Edmilson will both be staying at the club, the latter largely because he's going to be out injured for six months following a knee operation. Otherwise he would probably have been offloaded for criticising the board's call for greater discipline within the squad and general loss of form, not to mention frequent injuries. On the subject of Marquez, the club would seem to be holding out hope of his eventual return to form after a horrible season from the Mexican.

2 comments:

{a} said...

"Toure Yaya" :-) yes I've heard and read good things about him too, but I don't think he is your classic defensive midfielder a.la. Makelele or Viera. He is going to have to get used to the position I suppose. To a question in his interview with barca TV and website - "Would you say you are a defensive midfielder?", he answered..."You could say that all football players these days have their special qualities. And there are certainly players that are just as good as me, but that means I am also just as good as them, and I think football is always about wanting to keep making progress, because it only with that kind of mentality that you can achieve your goals."

:-) That's not quite a confirmation..in fact I don't really get what he was trying to say..he could have just said.."oh well...i don't know.." but i suppose footballers nowadays are a philosophical bunch!!

Linda said...

I read that interview! God his answers were confusing. Endearing, but confusing. I'd be very annoyed if we bought a central midfielder and decided to stick in him the defensive midfield spot, because we've all seen how those kinds of purchases worked out for Real before. Hopefully he'll adapt to our system without trouble. People compare him with Viera, but we don't need him to be Viera - we just need him to be better than Motta and Edmilson. ;-)