Thursday, November 20, 2008

Santa Cruz linked once again

Roque Santa Cruz is keen to leave Blackburn Rovers and accept Manchester City's offer to sign for them in the January transfer window. Santa Cruz has become restless at Blackburn during a slump that has seen them drop into the relegation places, and the Paraguay international striker has told people involved in the deal that he wants to link up again with Mark Hughes, the man who brought him into English football.
>>guardian.co.uk

No direct quotes unlike the last time this story surfaced, but it does come from the usually reliable Daniel Taylor in The Guradian.

The report suggests that Santa Cruz, along with Wayne Bridge and Lassana Diara are top of Hughes' wanted list and all three would be good signings looking at the current make up of the squad.

Despite Blackburn's reluctance, I don't doubt that if Hughes does indeed want to sign him (and Santa Cruz is interested) then we will ultimately get him as Blackburn will receive an offer they will not be able to turn down.

Equally interesting in the article is the list of players believed to be heading out of the club:
Nery Castillo and Felipe Caicedo will quickly be ushered out of the door but the exodus could also involve Dietmar Hamann, Michael Ball, Javier Garrido, Darius Vassell, Nedem Onuoha and even the Brazil international Elano Blumer.
With the transfer window in January signalling six months into Hughes's reign, is he now beginning to get to grips with the squad and identify those he wants, and those he doesn't?

vote it up!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No thats wrong he wants to stay at rovers with his brother,he wants to bide his time and he will be rewarded when he moves to a big club.ps i dont think you can be sure Mark will be at citeh come January

Unknown said...

It would be ashame to see Onuoha leave the club, especially considering the problems and lack of cover we have at CB and RB.

Also, I feel that Castillo has been treated unfairly by Hughes. He hasn't been given a chance despite the absence of Petrov.

Castillo's performances weren't brilliant last season, but he showed enough skill, pace and dribbling ability to merit another chance, at least on the bench. He was inexplicably dropped by SGE after a good performance against Spurs last season.

Anonymous said...

We need to keep Nedum Onuoha. He's been at the club since he was 6, has lightning pace and was absolutely outstanding in the derby at Old Trafford last season when Ronaldive hardly got a kick. We should move Micah Richards back to right back so he can bomb down that wing like he used to and support Shaun Wright Phillips and Shaun can sit when needs be, put Nedum at centre half alongside Dunnie and buy a quality left back like Taiwo or Abidal..not the slow Wayne Bridge, who may be an improvement on Ball or Garrido but not massively different as he still lacks that crucial quality of a full-back, namely, pace. We obviously need an experienced assured keeper at the back too as neither Hart nor Schmeichel are assured enough as yet.

We need someone up front like Santa Cruz as a focal point of our attack to hold up the ball and win crucial headers especially away from home, as we have no one who can play like a traditional target man at the club. Benjani will do a job 'til January but his abilities are pretty much limited to hard craft. Hopefully we will see the best of Jo in a year or two as he does appear to have the potential but physically he seems too lightweight and doesn't have an appreciation of English football as yet and just how hard you need work to be successful over here.