Grapevine 9/30

By: Corey | November 29th, 2007

Here is a short Grapevine for everyone, the Santander preview will be up soon.

So we had a rather poor showing this past week, with a draw 1-1 to Murcia that felt more like a loss and a horrible display in the 3-2 loss to Bremen. So a solid display and a win against Santander will help ease some of the pressure on the lads as well as Schuster, who I have always been suspicious of. He is a great motivator, a coach of the players just like Del Bosque. But tactically he is struggling a bit, and his defensive coaching is lacking.

- Ramon Calderon had this to say about the numerous transfer rumors of the past week : “It is a barbarity to say that we are going to sell six players halfway through the season,” he fumed.

“It is impossible, but not because it cannot be done, but because there is no common sense in it.”

“There will be no new signings in the transfer window,”

“That is not the plan. We are happy with the squad that we built in the summer and we think that we have all we need to complete our objectives.

“There is a real desire among the coach and the players that has not been there for a very long time.

“I have a feeling that there are people that want to cause problems where there are none.”

Ok here is my take on this. Drenthe on loan somewhere, yes. Soldado on loan somewhere only, I do not want him to be sold. If Saviola is sold then Soldado can not leave, but Saviola can leave no problem, that would be instant profit. Salgado can be sold, Baptista unfortunately can be sold because he just doesnt fit into the formation, he has Atletico, Tottenham and Roma as suitors so more power to him and Dudek, well thats not even a question. But no players being brought in? Why not, we could use 1 or 2…

- Pepe’s post match comments: “It is important to be professional and to lift our heads,” said Pepe at the final whistle. “It is clear that it has been a very difficult game for us at every moment.”

“We lost the physical duels, and they have also been very strong in the air. We needed communication and we also lost too many balls in the second phase. But it is unnecessary to become crazy because we continue being first in the group and we play the decisive last game at home (against Lazio).”

Schuster’s post match comments: “We gave them too much space when defending. All three goals were down to poor marking. We gave them too much time.

“When we had the ball, everything was fine, but once it was lost we did not work hard enough.

“I won’t blame just the defence, everyone was generally poor.”

Schuster also said: “You could see the attitude of Werder. They have foreigners, but they possess the winning mentality of German teams. It’s difficult to face such teams.”

“In the second-half, it could have been 2-2 and within seconds it was 3-1. The game was there for the taking, but Ruud missed.”

“He was worn out. He was already tired in Murcia. It was due to fatigue from the last games and also being away with his national team.”

No complaints here, Pepe was brutally honest, and Schuster has much love for the mother land.

- Mijatovic wants to give Drenthe time, Werder Bremen are willing to sell Diego, and Real are eyeing up Mirko Vucinic, who seems to enjoy scoring goals while Totti is out. Alrgihty

Thats pretty much it, just wanted everyone to see these clips. Again, the match preview will be up soon. Adios.