BG

Give him a new contract to end the speculation.

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Sounds like Xabi's agent was either testing the waters or angling for a pay rise or both.

Hopefully not true - not least the Heinze bit. Sport (the source) is as far as I remember a Barca paper so may well not be that well informed on Madrid matters. Having said that the original article in Spanish seems very definite that he will sign a five year deal.

Great article.

I believe they prefer spaghetti a la puta in that part of Italy. Seriously.

He looks quite useful. Perhaps they'd take the Vog + Babel in part exchange. Apparently on the day he first trained with the first team aged 16-17 Guardiola (then captain) told all the first team players there: you will remember today as the first day you trained with Andres Iniesta.

Agree. He's starting to remind me a bit of Cisse.

My view on him is further up this thread but in short I think he's fairly rounded, does most of the basics well and is certainly no worse at 22 than Fletcher was for example. At present he's a good squad player - he could be more than that in future.

Theres a couple of stats in this vein: Most deflected goals - 7 (Mancs) (This should be renamed the Frank Lampard award) Hit woodwork most times - 29 (Us)

Not that it changes much but wasn't it 5 points in 8 games (beat Borough, draw at Stoke, draw with Pompey?)

Good call.

Totally agree. With Barnes in this team we would have walked the title - possibly with a record points total too.

He's got that too.

He's off to Burnley: wants to stay in the area and the colour of their kit brings back happy memories.

Sounds more like someone like Freddy Adu to me than Owen who had about 7-8 years as a genuinely top player before injuries and being at a crap club finished him off.

No wonder Rafa's sacked Hamberg - can't even hype the players properly so at least we can flog them to Spurs once we've worked out they are more like the new Bjornebye, Meijer and Stephen Wright. In all seriousness though I just watched about 8 mins of highlights of Buchtmann vs England on Youtube and he does actually look quite promising. Don't want to hype the lad too much but it looks like he may actually be able to take a decent corner - which would be a first for us.

Article in the Guardian today about it. Tags Buchtmann as a like 'a baby Bremner', Lauri DLV as like a baby Torres and the right back (can't remember the lad's name) as a baby Cafu. Not that they're hyping the kids at all.

Yeah but it takes a while to download on his dial-up connection: he's been asking Parry to get broadband installed.

Wonder why Rafa pulled out. Probably had a look at the Ezequiel lad on Youtube and headed straight off to Naples.

Are you sure that's why?

And cheaper.

Yeah, seemed odd that there was no confirmation of him having signed anything.

Bottom line on Lucas for me is that he's 22, does most of the simple things well and has played in some of our best performances while never looking out of his depth in some very big games too. He's certainly no worse at 22 than say, Fletcher, was. Don't really get the desire to shift him. (As an aside I also thought his pass to Gerrard for the goal at Newcastle was as good a pass as I've seen by anyone for us this season.)

He certainly has the vision of a Pirlo and technique of Pirlo (perhaps even of Xavi). IMHO his drive and tacking are in no way comparable to that of Vieira 6-7 years ago - perhaps they to the current Vieira.