Reports this morning are suggesting that Arsene Wenger would be interested in signing Xabi Alonso but only if Liverpool lower the £18m valuation to £10.5m. Now I have two issues about this, firstly, why should Liverpool lower the valuation of Alonso to £10.5m? That is daylight robbery! Alonso is not worth £10.5m, he is much better than that. In fact way better. If we are going to sign Barry for £18m then Alonso should be in the same price range. I do not see Rafa agreeing to let Alonso go on the cheap. I guess Arsenal are just trying their luck. If they were serious about wanting to sign Alonso they would come in the an acceptable offer.
My second concern is that; should we be selling such a good player to one of our championship rivals? I think we should not. It is that same Heinze situation when he wanted to leave Manchester United and come to Liverpool. I do not think you will see many transfers happening with players leaving one of the top four to go to another top four team. I will be honest and say that a Fabregas – Alonso partnership at Arsenal could be quite lethal and we should be all means not allow for such a partnership to form.
I think we should just wait for a decent offer for Alonso and hope that it is a team outside England or a team not in the top four. We should not settle for anything less than £15m (at the lowest) for Alonso. It is funny, I remember in 2005/2006 when Real Madrid were keen on signing Alonso as he was arguably one of the best passers of the ball in Europe at that time. Now it seems like we struggling to find a buyer for him. I guess this goes to show how much his form has dropped since his first days of joining Liverpool. There is also still the added possibility that Alonso will stay at Liverpool even if Barry signs this week. It will be a midfield filled with competition and Rafa will have his work cut out trying to field Gerrard, Mascherano, Barry, Alonso and Lucas.
I think at this point Barry is fairly destined to arrive, and in that case I would have to assume Alonso would be surplus to requirements. That said, I do agree with you that we shouldn’t sell to Arsenal. I also think we ought to cut ties with anything over 12 million pounds. His drop in form has been shocking both before and after his injury last season. This is not to rag on him, as I wish he’d stay and find his old self again, but if we have to raise funds we have to. I want us to have the team that Rafa wants on the field regardless of who it is. I think he is trying to get the best out of our captain, and we all know how unstoppable he can be when he hits a rich vein of form. So fingers crossed he stumbles upon a season long one.
Arsenal are quite bonkers to think Rafa will sell Alonso for A – less than what he value him at
B – less than what Juve offered
C – to a PL rival
Alonso has done us proud in the past, but I fear if we wait for him to get back to his best, we may wait forever…
That said, I think Rafa should offer him to Valencia in a bit-part deal for David Silva… It makes the most sense
A deal with Valencia involving Silva would certainly be a great idea. That really would complete our team if we were to get Silva.
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