La Liga transfer latest

By Olly Dawes
Updated: 15 January, 2012

Sports writers in both the Spanish and British press have been writing at full throttle this week as football’s transfer season hots up.

Manchester City, Chelsea and Scottish giants, Glasgow Rangers have all featured heavily over the past seven days as journalists (loosely speaking in some cases it has to be noted) attempt to out-do each other to shift a few extra units.

That is not to say there is not some element of truth in many of the stories however, just not in the City and Chelsea ones it seems…

As you know, we are never ones to partake in the rumour merry-go-round here at El Centrocampista and prefer to deal in hard facts, so lets glance an eye at what has been happening this week…

The transfer window is actually hotting up in Spain now, with some moves already being completed this week as La Liga resumes following the winter break.

The biggest deal to go through was that of Cameroonian goalkeeper Carlos Idriss Kameni, who has moved to free-spending Malaga from Espanyol. Despite being the starter for Espanyol since moving in 2004, Kameni has been demoted to third-choice under Mauricio Pochettino this season.

Funds are notoriously tight at the Cornella El-Prat and Kameni was one of the big earners and his free transfer move to Malaga can clearly be seen as a move to cut the wage bill and enable Pochettino to strengthen his bright, young Espanyol side.

It represents an absolute steal for Malaga who have been looking for goalkeeping competition since the aberration their fans were served when Ruben deputised for Willy Cabellero between the sticks for Manuel Pellegrini’s side. And it might not stop there…

Rumours emanating from Andalusia suggest that Malaga are pressing ahead with two players Pellegrini has had previous experience with – Real Madrid midfielder Esteban Granero and Inter striker Diego Forlan in an audacious attempted double swoop.

Forlan has endured a nightmare at Inter since moving from Atletico Madrid in the summer and he could be tempted back to La Liga by a reunion with his former Villarreal manager Pellegrini.

Malaga have however missed out on Cordoba‘s much fancied midfield Javi Hervas, who has shown how far Malaga have to go in terms of dominating Andalusia as he chose to sign for rivals Sevilla, citing that he had more chance of getting first team football with Marcelino’s side.

The ever reliable *cough* Marca claimed that a conveniently un-named English side had made a staggering ¤42m bid for Real Madrid winger Angel di Maria. When you look at it, only two teams could genuinely afford that kind of money; Manchester City and Chelsea.

Manchester City have an embarrassing abundance of attacking riches whilst Chelsea have just signed Juan Mata so I can’t see either team genuinely wanting di Maria.

Meanwhile, the main departure from La Liga was Barcelona full back Maxwell. The out of favour defender has joined Carlo Ancelotti’s revolution in the French capital with Paris St. Germain for a fee of around ¤7m and a three year contract. With first team action hard to come by, it offers Barcelona a chance to shift somebody of their wage bill and gets Maxwell some much needed game time, so the move is completely understandable.

The busiest side of the window could be Real Zaragoza after an awful start to the season. Levante striker Carlos Aranda is set to join along with Getafe‘s Adrian Colunga, whilst Dinamo Moscow‘s Croatian midfielder Tomislav Dujmovic is on the verge of a move to La Romareda.

New manager Manolo Jimenez is looking to achieve a great escape and more targets have been lined up such as defender David Navarro and an ambitious move for ex Real Madrid midfielder Guti.

And in the Segunda, Valladolid goal machine Javi Guerra has drawn serious interest from Scottish giants Glasgow Rangers. The sticking point is that Valladolid say Guerra has a £5m release clause in his contract, a fee that Rangers can’t pay. With 32 goals in 52 games for Valladolid, Guerra is attracting plenty of interest and could be back in La Liga if Valladolid maintain their spot at the summit of Segunda.

Stay tuned to El Centrocampista as we will bring you the very latest transfer news from Spain as the deadline approaches.

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