Tuesday 16 December 2008

Diarra slipping away?

Spanish 'paper Diario AS writes today that Lassana Diarra will agree to join Real Madrid within 48 hours. (English translation here)

Juande Ramos was impressed with him whilst Tottenham manager, and sees him as a good replacement for injured Mamadou Diarra. Madrid are willing to pay the €20m fee - Portsmouth would much rather sell him abroad than to City - and Diarra himself sees this as a real chance to further his career.

Having read so many times that this is done deal, it would be soul-sapping to see it fall through.

UPDATE This is also in Marca, the main Madrid sports daily. Their article said that Portsmouth have dropped their asking price from €20m to €10m (presumably to avoid having to sell to relegation rivals City?). And, of course, Diarra is interested. (English here)

4 comments:

inky pinky said...

Good, we don't need another club hopping sick note. We need a left midfielder as Petrov is out for ages. This would allow SWP to go right side and Robbi to act as a support striker and not left side where he wont defend enough which exposes the left back.

TLDORC said...

I disagree. Diarra may be 'club hopping' ('sick note', I'm not sure), but he is the best attainable holding midfielder in the Premier League (I can't really see us buying Mascherano). Our midfield lacks bite, too much is being asked of Ireland and Kompany. Diarra would be perfect. If we can't get him, maybe we'll go for Frings or Cambiasso.

Anonymous said...

I hate Ramos, he is scum. Diarra is the player we really needed. We might have got him if it hadn't have been for Hughes's management style.

inky pinky said...

Cambassio's a defensive midfielder and we have Kompany for that. We need a box to box as MJ is out long term or keep SI in the role as he has done okay.
What about Torres AND Gerrard as Liverpool ar skint.