Speculation surrounding Barca boy, David Villa has been rife for the best part of 18 months. Ever since a long-term injury two seasons ago, the Spanish centre-forward has struggled to re-find his feet at the Nou Camp.
Now one might argue that 40 appearances last season isn’t so shabby, but many of these came as a substitute. He also only found the back of the net 16 times, which is a meager tally by his own high standards.
Reports soon began to circulate that Villa was growing increasingly restless at Barcelona. At his age, it wouldn’t make sense to stay and fight for his place. There are just too many young players snapping at his heels ready to jump on any available opportunity.
Rather than letting stagnation kick in, it was natural that he’d look for a change in surroundings. It was never a matter of whether Villa would move on. The only question was where he’d end up.
Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool were all strongly linked to the Spaniard. This is perhaps not all that surprising. All three clubs looked short upfront last season and all three clubs are thought to be on the hunt for a top striker this summer.
Yes, Villa may be old, but he’s still a world-class footballer. Best of all, he’s affordable too, as the below will demonstrate.
According to The Mirror, Barcelona have agreed to sell David Villa to Atletico Madrid for just 5.1m euros (£4.4m). Madrid will pay just 2.1m up-front for the striker and the 50% sell-on clause that Barca slapped on Villa’s new contract seems meaningless, as he is likely to have no re-sale value any way.
Has world-class talent (the man has scored 48 goals in 119 games for Spain!) ever moved this cheaply? Villa has experience at every level, goal-scoring pedigree and a couple of years left in the engine.
This begs the question: why didn’t Liverpool go in for him?
Brendan Rodgers is looking to pluck up talent on the cheap this summer and Villa certainly fulfills the criteria. A front three that contains Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and David Villa would have been a force to be reckoned with.
His signing would also give players like Raheem Sterling an opportunity to develop, improve and ready themselves for first team action.
It just looks like a missed opportunity. Let’s hope that Brendan has someone else (hopefully someone better) in mind.
What’s your take? Are you sad to see David Villa move elsewhere?
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get a grip cloke villa has never been the same after his injury
They could have offered anything, Villa’s decision came down to not wanting to leave sunny Spain. Fiorentina came-a-knocking as well. Villa wanted to stay in Spain, simple as that.
And besides, what would a world class player like Villa want with a mid-table, non-European playing club?
The record u put up there is his goalscoring record with Barcelona. David Villa has scored 56goals in 89 appearances for Spain. Get your facts right. And NO, He would have rejected Liverpool. He’s a UCL type player and it’s a year to the world cup. He needs to be playing at the top level in surroundings he’s already used to so he can make the World Cup team.