Italian teams interested in Jeremy Mathieu

Ladies and gents few days ago I wrote a news article "will our defensive trio be sold?", but that wasn't true, its the defensive quad. Jeremy Mathieu is the latest victim of increased interest from top clubs all over Europe with his great performances.

Roma and Milan have been interested in securing his services, Bayern Munich was at one point interested and recently reports say that Inter are interested in the Frenchmen seeing as how Yuto Nagamoto didn't turn out how they hoped he would and Chivu is unreliable.

Right now Valencia CF is in the middle of a new contract extension work that would increase Mathieu's contract and of course increase his buyout clause.

Report: Valencia players on international duty

Brazil; Diego Alves, Jonas Goncalves
Diego Alves started and played the full 90 minutes in Brazil's match. He wasn't particualry tested, but did well on the few occasions he was called in.
Jonas Goncalves played for three quarters of the match and was decent, but was a bit wasteful with the chances he got.

France; Adil Rami, Jeremy Mathieu
Adil Rami started and played the full 90 minutes in France's match and did great, with France not conceding a goal.
Jeremy Mathieu started for the first time for France after being feature in the squad for the last two matches, but not even sitting on the bench. He did good and just might get a permanent place in the squad.

Tureky; Mehmet Topal
Mehmet Topal did not start in his national team 3-0 beating, although he did come in in the fourth quarter. He stabilized the play in midfield, but didn't offer much.

Spain; Jordi Alba
Jordi Alba started and played the full 90 minutes for Spain against England and did good, with few dangerous runs in the first half and a good defensive display.

Official: Paco Alcacer extends contract to 2016

Great news ladies and gents as Paco Alcacer has just extended his contract with Valencia CF to 2016, it was reported on the official Valencia CF website.

Valencia president Manuel Llorente was very happy and said that Paco Alcacer showed interest to stay at Valencia even with several clubs being interested in him; "Paco is an important player in our club and I'm sure that we'll see him in the first team soon and that would make out fans very happy."

Paco said "It's a joy for my family and I to play at a club as big as Valencia, who has shown confidence in me. Valencia is doing things right."

Defensive trio of Rami, Ruiz and Alba to be sold?

The great performances from Adil Rami and Victor Ruiz have not been left unnoticed unfortunately and several clubs have shown huge interest in taking their services.

Real Madrid and Manchester United are currently interested in Adil Rami with both Jose Mourinho and Alex Ferguson two of the best coaches in the world keeping close tabs and keen to get the defender. In fact with all the interest being show in Adil Rami even so early Valencia CF are going to start negotiations to extend Rami's contract and improve the buyout clause.

Victor Ruiz has also been very impressive and he is also very young so he has still a long way to improve, he is also a Barcelona youth school product so Barcelona have shown considerable interest in him in this past week and there is serious consideration to strengthen their back line either in the winter transfer market or in the summer and with Puyol, Abidal and Maxwell all on their last year probably Ruiz is their prime target.

Another Barcelona youth product that is also friends with Ruiz from the Barca days is Jordi Alba and his been impressive on the left side either in defense or attack and has also caught the interest of Barcelona.
Milan have also reportedly shown interest in Jordi Alba and few other clubs are closely monitoring his performances and situation.

Mathieu to extend his contract with Valencia CF

The French left back Jeremy Mathieu is likely to extend his contract with Valencia CF as his current deal is supposedly to keep him until 2014, but his release clause is very low at only 3 million euros and the club wants to increase the clause to at least 10 million euros, as not to loose him to the cheap.

Right now Mahtieu is worth around 10 million euros and is you go to Mathieu's profile page I have him valued at 11 million euros, so loosing him for 3 million would be terrible.

Mathieu has also recently been called to the French squad and although unlikely to feature more at least this year, with Evra and Abidal on the end of their careers, Mathieu is going to have increased chances to feature for France, especially since he plays with Rami and can form a great defensive partnership.

The new contract should keep Mathieu until at least 2016 and have a release clause of at least 10 million euros, although Valencia CF will probably want more like 15 million clause, which is the same we sold Albiol few years back to Madrid and Mathieu is on that level.

Angel Di Maria out for one month

Yeah I know this isn't about Valencia CF, but in a way it is news concerning Valencia CF. Angel Di Maria sustained a hamstring problem in Real Madrid's 7-1 victory over Osasuna. The initial reports is that he will be sidelined for one month and that means that he is not going to be in the squad to face Valencia.

As you know Kaka is also injured, although he may return by then, but certainly won't be fit enough. So this is great news for Valencia CF as Di Maria has been great on the right side for Madrid.

Levante 0-2 Valencia CF - Player Ratings

Guaita 7 - Had to make few saves, including two difficult shots and did so superbly. Another quality performance from the keeper.
Bruno N/A - Got injured in the early stages and was replaced by Barragan.
Rami 6 - Not as good as he usually is, got beaten twice by direct running and got bailed out by Ruiz, quite poor performance.
Ruiz 7 - Great performance from the young defender, stopped few crucial attacks and bailed out Rami on few occasions as well. Was a rock at the back and even helped out in midfield plentifully.
Mathieu 6 - Had one solid cross that Soldado just barely failed to get to and provided few good attacking opportunities, but defensively was rather weak and got beaten quite a few times.
Feghuoli 7.5 - Great performance by Feghuoli, was all over the pitch involved in pretty much every attack and provided some much needed attacking threat.
Albelda 6 - Did quite well to stop Levantes attacks and provided few basic passes, reliable as always.
Tino 7.5 - Stepped up his game and provided the assist to the first goal and then scored the second goal. Was dominant in the midfield and kept things working. If he continues having performances of this level he can easily dethrone Banega.
Alba 6 - He did quite well in attack, linking up with few of the players, but when going back to defend made a lot of mistakes. Also got tired towards the end and apart from his goal, it wasn't a great performance.
Aduriz 6 - Found himself with few half baked opportunities, but couldn't quite make something out of it.
Soldado 5.5 - Quite lacking and apart from few defensive contributions that was it. Rightfully substituted over Aduriz.
Subs:
Barragan 6 - Provided a good attacking outlay, went forward as much as possible although with limited success and did well enough defensively. I actually felt more at ease with him playing then with Bruno.
Piatti 5.5 - Full of running in the time he had and did have some good solo runs, although could not create something as Valencia were on the defensive at the time.
Pablo N/A - Not enough time, although he did make quite a bit of mistakes in his short time.