Alonso Speaks...

[Craig_H]

ballsed it up by wanting to essentially swap a player who had just had two average seasons with a player who had just had two very good ones.

Nonsense.

And further nonsense because it actually got the player performing again. If you improve an employees performance you usually get praised for man management.

And then we got 30 million for him when he wasn't worth 16 to Juve the season before..

He's a loss but Rafa doesn't do blind faith like you suggest he should have done.


And he's only a loss if his replacement proves a failure...

Form is temporary and a blind camel would've told you that Alonso is an infinitely better player than Barry.

[Shaggy]

One of the best footie threads I have read in here in ages .. spot on

Thought you were on the other side of the fence?

[Kenneth]

Thought you were on the other side of the fence?

Sure, but it doesn't mean he can't be interested in football like the rest of us.

[tomasjj]

Xabi's Facebook status:

I just cut ties with him on facebook.

[Shaggy]

Sure, but it doesn't mean he can't be interested in football like the rest of us.

[The Birdman]

Form is temporary and a blind camel would've told you that Alonso is an infinitely better player than Barry.

This has been covered to death before but Alonso isn't a better player than Barry, they are different players who play in a similar position but go about their role in the way that suits their individual strengths.
Alonso is more eye catching but not necessarily more effective

[Craig_H]

This has been covered to death before but Alonso isn't a better player than Barry, they are different players who play in a similar position but go about their role in the way that suits their individual strengths.
Alonso is more eye catching but not necessarily more effective

It's not at random that Xabi went for £30m, while Barry's (then) own club's overvaluation of him only extended to an asking price of £18m.

And that's even with the 'english' premium.

[BFG]

It's not at random that Xabi went for £30m, while Barry's (then) own club's overvaluation of him only extended to an asking price of £18m.

And that's even with the 'english' premium.

It's also worth remembering that while we'd have taken around £15mil for Xabi, Villa wouldn't sell Barry for a penny less than £18mil.

This summers transfer fees are silly and bear no resemblance to last summers market so there's no point making any comparison from last year to this, especially as it's widely accepted that Real have overpaid for Xabi due to Rafa being hard faced and the fact that Barry's contract was running down.

They're both very good players and it's purely down to opinion over which is better. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.

[Scratch]

Also worth remembering that Barry was in the last year of his contract, whilst Xabi had 3 years left i believe?

[Nicey]

Lots and lots of sense been spoken in this thread ...

[The Birdman]

Lots and lots of sense been spoken in this thread ...

Lock it quick before it gets out of hand!

[Fan65]

Lots and lots of sense been spoken in this thread ...

And we haven't even seen Alonso's replacement in action yet.

[red g]

Also worth remembering that Barry was in the last year of his contract, whilst Xabi had 3 years left i believe?

he had 2yrs left when he was valued at 18million by villa.

[red g]

It's also worth remembering that while we'd have taken around £15mil for Xabi, Villa wouldn't sell Barry for a penny less than £18mil.
This summers transfer fees are silly and bear no resemblance to last summers market so there's no point making any comparison from last year to this, especially as it's widely accepted that Real have overpaid for Xabi due to Rafa being hard faced and the fact that Barry's contract was running down.

They're both very good players and it's purely down to opinion over which is better. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.

xabi was worth 15million as it was more of a risk then RM paid a premium this year as we wanted to keep him and he just had a quality season and they have been spunking stupid amounts of dough everywhere

[Woobus]

xabi was worth 15million as it was more of a risk then RM paid a premium this year as we wanted to keep him and he just had a quality season and they have been spunking stupid amounts of dough everywhere

Thats the thing no one wanted Alonso at 15 million as all the top managers must have had the same doubts as Rafa. Thankfully for us he proved them all wrong and made us a lot more cash.