One team hears a no, another club hears a yes. After Arsenal have already been told to move away from trying to approach David Villa of Barcelona, Chelsea aren’t discouraged by a simple no, thinking that they have the right kind of money and Spanish appeal to bring the striker in January.
Andoni Zubizareta, the sport director of Barcelona, spoke yesterday about the Villa situation, saying the striker, who has hardly played in recent weeks, isn’t going anywhere. He’s a star, regardless of his playing status at the moment, and Barcelona don’t sell their stars over the January transfer window.
But while that no might discourage Arsenal, Chelsea and Rafa Benitez can be a little bit more persistent. There are quite a few teams that could do with a high-profile striker like Villa to improve their situation, but Benitez is hoping that playing for Chelsea, the money and the Spanish charm this team has, with Fernando Torres, Juan Mata, Cesar Azpilicueta and Benitez himself might become a helping hand in convincing Villa to choose them in the next few weeks. To convince Barcelona, it’s going to take at least £10-12 million, and even that may not be enough.
Villa hasn’t played much this season, especially after a couple of “incidents”, that were mostly him and Lionel Messi arguing about Villa not passing the ball in time. One theory suggests that the reason Villa hasn’t seen much of the field of late is because he pissed off the wrong guy, and Messi isn’t all that innocent. Those backing that theory often suggest that Samuel Eto’o and Zlatan Ibrahimovic moved on because of Messi, but that seems a tad far fetched.
This season, Villa has scored 5 league goals in 12 matches. Since arriving at Barcelona from Valencia, he has scored 28 goals in 61 league matches, adding 8 assists. If he’ll arrive, it’ll be interesting to see if he partners up with Fernando Torres up front in the starting lineup or becomes another option off the bench for Benitez to use.
At the moment, there are no natural strikers in the squad aside from Torres, with Daniel Sturridge on the verge of completing his Liverpool transfer. Victor Moses is usually the one who fills in the ‘9’ spot if Torres goes off.