This is a brief article to suggest that our board take a deep interest in the happenings at the Spanish La Liga club Malaga.
Only last year this club was bought by a very wealthy Qatari conglomerate and joined the league of “noveau riche” clubs. They then went on a huge spending spree as is customary with these sorts of ownership acquisition take overs and got some big name signings.
For the sake of our interest and purposes the player we need to be monitoring closely is Santi Carzola.
I will not waste space here to give a full dossier on him. Suffice it to say this guy is jet fast, can use both feet though preferring his left and can play very well on both flanks?he is age 27 but a spry 27 with no significant injury record of note. He was on display with La Roja furia at the Euros where he had some limited minutes but impressed in those. One other thing to add..this fellow is a free kick specialist who can curl them in from ~ 20-35yards out Beckham style.
Malaga are in trouble..they cant afford to pay their big name players anymore and several of them like Rud Van Nistleroy and Carzola have reported them to the Spanish authorities..this club which was awash with cash just last year and qualified for the Champions league as a result with a top coach Manuel Pellegrini is suddenly looking very precarious. The big money benefactors seem to have lost interest and don`t seem to want to inject some of their own cash to keep this boat afloat and on its own Malaga is not one of the big clubs in spain..their home stadium is relatively small and so needless to say gate intake cash will not be a big source of money for them..Unfortunately if this matter does not get resolved they could end up being sent to Liga B after qualifying for the Champions league!!! This is a tale of caution that we need to take to heart of the danger clubs run when their singular source of substantive income comes from some deep pocketed benefactor(s) rather than a sound business model and plan. It also shows what can happen to such clubs when and if the benefactor loses interest. I wont say more than that on that issue..a word they say is enough for the wise.
The point is ..in the now the big stars on this crisis ridden team are becoming very jittery and literally the ‘rats will soon start exiting the sinking ship’. There is speculation that Arsenal had made a bid on this guy Carzola. We have recently made some of our best buys by allowing a rival make a first bid on a player to so to speak “fix” the market price and then swoop in at the last minute and steal the prize from under their nose. We did this to arsenal with the Mata deal and it appears we may also pull it of with the Oscar deal from Spurs. I would say we should monitor Carzola’s situation very closely and do the deed again to make sure Arsenal don`t get him and we may have in him a 1st team true top quality right winger at a fraction of the cost quoted for options like Hulk. Malaga will not be in a position of bargaining strength here..they will need to sell some top level talent to pay their bills and pay the other players wages so they don`t get sent to Liga B. While we should take note of the lessons their plight teaches we should also take advantage of the opportunity it presents. What say you all?
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