24 Oct 2014

Transfer Farce: Balague reveals the 'true' reason LFC rejected chance to sign Valdes

Last week, Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers insisted that Liverpool had no plans to sign Barcelona legend Victor Valdes, and now, it seems that Liverpool's loss is set to be Manchester United's considerable gain.

According to reports this week:

* Valdes is currently training with Manchester United.

* Valdes' Agent met with United officials on Thursday.

* Van Gaal has offered the Spaniard a three-year deal.

Earlier this month, Liverpool reportedly offered Valdes a 4-day fitness trial, but when asked about this, his Agent dismissed the rumour. He told Spanish newspaper Sport:

"Liverpool have not offered us the chance to train with them for four days. And we have not rejected the offer, because it is false. That offer was never made to us by Brendan Rodgers nor by Liverpool at any moment."

So, what went wrong with the proposed Valdes deal? According to Spanish pundit Guillem Balague, Liverpool's increasingly risk-averse transfer policy got in the way. In his column today, Balague noted:

"What is true is that some of those around Brendan Rodgers were not convinced that Valdes was the ideal choice for the club and as soon as things started to get a bit tetchy, Rodgers found himself with enough reasons not to take the chance".

Reading between the lines, it looks to me like Liverpool were interested in Valdes, but spent too long procrastinating, which allowed Man Utd to swoop in and take advantage of the situation.

Typical LFC, really.

The Reds desperately need a top-class goalkeeper to replace the consistently unconvincing Simon Mignolet, and if the club loses Valdes to Manchester United, it will be a huge blow, which will essentially strengthen United, and weaken LFC.

Even with his recent injury, Valdes is (IMO) a risk worth taking. Liverpool should've just handed the Spaniard a deal until the end of the season, during which time he'd either prove himself (and earn a permanent deal), or fail due to the long-term effect of his ACL injury.

To be honest, Liverpool have played right into Man United's hands, here, and it's pretty embarrassing.

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33 comments:

  1. Had we signed him and he missed large chunks of the season due to his knee injury (one of the worst injuries to have)...you would be accusing the club of negligence!

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  2. No. You are pretty embarrassing.

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  3. All very embarrassing yes, yes. But I can't imagine a successful chap like Valdes being content with playing second fiddle to De Gea, as will surely be the case (for the most part anyway). Excellent back-up, but to me it seems an odd move for a keeper in his prime.

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  4. I would imagine they will be trying to fend of Real Madrid if they were to swoop in on him in Janurary if one Iker Casillas was not to improve.

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  5. I am getting sick of our transfer policy! All this buy young, talent, potential rubbish. Being too tight when it comes to spending money on proven players. I know we spent this summer but it was mainly cash recouped from sale of players. We cant sign players like Di maria and Falcao because we are too tight. We keep missing out on top class players. Its fine we signed some players to improve our squad in the summer, but we need to spend big on a couple of world class players. Here was one going for free and we did our usual and missed out. All we had to do was offer him the wages and snap him up. Disgraceful

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  6. remy,diame.valdes.song what have they got in common .........wait for it ...they all appear to be good value thats why we dont sign them ...I dare say valdes with a wooden leg is more use than mingo who in all honesty is now past commenting on he is that poor.

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  7. im sure there could be safe guards written in to his contract...our current goalie is missing large chunks of the games hes playing through incompetancer

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  8. Would be curious to know what his wage demands are.


    I love how the automatic assumption is to blame the club even if we don't have the facts.


    But the rumors circulated that the club wanted him and didn't get him, didn't even bother offering him a contract, and he's now training with a rival so it must be the club's fault.


    Let's say Valdes made it known that he wanted 250k per week coming off a major knee injury... would anyone have blamed LFC for not getting him then? Of course not.


    But we didn't get him, so the club must be wrong.

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  9. the nature of football though is to speculate without the facts thats just the way it is,and truth be known the true facts very seldom come out anyway. All that fans can comment on is player A playing for Club B the details are irrelevant.

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  10. I'm not sure Valdes was ever the right choice, but on a free deal who would argue... The real problem though, is Brendan is being blocked by others for the players he wants, this committee has alot to answer for, Konoplyanka, Balotelli, Salah and just the ridiculous length of time it takes to get seemingly simple deals done for players that want to move to LFC... Then you have moves for Aspas and Alberto who are and never were good enough for LFC, who are now on loans, and Ilori who was brought in for £7m only to not get a look in and ultimately go out on loan.... and then we have the whole Remy is it on or not. Something has to give, and I hope it's the damned committee and not Brendans job.....

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  11. Ditto...the future is the "future", it's great to have an eye on the future, but lets not forget, we need to compete now.

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  12. When were never told the reasons, what else can we do.

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  13. I worry that this has been a problem in a lot of our transfers. There is an amount of indecision or at least the protracted transfer talks with players who never end up signing shows there is certainly problems there. How many other clubs talk to players for months before they end up somewhere else?

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  14. Valdes is no great loss - too old - with the agents we got we should do better

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  15. Between this and the Remy fiasco questions have to be asked about our logic on players. There seem to be deals that make perfect sense that we keep missing out on. The aforementioned and Alex Song anyone?
    Unfortunately the only way our medics will be proved right is if Remy has a heart attack and Valdes knee packs in and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
    With regards to our woeful defence, how about Toure Lovren for Hull? Couldn't be any worse than what we've seen

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  16. Then he needs to tell this 'committee' to shove it and walk away- he's getting the flak not them. Surely he must have known before he signed this would be the case- is this why he had to be asked 3 times. I hope this committee is the problem and it's not all down to him cos that's even more unforgivable. I find it hard to listen to him defending some of the players with ' a great Young man who works hard' and on and on. In the words of Harry Enfield Oi Rodgers Nooooo

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  17. PLEASE LEAVE BORINI = JUST GO

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  18. Borini and his agent messed L F C up this summer - GOOD ON YOU B R for freezing him out - USELESS PLAYER

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  19. Valdes is experienced alright, but is getting on, and isn't exactly who we need. He's got a big reputation, but is flaky on crosses and high balls.

    He's only getting back from an ACL injury also. I don't agree that there is any element of farce or embarrassment that United might get him. It doesn't make sense for them to sign him..

    We should sign Kasper Schmeichel. Really good keeper

    I'd also like to roll back a little on my Balotelli comments a day or so ago.

    We knew that signing him was a gamble, and it still May yet pay off, I'm startingto think that Mario is actually a little bit brain dead. His choices are baffling at times.

    He does need to try a little bit more though

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  20. We need a new goalkeeper true
    but we wont someone who is the next new thing like de gea and courtois
    maybe hugo lloris

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  21. let them have him. one of them is going to be kicking off. valdes will think he is to big and successful to warm the bench and if de gea gets dropped (hate to admit it, but he wouldn't deserve to), he would have cause to kick off too. let the in fighting begin!! hahahaha! f**k em!

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  22. It appears the transfer committee at the club is having the final say, not the manager. Rodgers is under enough pressure already so if the other guys on the transfer committee have doubt about a particular signing then that seems enough to make Rodgers back down. Did all the recent signings have the majority verdict from the transfer committee or did Rodgers go out on a limb for some of them. Or is their a compromise where Rodgers get's one of the players he wants in return for them getting a player they want? Either way it seems increasingly obvious with all these "failed" signings that the transfer committee doesn't work.

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  23. Liverpool did the right thing-no more gambling .. Aquillani/Balotteli saga

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  24. This is exactly what I have been saying. It feels we hem, haw and triple guess passing on good players then act in haste for a schmuck like Balo....

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  25. Completely agree regarding Song and even Remy. The committee have paralyzed us. At the same time we overdose on kids at the expense of adding big boy depth and a striker who can actually run, beat someone and pose less........

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  26. Completely agree. Have posted this theme for weeks and you are right; it's getting worse. Manu has kicked our ass. Daley blind, DiMaria are two good examples of real players in place of five ordinary players.........

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  27. That's what people used to say when defending KD. They blamed Comolli.

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  28. Appreciate what your saying Jaimie but I'm still in shock we allowed reina to go to bayern, good enough for them but not us? He would have taken mignolets place by now

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  29. How about we go for Pepe Reina????

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  30. Reina and Rodgers didn't get along. It wasn't a question of him not being good enough for us. Reina didn't want to be here, and Rodgers didn't want him here.

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  31. The bitter truth is that if a player has a choice between LFC and United, 8 out of ten times they'll pick United. Even without CL football, United is a huge draw for any player, rivalled only by Real Madrid tbh.

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  32. I know it's about as serious an injury a footballer can get but its not like a keeper is sprinting all over the pitch having to twist and turn, is it? I think it's a bigger risk not doing anything about our number 1 and I can see the irony saying number 1!

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  33. Nicolas Chamberlain2:23 pm, October 26, 2014

    We don't need Valdes, but Utd need him even less.
    He asks a big pay check and there is no guarantee he will ever get to his old level. There are other targets. No reason to be bitter about our transfer policy.

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