june 9th
All the talk yesterday was of Arsenal signing Celta Vigo goalkeeper Miguel Aluminium. Now, he didn’t play for Celta Vigo last season having spent it on loan at Albacete, and the player himself was expecting to play in the second division with Celta next season. He says “I was convinced that next season I’d end up playing for Celta in the second division. I’m really proud that a side like Arsenal have picked me out.”
There has been talk of a fee of around £2.5m-£3m which seems ridiculous to me. When you consider Jens Lehmann cost £1.5m, and we already have Stuart Taylor and Graham Stack at the club, would we really pay that much for a bloke nobody has heard of who’s just spent the last season playing for a team nobody has heard of? I doubt it. According to one Celta director “We never discuss a price for signings – that’s a question for the directors of the two clubs.”
So there you have it. I’ve had a look around the Spanish football dailies, but I haven’t seen any mention of this at all really. It all strikes me as a bit odd. If he does arrive, I suspect it’ll be for an undisclosed fee of around £25.
In other news central defender Liam Chilvers has joined Colchester United after spending last season on loan with them. Good luck to him. Giovanni van Bronckhorst has definitely completed his move to Barcelona and has signed a 3 year deal there. According to El Mundo (in Spanish), Arsenal and Barcelona have reached an agreement over the transfer but yet again there’s no mention of any kind of price. Have we really written off the £8m we paid for him? Surely we could have got a few quid for him? I don’t think a fee of £2-3m would have been unreasonable. The next Liam Brady, Stephen Bradley, has been released by the club. He was a very sought after young player, good luck to him wherever he goes. It’s a good job we’ve got the next next Liam Brady in the form of Anthony Stokes.
That’s it really. Nothing else happening. I’m not a huge fan of international football, but I can’t wait for Euro2004 to start. Sunshine, beer, tv, football. Hurrah.
