Back in the saddle again

By: salvatore | August 5th, 2008

Well it’s back to reality today for me after a little holiday, so let’s dive right in.

In the last ten days it seems the Lazio careers of Ledesma, Stendardo and Mutarelli have all come to a boil, and we’ll likely see the three on the way out sooner rather than later. There isn’t much surprise when it comes to Stendardo and Mutarelli, as the former forced himself out after fighting with Delio, and the latter compounded an injury-plagued season with an inability to push himself into the team’s plans this year. Possible moves for both have been on the cards for a long time now, so nothing really new there. What is new though is the talk of Cristian Ledesma being on the way out.

It’s been clear for some time now that Cristian wanted a raise and was less than happy with the way contract negotiations were going. The new wrinkle is that he was supposedly planning to leave the team in 2009 by using Fifa’s Article 17. Now, Lotito is a lot of things, but he’s no fool, and this bit of news has made moving Ledesma a necessity. Why? Well, last year Real Betis offered 20 million Euros for him, and apparently, there’s no shortage of teams interested. Lotito clearly thinks it’s time to cash in, and I agree. Ledesma is a central figure on the team, and tactically very important, but if you can get 20 million for him, I say sell, sell, sell, and don’t even think about it (even if I’ll always love him for this:)

Most recently, Valencia were said to have offered 19 million for him, but this was turned down. The other interesting scenario was a reported deal with Inter, which would see the promising Pele come our way, as well as a load of cash. This apparently has now been squashed, but something could still happen, as Mourinho is said to be interested in having Stendardo for the backline (what with Matrix’s continued injury problems).

So, word now is that Ledesma and Stendardo could be on their way to Inter, with Pele and possibly another player coming back. Depending on what you read, this could be either Burdisso, who is reportedly on the outs, or a pipe dream return of Stankovic. No question seeing Dejan in Biancoceleste again would be tremendous, but his salary is too high for this to be realistic.

The point of contention seems to be whether or not Pele would be moved to Lazio permanently, on a temporary loan, or as Lotito prefers, on a loan with a fixed price option to buy later on. If the move to Inter breaks down, Stendardo still has other options. There is, as always, Juve, who seemed all but certain to pick up the option on his loan, but then backed off. The reported pay-off was going to be Marchisio or Almiron, but with the latter officially going to Fiorentina today, the Stendardo to Turin idea might actually be dead. We’ll have to see.

Meanwhile, Milan, who are knee deep in injuries (again) also threw themselves into the picture, with a reported swap offer involving Brocchi. If you remember, Brocchi was being tracked by Lazio about four years ago, when Lotito first took over. Back then, he would have probably fit in nicely with the team. But now? I don’t see how he would be helpful, even if Mutarelli is being pushed out, and especially if Ledesma is leaving.

Which brings us to Augusto Matias Fernandez. The speedy Argie is making noise again about wanting to play for Lazio, and if Ledesma is sold, he would be an ideal player to take his place lined up next to Matuzalem in the midfield. Cristian and Augusto are not exactly the same type of players, which would maybe force Delio into some tactical shuffling, but Fernandez would offer a whole new realm of pace and creativity playing behind Zarate, Pandev and Rocchi.

We’ll have to see how everything works out, but in the next little while we should start to get a much clearer picture of what this year’s midfield will look like.

Personally, I’m very optimistic.