January Recovery Mission

By: cathal | September 9th, 2009

The January recovery mission is underway. Everybody expects or rather hopes for Lotito to address our problems in 2010. He messed up the mercato, he must put it right; that appears to be the general philosophy in circulation. However, how exactly can he make amends? Well, there are many indications as to what he intends to do and I will give you my take on it all now.

In an ideal world, where money is no obstacle and our president conducts his business in the finest matter imaginable, three acquisitions would suffice. A quality central defender would not go amiss, an experienced midfielder who is not over the hill would also be a useful and a right winger would go some distance in balancing out our side and giving us more options in attack. I believe Claudio tried to bring in suitable players but seemingly, he failed. However, I do also believe that we have interesting propositions for January. Unfortunately though, he may wait until next summer. Let me repeat that; there is a good chance we will let the winter mercato pass us by.

Why? Much of our recent failings can be blamed on the status of two Brazilians; Miranda and Simplicio. The former is an incredibly highly-rated centre-back and our president sniffs a bargain. The problem all along was his club; they didn’t want to sell him on the cheap but as a result, the player is refusing to negotiate a new contract. As a result, we are stuck in the middle of some mind games and we missed our guy. The defensive hunt quickly became a rushed objective, trying to find a half decent defender on the cheap and with a president that may as well have his cash superglued to his wallet, that wasn’t feasible. Now we have to wait and see what emerges in Brazil and whether Miranda becomes available in January or the summer.

There could be back-ups. If Juve and Inter start scrapping over Pandev as it has been reported then some tasty player exchanges could be on the cards. Arnautovic has been mentioned; a player Claudio was desperate to land but eventually lost out on. The Austrian may have been ahead of Cruz on the striker shortlist but he could also be the elusive right winger we have been looking for. Another possibility for me, although it has yet to be rumoured is Legrottaglie. He is out of favour in Turin and needs game time if he wants to feature for Italy in South Africa. Perhaps we could exchange Goran for some type of loan until Miranda becomes available? That’s just a theory and an example of a deal Lotito might look to pull out of the hat.

As for Simplicio, he is still on our radar. According to Palermo, a deal was in place to swap the Brazilian with Cribari; a deal that was later cancelled (presumably due to the Rozehnal sale). Sabatini was determined to close a deal and asked for Radu instead. At this point, we are already eyeing up our replacement in Bengtsson but that deal falls through and Fabio never arrives. However, as far as I can see, it looks unlikely that the midfielder will extend his contract and that keeps the door open for a move in January. In other words, watch this space on Miranda, Simplicio and Arnautovic and don’t be too surprised if Claudio resorts to some measly loans. Forza Lazio!