The Fans Football Blog3

this post was published exactly one year ago:


With Barcelona central defender Lilian Thuram (36) on his way out this summer, Barcelona planned from the start to bring in a new central defender. The serious injury of Gabriel Milito has now made Barcelona speed up the search.

Both main Catalan sports papers think that at this moment the main options are, and in that order of rank, Deportivo La Coruña central defender and Argentinian international Fabricio Coloccini (26) and Manchester United central defender Gerard Piqué (21), like had been analized by this blog last week (read more here).

Piqué left the Barcelona youth academy in 2005 for Manchester United. Due to a lack of playing time, the player has been rejecting until now to renew his contract that expires in 2009 (read more here). British tabloid The Daily Mail claims that Manchester United wants to sell players like Piqué and Saha to raise more funds they then want to spend in the summer. It is said that Piqué wants to return to Spain.

Catalan sports paper Sport claims that Manchester United wants to renew the contract before letting him go on loan to Barcelona. Barcelona would prefer a permanent deal. With only one year left on his contract, the transfer fee is said to be around 5 million euro°.

Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo claims that the Barcelona scouts have also been following two other players: AS Roma central defender and Brazilian international Juan (29) and Stuttgart central defender Matthieu Delpierre (27).


Read more 9 May 2008 news:
Villareal's Diego Lopez to rival Valdes
Which players are on Guardiola's list?
Barcelona joins Hleb race
New Bayern manager Klinsmann wants Deco
Henry offered to Arsenal and Chelsea