Bats joins the Bats

Valencia today confirmed that Michy Batshuayi will join on a season long loan. The loan fee has been variously reported as 3 million euros by Transfermarkt and 4 million by L'equipe, which is consistent with the amount that Superdeporte reported Valencia offering. Superdeporte also report that Valencia has a 50 million buy option on him.

The player spent the first half of last season at Chelsea before joining Dortmund on loan, clocking up a total of 19 goals in 39 appearances for both teams, including 2 goals in 4 Champions league games. An impressive enough total in two of the top leagues in Europe. He had been heavily linked to Sevilla, so snatching him from under their nose helps us and hurts a direct rival.

While some will ask what the point is in bringing in a player that we would struggle to buy, it seems a good move to me. He's an experienced and proven goalscorer, offers pace up front and, if he can help us achieve our objectives for the coming season (at least 4th in La Liga and at least last 16 of Champions league) then it'll have been worth it. Guedes' loan last year helped us reach Champions league and meant we haven't had to sell key players this summer. If the 50 million option is true then it could be within our reach if we have a good season / lose Rodrigo next summer or similar.

On the Guedes front, the close of the English transfer window yesterday significantly reduced PSG's options. He's already refused to go to Napoli, no other teams in France, Germany or Italy have the funds or interest in bringing him in. Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have already spent their transfer budgets and the chance of him going to R.Madrid (who have never expressed any serious interest anyway) lessened when Penaldo left for Juventus. This looks very good for us.

There were a couple of other moves yesterday relevant to us. Vietto has joined Fulham on loan. There was some talk early in the summer that maybe we would negotiate his price down, but that quickly cooled and ultimately, I'm sure we'll wish him the best of luck there.

Andre Gomes, who has been linked with a return to us on loan or as a makeweight in a Parejo deal has joined Everton on loan. I doubt most of us will be that bothered. Our central midfield seems well sorted with Parejo, Kondogbia, Soler, Wass, Coquelin and Racic available (Medran is also there but looks set to join Rayo Vallecano.) Left wing is the main area to cover and Gomes is not a left winger. It's still good news for us. While he is officially a Barcelona player, even if out on loan, we still get the variables from his transfer deal: a million if Barca win the title, 0.5m if they reach Champs league quarters, a million more for the semis and 3.5m if they win it.

Ultimately, I'd agree with one of the recent comments by Nickster: if we can now add Guedes, while maybe replacing Zaza with Gameiro we'll be well placed for top 4. Aside from Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, none of our rivals seems to have noticeably strengthened in this transfer window.

Martin Montoya joins Brighton & Hove Albion

Valencia CF right back Martin Montoya has been sold to Premier league club Brighton & Hove Albion FC for a reported fee of about 7 million euros, including bonuses. Martin Montoya joined Valencia CF two years ago as a free agent and quickly setup himself as the first choice right back, unfortunately last season he wasn't as good, making Valencia CF coach Marcelino lose trust in him.

He would have been useful this season as well, but the club had to sell someone after bringing in few players, yet keeping most of last year's squad. Right now Ruben Vezo and new signing Cristiano Piccini will be fighting over the right back starting position.

I wish Martin Montoya good luck as he leaves in good faith and having helped this team achieve its objectives. 

Everton 2-3 Valencia

Valencia scored a decent win in their penultimate pre-season friendly with the team producing their best performance of the pre-season.

VCF went with a line-up that will probably be similar to what we'll see next season, though the club will hopefully have Guedes or a left winger and an extra forward or two by then. Marcelino experimented with Ferran on the left for this one.

Both teams started energetically and it was Valencia that drew first blood. Ferran put in a pinpoint cross from the left, Soler showed good decision making, controlling, when he could have shot, and then pulling the ball back for Rodrigo to score.

Thereafter, we struggled to creat clear cut chances and Everton had more attacks. Neto produced a great save to keep us ahead but couldn't do anything about the equaliser. Soler's clearance was poor and somehow Sigurdsson managed to evade 4(!) Valencia players to pass to Tosun in space and his low drive made it 1-1.

Just five minutes later we were back in front. Great cross from Piccini and Rodrigo managed to evade his markers to head home. Rodrigo was our best player on the day and in an energetic first half I was also impressed with Ferran, Diakhaby, Piccini, Neto and Parejo. Garay and Mina were disappointing and Soler and Gaya were below their usual quality.

Everton equalised again in the 29th minute and it was an annoying goal. A corner found Keane who had escaped his marker, who seemed to be Kondogbia, and Keane headed home at the near post. The type of goal that we conceded too often last season and Marcelino will be annoyed that the defence still don't seem reliable at dealing with corners.

Mina scored a good goal just after that but was wrongly judged to be offside. At least we'll have VAR next season to take care of that.

After half time we started to see some of the subs, starting with Wass and Jaume. The latter had an ok game, but is still suspect at aerial balls. He flapped at one or two and punched when I felt he could have caught. Wass didn't do too badly. He missed a good chance from a Gaya centre but made up for it after that. Sandro and Coleman got in a tangle for Everton, Wass stole the ball, drove inside and thumped home the winner from just outside the D.

All the other subs came on except for Cristian Rivero. None of them really impressed me. Zaza and Jordi were invisible. Kangin Lee has good potential but looks at least a year away from being ready for first team action. Montoya's mind is elsewhere (Betis?) and Vezo made a couple of mistakes which will prove costly if repeated against better teams.

Overall, a good result. Everton are around the level that Betis are currently at, so an away win there is good. However, we have defensive issues which still need sorted if we are to challenge for last 16 of the Champions league or top four of La Liga. Defending set pieces is the main one.

Leicester City 1-1 Valencia CF

Valencia CF continued their preseason preparations with a friendly match against Leicester City FC as a part of an English tour and tonight both teams were evenly matched throughout the match, with the outcome being a 1-1 draw, a fair result all things considered.

Valencia CF started the first half the better team, we had the ball possession, we were dictating the tempo and we had good fast movement on and off the ball for the most part. The one negative was the conceded goal, but it was more of an individual mistake, rather than a collective error. The highlight was obviously the goal scored by Parejo on an assist by Zaza.

The other negative was Rodrigo Moreno, he seems to be struggling so far in the preseason and I haven't see anything from him that is giving me confidence that he will repeat last season. He seems sluggish, he seems lethargic and just generally out of it. Considering the club was willing to sell Zaza and still are considering it, its clearly a mistake, since we can't rely on Moreno as it seems. I know its still early on, but he's been training for over two weeks now, he featured in two of out preseason matches and should be getting close to form on paper.

No one from Valencia CF particularly impressed me in the first half, or for that matter the second, but on that later. Every player did good in the first half, again the biggest highlights were the goal scored and goal conceded.

As far as Medran is concerned, since obviously the focus will be on him and whether he shows enough to stay in Valencia CF, he did okay. Nothing special, played it safe for the most part, the few times he made riskier plays he lost or gave away possession, so it didn't work out when he tried to create something more.

Its hard to judge him just from the friendly matches, how he does in training is half the picture, so it will be up to Marcelino to make a decision and I trust it will be the best one.

The second half brought in a few changes to the Valencian team, with Marcelino bringing in Neto, Mouctar, Gaya, Mina and Wass in place of Jaume, Vezo, Lato, Moreno and Medran.
Those changes didn't bring much change to the flow of the game, both teams had few weak tries on goal, nothing direct, but few weaker tries. I think Leicester had slightly more tries and shots in the second half and stepped up their game, while Valencia CF played in the same gear and got overwhelmed a bit.

Further changes in the 64th to 65th minute didn't bring any improvement to the play, in fact with Wass and Soler in the midfield Valencia CF actually lost more possession and completely lost control of the proceedings, as Leicester were dictating the play.

We still haven't seen out best 11 out in the field, I think Marcelino is still undecided what would be the best squad and still trying to experiment, though you can see in the squad he started and the subs and timing of subs who he currently favors.

Either way I'm looking forward and expecting to see Kondogbia and Parejo in midfield, with Soler on the right wing, with Moreno and Zaza up front, right now Murillo and Mouctar probably being the favorites for the CD starting positions, Gaya obviously as left back, Neto at the goal and the right back position is up for grabs if you ask me.

None of the youngsters have impressed me, Ferran is okay, Kangin lee has a long way to go, Escobar still seems far off of the level required as well.

What we seem to be missing is a Goncalo Guedes, someone with fast pace, direct running and someone who would force things. We need to get either him or someone exactly like him, otherwise we might have trouble scoring goals. We just lack that X factor right now that Guedes gave us last season. So if we can't land him, the club needs to work on getting a proper replacement, someone with a very similar skill set and footballing characteristics. 

The essentials about Valencia's champs league participation

Last season Valencia achieved what most of us doubted last summer: a return to the UEFA Champions league. The draw for the group stage will take place a month from today, though qualifying rounds have already been played for the last five weeks. Compared to when Valencia last played there in 2015-16 several changes have been made. The biggest one has been to have increased numbers of qualifying rounds for the majority of less successful federations, but give the 4th placed team from the top 4 automatic entry to the CL group stage. 

Last time round, VCF had to play a qualifier and despite being seeded, got a tough opponent in Monaco FC, who they edged. Had the old system continued, Valencia would have been unseeded in the last qualifying round and could have faced a tough tie against someone like Liverpool or Roma. That change is good news for us. 

The second change which is good news is that the cash on offer has increased by nearly half, from €1.35 billion to €1.95 billion. Last time out, VCF took home 27m, picking up another 2.1m from the Europa league. We stand to make a lot more this time.

REVENUE
VCF's champs league earnings will come four ways: a participation fee, a 10-year ranking, market pool and performance bonuses.

The first is the easiest to explain. Every team that plays in the group stage gets 15.25 million. 

The 10-year ranking is new for this year. Basically, there are 528 "shares" split between the 32 clubs based on their performances in the previous 10 seasons in European competitions. Each share is worth 1.108 million. The highest ranked team (Real Madrid) gets 32 shares, the second and third teams (Barca and Bayern) 31 and 30 respectively, down to the 32nd team which gets one share. Valencia are provisionally eighteenth in the ranking so will get at least 15 shares for a total of 16.6 million. However, that could increase if either Benfica or Basle (or both) get knocked out in qualifying. In that case Valencia would get 17.7 or 18.8 million. 

The market pool is another way of saying tv revenue. That seems to have been cut in half this season, with the money going instead to the 10-year ranking. UEFA don't release these figures until the October or November after the champions league final, so we don't yet know what teams got last season, but working off previous seasons, it seems like Spanish teams will get 8.8 million for Barca, 6.6 for Atleti, 4.4 million for R.Madrid and 2.2 million for us. Teams will also get about half a million per game they play, so provisionally, about 5.2 million for Valencia for the group stage.

Lastly, there's performance bonus. Each champs league group stage game has prize money of 2.7 million. If a team wins, that's easy, they get all of it. If it's a draw, it gets more complicated. Each team gets 900,000 with the remaining 900,000 put into a pot and split between teams based on the number of games they won. Roughly speaking, that means a win is worth close on 3 million and a draw 900,000.

Getting to the last sixteen earns 9.5 million. Reaching the quarters adds 10.5 million. Those amounts aren't cumulative so VCF would get 20 million in prize money for reaching those two rounds. Semis add 12 million and reaching the final earns 15 million. The winners get 4 million on top of that and qualify for the UEFA Super cup where the winners get 4.5 million and the losers 3.5 million.

So worst case scenario, VCF loses all 6 games we still earn 37 million.
Best case scenario, Basle and Benfica eliminated, VCF wins everything (we might as well think big) we get 116 million.

I think all that shows just how important it is for us to make the CL a regular thing instead of once every 3 or 4 seasons. 

THE DRAW
The biggest problem is that 2 years of not qualifying for Europe at all have really hurt Valencia's ranking. Last time round we were ranked 14th and comfortably made it into pot 2. For now, we are 21st, which would be pot 3, but there are a number of teams in qualifying with a higher ranking than us: Benfica, Basel, Dynamo Kyiv and Ajax in the league route, which has 2 qualifying places, and Ludogorets, Salzburg and PSV in the champions route, which has 4 places. To get pot 3, we need to hope that no more than 3 of the 6 qualifiers have a higher ranking than us. Most likely that means seeing Ludogorets, who drew 0-0 at home in the first leg, getting knocked out this week and 1 of PSV or Salzburg failing to make it. Pot 3 would mean our easiest team could be Bruges, Plzen or Galatasaray instead of Liverpool, Roma or Schalke.

A crunch season ahead, hopefully we won't crash and burn like we did last time. 

FC Lausanne 0-0 Valencia CF Preseason

Valencia CF played their second preseason match against Swiss based FC Lausanne in which the team only managed a scoreless draw. Additions to this match were Rodrigo Moreno and Jeffrey Kondogbia who weren't in the squad for our first preseason friendly match and both of them featured for 45 minutes.
Once again the team changed completely at half time, with Marcelino trying out all players. I have a feeling that after the 3rd preseason friendly we are going to see a more narrow selection as Marcelino tries to find the best squad and home the players together.

We obviously saw all of the new players on the field today and they all had relatively good showing, considering this is just the second friendly match, and the team did look kind of sloppy and slow truth be told. Obviously it's just the second friendly and they were probably even told to ease off a bit in order to avoid injuries and needless tackless, but still the team did look very slow on and off the ball and we see that there is a long way to go before they are primed and ready.

I didn't watch all of the match, the stream was cutting and coming up, so it wasn't a 100% experience that I got, but yeah saw a lot of it. I'm just looking forward to see the improvement over time and how we do against better and better opponents. 

La Liga fixtures released

The fixtures are now out for the new season and it's a tough start for Valencia

taking on Atletico Madrid in the first game. We've won only once in the last five home games against them in the league, back in 2014/15.

Valencia then have Espanyol away and the city derby against Levante, also away. We then have Betis at home, followed by another regional derby away to Villarreal before a tie at home to Celta completes September.

It doesn't get easier in early October, away at Sociedad and at home to Barcelona. Things then ease off until early December when we are away to R.Madrid and home to Sevilla. Full list is here. And, courtesy of Superdeporte, here is our full list of fixtures

J1: VCF - Atleti
J2: Espanyol - VCF
J3: Levante - VCF
J4: VCF- Betis
J5: Villarreal - VCF
J6: VCF - Celta
J7: R. Sociedad - VCF
J8: VCF - Barça
J9: VCF - Leganés
J10: Athletic - VCF
J11: VCF - Girona
J12: Getafe - VCF
J13: VCF - Rayo
J14: R. Madrid - VCF
J15: VCF - Sevilla
J16: Eibar - VCF
J17: VCF - Huesca
J18: Alavés - VCF
J19: VCF - Valladolid
J20: Celta - VCF
J21: VCF - Villarreal
J22: Barça - VCF
J23: VCF - R. Sociedad
J24: VCF - Espanyol
J25: Leganés - VCF
J26: VCF - Athletic
J27: Girona - VCF
J28: VCF - Getafe
J29: Sevilla - VCF
J30: VCF - R. Madrid
J31: Rayo - VCF
J32: VCF - Levante
J33: Betis - VCF
J34: Atleti - VCF
J35: VCF - Eibar
J36: Huesca - VCF
J37: VCF - Alavés
J38: Valladolid - VCF

Valencia sign Piccini

Valencia have announced their fifth signing of the summer transfer window.

Right back Cristiano Piccini joins from Sporting Lisbon for a fee somewhere between 7 million and 10 million euros (sources are unclear.) After starting his career in his native Italy, Piccini moved to Betis, where he spent 3 seasons, before joining Sporting last season, where he reportedly had a decent season.

It's no secret that the right back spot has been the one that Marcelino has been the most dissatisfied with this season, with Vidal dropped early on and Montoya only getting half the games with Vezo filling in most of the time. Valencia were interested in people like Meunier, Hateboer of Atalanta and Darmian of Manchester Utd, but all of them proved to be too expensive.

The reasons for going for Piccini seem clear enough. He's of the right age (will be 26 in September) has La Liga and Champions league experience and brings height to the team. Marcelino has been concerned that the club has been conceding goals from aerial balls from set pieces, while our defenders have offered little threat in the air from set pieces (Vezo scored the only such goal last season in the Copa.) Piccini, like Diakhaby, will add that height needed.

With his signing, it looks like Montoya will follow Vidal out the door. Negotiations are rumoured to be underway with Betis, with them offering 5 or 6 million and Valencia wanting 10m. If Montoya goes, then Piccini will be the main right back. It remains to be seen if another one will be signed. If not, Vezo, Paulista and Wass would be cover there.

We will see how this works out. My only thing with it is that if it is 10 million, we could've got a better price, especially by part-exchanging Nani, who went the other way. Still, it's good to see more movement this transfer window. Last year, by 10 August, the club had only signed Neto and Maksimovic. I guess at least 40 million to come from the Champions league helps speed things up.

Other transfer news is that Kangin Lee has signed a new contract, with his release clause being bumped up to 80 million in line with Alemany's strategy of protecting our promising youth players from vultures like FC Tourist of Catalonia or the premier league. Unfortunately, it didn't work with another youngster, Ferhat Cogalan. He refused the club's offer and has chosen to sign for Lille, with Valencia getting 150,000 for developing him.

No other news, just rumours.... the most likely is that Gameiro is still said to be coming. The club is still working to get Guedes, which may be on loan again. Possible interest in Andre Gomes returning, while Barcelona still maybe interested in Parejo. Lastly, with lots of defenders here now, Javi Jimenez may go out on loan to gain experience.

Nemanja Maksimovic joins Getafe CF

Its official, Nemanja Maksimovic joins Getafe CF for a reported fee of 5.5 million euros. Valencia CF has a buy-back clause implemented in the contract, where for the next 3 years it will have an option to buy-back the player at an increasing fee, before losing that option in the 4th year.

I'm not sure if there is also a sales clause, that Valencia CF would receive a percentage of any potential future sale in case they don't want to exercise the buy-back option.

Maksimovic did end up being useful last year, especially when all the injuries happened and he did play quite a few games for us, but Marcelino favored other options when he had the choice. This leaves us a bit light in the midfield department, especially as we lose some of the youth players who were called in to feature for us and considering we lost Andreas Pereira and Goncalo Guedes, Maksimovic did actually play as a right wing on occasion last year.

At this point Goncalo Guedes is basically lost, the best thing Valencia CF can do is find a decent replacement, someone who can partly cover for him, hardly think our new signing Wass can do it, especially as his prefered position is on the right.

Formation Change?

First off, congratulations to France and all French fans and supporters on the World Cup win. With the World Cup now over, everyone is looking ahead to the new club season. However, the World Cup always has an impact on the new season. The performance of players causes a lot of movement in the transfer market with clubs keen to steal away the best performers. The World Cup also gave us a good taste of VAR (video-assistant-referee) which will be in full effect this new season, hopefully with a few kinks worked out. However, the World Cup is also a lesson in tactics and formations, and that's what I want to speak about today.

I read an article on Superdeporte that suggested that Wass was being experimented by Marcelino as part of a double pivot. I didn't think much of it at the time but while watching the World Cup, I realized that many of the top teams, all use a variation of a formation with double pivots: 3-4-2-1, 4-2-3-1 or a 3-5-2. The champions France played a counter-attacking style as we do, but the core of their success is the double pivot of Kante and Matuidi. No doubt many coaches looked at the tactics used in the World cup either to emulate them or at least to figure out how to stop them, and Marcelino would have been no exception. 

So why change the 4-4-2, which has worked well for us this far? Well, my guess is that Marcelino only opted for this formation since it was simple and effective. Given the time and resources he had, this made sense. But a coach has to adapt to the times and this could be a reason to change. 

It struck me as odd that Marcelino would invest in yet another CDM and another CB. This leaves us with 3 CDMs (Kondogbia, Coquelin, Racic) and 6 CBs (Garay, Murillo, Paulista, Vezo, Diakhaby, and Jimenez). On top of that, there were rumors that Valencia were going to use Nani as a bargaining chip with Sporting CP to facilitate the signing of another CDM, William Carvalho. This didn't materialize. That would've left us with 4 CDMs. Now, this could be for a few reasons. It could be the club is anticipating Kondogbia will be sought after by bigger clubs soon and have already planned his future replacement. Racic could also be a temporary cover for Coquelin whose injury might make him miss some of the next season. As for the CBs, many have speculated that Garay would be on his way out since he has one of the highest salaries and could fetch the biggest price out of the players. However, it could also be in anticipation of a formation change. 

In a formation with 3 CBs, having 5 or 6 CBs doesn't seem so strange anymore. Similarly, a squad with 3 or 4 CDMs, in a formation with double pivots, is not strange either. This, at first sight suggests that we would play a 3-4-2-1 or a 3-5-2. This could looks something like this:

      Rodrigo/Mina

Guedes?/Ferran                 Parejo/Soler

Gaya/Lato    Kondogbia/Coquelin    Wass/Racic    Montoya?/?

Murillo/Jimenez      Garay/Paulista      Diakhaby/Vezo

Neto/Jaume

This is very similar to the way to the way Belgium would play, 3 CBs with wingbacks on either side of the double pivot. In front of them, two mobile and/or creative players with a central striker. Now, if one of the center-backs leaves on loan or is sold, this could be adapted to a lineup similar to France's 4-2-3-1 as follows:

      Rodrigo/Mina

Guedes?/Ferran                Parejo/?                      Soler/?

    Kondogbia/Coquelin    Wass/Racic    

Gaya/Lato     Murillo/Jimenez       Diakhaby/Paulista      Montoya?/Vezo

Neto/Jaume

***Note, I didn't include Zaza in these, as he seems to be getting pushed out. However, he could very well fit in as the central striker in these formations, with Rodrigo playing just behind. Guedes remains a maybe so I kept him but I'm hearing names like T.Hazard, Malcolm and Kostic to replace him. Maksimovic was signed by Getafe, so he wasn't included.

Both formations have been effective in the World Cup especially conducive for counter-attacking football. Of course, this is just pure speculation from my end based on our transfer-activity, some news and my analysis of the World Cup but we'll see what happens in the preseason friendlies and the next month and a half of the transfer window. A lot of the time, there is a cascading effect with transfers where as soon as a club gets their player, the selling club will buy to replace and then that selling club will also do the same and so on, unlocking the deadlock.

As usual, please share your thoughts with everyone in the comments below. Is it safer to stick with the 4-4-2? Or would you like to see a formation change? Which one? Which transfer targets would make it work? How should we lineup? 

Valencia's pre-season friendlies and more transfer exits

Valencia have already started their pre-season training and will play their first friendlies next week, in Switzerland. The "Alpine football festival" will see them play Galatasaray on 21 July at 18:00 and Lausanne on 24 July at 18:30. The club will then have away games at PSV (28 July, 19:00) , Leicester (1 August, 20:45) and Everton (4 August, 16:00.)

All times are Central European summer time (GMT+2) so the last 2 will kick off an hour earlier. The last game will then be a home game for our annual Orange Trophy, against Bayer Leverkusen at 21:30 on 11 August.

More exits to report this week. Nani was the biggest. He returns to Sporting Lisbon on a free transfer. Valencia will get 40% of any future sale. He joined us in 2016 for 8.5 million euro and a cold reading of his stats for 2016/17 aren't bad, with 5 goals and 8 assists, but in reality he was a huge disappointment. His time with us was blighted by injury and inconsistency. We did at least get 2 million from Lazio for his loan but otherwise he's yet another costly flop. Unless he makes a big money move to one of the retirement pastures like China, the MLS or the Middle East, it's unlikely that the 40% sell-on will be of much use, but at least we save on his high wage.

The next high profile departure is Nacho Vidal who has joined Osasuna, again on a free, though with Valencia retaining 50% of his rights, including of any future sale. Deportevalenciano report that there isn't even a buy back option, which seems strange. What a massive disappointment he turned out to be. Just last October he was being named as one of the five best young La Liga prospects, a future Spain international and a certain target for top European clubs this summer. He started last season okay, playing the full 90 against Las Palmas and the last 15 minutes at the Bernabeu, but whatever Marcelino saw in training, he didn't like. It would be a few games before he played again, in the away game at Sociedad where he scored with a great finish

but the next game after that, at Betis killed him off as he was responsible for their second and third goals in a near comeback. Fingers crossed he'll be able to resurrect things in the Segunda.

Speaking of disappointments, Fran Villalba has joined Numancia on a season-long loan. Big things were expected of him a couple of years ago, but he fell off the radar after that.

Gonzalo Villar was expected to sign a new contract but instead he's left on a free transfer to Elche, though Valencia retain 80% of his rights and he'll play more games for them.

A deal to sell Maksimovic to Getafe seems done, with only official confirmation lacking. They'll pay 5 million for him, with Valencia having a buy-back option of 7.5 million, next summer, rising by 1 million in the two summers after that. Valencia have even agreed in advance on a contract for him should he return.