Friday 10 October 2008

Touré considers transfer if he doesn't play more

Asked about the rumours linking Barcelona defensive midfielder and Ivory Coast international Yaya Touré (25) with a January exit (read more here), the player's agent Dimitri Sellyuk has said in interview with Catalan radio station Ona FM that the player will probably leave if his situation at the club doesn't change:

"If he doesn't play, we'll most probably start negotiating with other clubs. Barcelona has the final word, but if he won't get more minutes we're forced to think about a transfer.

Touré is a true professional, he works for Barcelona, he loves the club and he has a contract. Who's interested in him, should talk with Barcelona. Like for example Juventus. I'm aware of their interest, they would like to sign him if Barcelona agrees, and of the interest of another top club in Italy and one in England.

Touré has a contract with Barcelona and he'll stay here for the time being. But he's not playing a lot and he's not here just for the salary. He has even played when he was injured. He's not a player who's only there to sit on the bench, get paid and not play.


Yaya prefers, like we all do, to stay. He likes Barcelona but we should consider his situation at the club. He's 25 years old and you cannot expect him to sit on the bench and watch the others play."

Read more:
Arsenal could launch Toure bid in January
Juventus offers Touré five-year contract
Wenger called Touré this summer

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

For gods sake. We're only 6 games into the season and already people gets unsettled? He has been playing, perhaps not every game but there's no need to start panic. This is just media bullshit.

Anonymous said...

It's his agent talking, so no need to blame the media. This time.

Erikoisasiantuntija said...

Here is the minutes so far for everyone (from barca official site)Playing time
Víctor Valdés: 720
Xavi: 703
Alves: 640
Iniesta: 627
Puyol: 620
Abidal: 593
Eto’o: 558
Márquez: 540
Piqué: 450
Keita: 439
Sergio B.: 345
Henry: 318
Touré Yaya: 250
Gudjohnsen: 200
Bojan:138
Pedro: 105
Cáceres: 99
Hleb: 76
Sylvinho: 1

He is playing more than guddy or bojan, so stop crying about this. It a long season, so everyone will get their chance.I pretty sure Pep will pic the best team available. Yaya hasn`t been as good as last season.

Anonymous said...

I don't like this.Don't sell YAYA he is our streght of midfield, don't let him leave!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

eriko.... the guy hasnt been as good as he was last season? jokes!! how can you judge him on 200mins against people who have played 700mins+? If he leaves, I hope we dont regret it. Once we dont, then am fine, but if we do, i would have the last laugh (@ the clubs expense). He is good enough to start.. period!

Anonymous said...

He's right. Why should be a benchwarmer, while Keita and Busquets playing? Yaya is far better player than them.
He'll probably accept Arsenal or Juventus deal.

Anonymous said...

this is sadly the most justified bit of news ive seen in a while, yaya is one of my favorites and simply a world class midfielder. Frankly, he is being insulted by pep. he played half of last year with a back hernia and did it well, while the majority of the team, the big money earners (roni/deco)sucked ass and gave up on the team. he has barely started any game and its obvious keita (for some unknown reason in my opinioin) and busquets get preference which is simply ridiculous.

he is totally justified in wanting to leave, in particular if behind closed doors or at training he feels he isnt valued. yaya is an awesome player and if we sell him, i will be pissed and hold my first grudge against guardiola because it would be a stupid moronic idiotic type decision.

Anonymous said...

Which club would be the other "Italian top club"? I see only two other "top clubs" in the serie A: Inter and Milan. Anybody can tell if they could need a player like him?

Anonymous said...

He is too good to warm any teams bench. I would love to see him play for Arsenal. I wish him all the best IF he leaves. And still talk of loyalty, he played last season through injury, yet was argueably our best player.. and after 3months, he 70% of the time on the bench.

Anonymous said...

I don't think there's any reason to panik just yet. But it dosn't look good if he does'nt get a real chance soon. On the other hand it could be like Guarldiola said a couple of weeks ago: That Yaya missed out on a bit of the pre-season due to his operation and need moore time to recover. The strange thing whith this is that Yaya dosn't seem to agree, given this statement from his agent. Mabye it's just a way for him to say to Pep that he's ready to participate fully now, and at the same time keep the door to Juve open in case he fails to take a spot in the first eleven. There's something rotten in the state of Catalunya, that's fo´sho´!

Erikoisasiantuntija said...

To noubarca. Im judgeing Yaya for his performases in the 5 preseason games in which he played about 200minutes (200/450). In Gamber he played 76min, and in UCL Qual. two matches against wisla he played 25+90 minutes. So, In my opinion he has had his chance during the start of the season, and hasn`timpressed like last year. I like him a lot as a player, but I think he and his agent should shut up and concentrate playing better. I really want to keep him in Barca for many years, but if we should sell him, we`ll end up making a lot of profit.

Anonymous said...

better sell keita and let yaya play!

Anonymous said...

eriko... i now get your point. It would be good if we think we are well covered in that area, sell him and make profit like you said. But trust Barca board/coach, they would come and say to the press agian " Yaya is no longer in our plan" so the price/value nose-dives... so i dont really see us getting that much money on him. I wish Barca a trphy-filled season..

Anonymous said...

Yaya is a kind of player who is not loyal to his club. Before coming to Barca, he changed club every season. Now, he and his agent are there complaining lack of playing time. He lacks professionalism.

Yaya, just have to keep focus on doing your training. Pep will choose the best 11. if you train well and impress him, then he will choose you. Don't just be there breaking the winning atmosphere in Barca dressing room. Keep your mouth shut and do your work.

By the way, so far in the games, Sergio Busquet's playing was really impressive. His playing was much better than you, Yaya. He did much less mistakes in games, did more accurate passing and distribute the ball throughout the field keeping the game more fluently than you, Yaya.

This is why he played more than you. Pep is the manager and choose the squard. He choose the squrd and there are reasons behind it. What you can do is doing your own job, proving that how much worth you are in the best 11. Accept the challenge. Learn it from Gudjohnson. That is the attitude.

Anonymous said...

His value isn't going to nosedive because we declare that we want to sell him. That only happens if there's only 1 team interested in a player.

The fact that Ronaldinho and Deco were sold so cheaply had nothing to do with the declaration and everything to do with the lack of interest in their services based on value for money, age, form, and salary demands. When you have world class players making 100k/week only a few clubs can afford them, and usually they have those positions covered, because they are already world class teams. In the case of Ronaldinho the only other team that offered us was Man City and they offered something like 30 million euros, compare that with the 43 million they offered for a young, in form Robinho. We got max value for Ronaldinho because the only way we were going to accept Milan's offer was Ronaldinho waiving his 10-15% entitlement on the transfer fee. So in essence we got 30 million, but instead of 6 million going to Ronaldinho it went to Milan in terms of savings.

Similarly with Deco, the 10 million fee was a bit low, but Chelsea was the only team that offered for Deco. If nobody wanted to offer after we announced that he was going to be sold, how the hell was someone going to offer more if they thought we were going to keep him? It's a myth perpetuated by people who hate Barca's management, Txiki/Laporta. We got the market value for those players, because there weren't teams bidding for their services, just one team with a take it or leave it offer. Sure we lost some leverage against that one team, but not enough to drive up the price dramatically.

With Yaya, his performances this year have not been good, and no, he hasn't gotten much of a chance so far. But because of the length and relative bargain price of his contract, we certainly don't have to come out and say we want to get rid of him. Remember with Deco/Ronaldinho we HAD to sell them otherwise pay them millions in salary. The difficulty selling Eto'o was also due to his huge salary demands, even teams like Arsenal couldn't afford him. Imagine that, if Arsenal can't afford his salary demands, how many teams in the world can? Even if YaYa decides he wants to leave he still has to find a team willing to meet our price because he's tied down to us longer term unlike a Deco/Ronaldinho.

Anonymous said...

Touré was a key-player last season and was probably told that he would be so for many more seasons to come when he signed for us. Our key-player have played all games (Xavi, Iniesta etc.) and Touré haven't. Of course he is dissapointed and feel betrayed when the board and the new coach suddenly bring in 2 new players on his position.

I think we need a replacement if he leaves. Busquets isn't good enough and will probably crack down under the pressure in the big games like El Clasico or a knockout game in CL. Keita isn't good enough in defence to cover for him an entire season.

The best decision would be to do like last season, play him in every game unless he's injured. Touré, Busquets/Keita/Hleb, Xavi should be our midfield depending on how our opposition are playing.

Anonymous said...

Everybody, calm down. Agents talk a lot of crap, "on behalf" of their players. If they can gin up a transfer (of which they get a chunk of the fee) they'll go for it.

Wait for Yaya, who hasn't said a word in this matter. It could mean that his agent is speaking for him. It could also mean that his agent is talking out of his tailpipe.

So wait for Yaya.

Prima facie, the fact of the matter is that we cannot carry 3 defensive mids. That's crazy. I don't know what we were thinking when we signed Keita, except that Yaya was expendable.

Or is the real complexity that Busquets developed more quickly than expected? Dunno.

But I would hold off on eviscerating Yaya until we know who's talking. Agents always do crap in the press. It puts "pressure" on the team. It doesn't always serve the player's best interest, particularly in this case, when team harmony is so critical.

So the team is going at Eto'o, and Yaya's agent is going at the team. Interesting.

Anonymous said...

Yaya is unreliable in his behavur.. he has no faith in other people.. and no profesionalism in general.. olympiakos was the team that brought him in europa and made him known and when the team needed him most he decited to stop training unless they sell him.. unlike olympiakos that got him for nothing and sold him for a lot of cash (for them) we do not need to sell and we have the back ups to keep him out if he tries anything stupit!!
do not think that i do not like him as a player, I like him, a lot.. i think he is one of the best dmc in the world but if he thinks that he is above the club i say keep him in the 5 floor of the nouebo until his contract is over..
and in france do not think that he made a vary good impresion as a character..

Anonymous said...

Yaya is a great player. Fantastic techique, great passing and very comfortable with the ball but he sucks at defending.

He is slow to react and opponents pass by him quite easily. There are many examples, the most recent one being against Betis.

The defensive medfield position is a crucial one for the teams defensive function, especially in our formation, and Yaya simply cannot carry out that role.

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