After leaving Adele, who looked unhappy after being rejected, at the headquarters and letting her continue to handle the daily affairs of the club and Trafalgar Company with Elizabeth and John Smith, George returned his attention to In terms of signings, he sits in London and remotely directs the actions of Marotta, Paratici and others.
Let’s talk about Marotta first. Although the Tottenham CEO made major mistakes in the previous move to introduce Gerrard, which once made Tottenham extremely passive in handling public opinion, George still gave him a lot of trust and asked him to discuss Sweden with Barcelona. The transfer of veteran Henrik Larsson!
That's right, Henrik Larsson, the former European Golden Boot winner in the 2000-01 season and one of the greatest strikers in Swedish football history, was George's striker replacement after sending Villa away. Although the Swedish gunman is now a thirty-three-year-old veteran (Note: Larsson was born on September 20, 1971, so he was not yet thirty-four years old at this time), in George's view , the age issue will not have much negative impact on Larsson's performance at Tottenham. Because Swedes are the kind of players who get better and better as they get older. The excellent physical fitness brought by his mixed European and African origins and his extremely self-disciplined life schedule have made Larsson's competitive status not significantly worse as he gets older. The decline has become more and more dangerous with the accumulation of experience and the application of perfect technology!
You know, in George's previous life, Larsson, who was about to turn 35, was still able to score more than double-digit goals for Barcelona in a season, and also sent two goals in the UEFA Champions League final in the 2005-06 season. The crucial assist helped the Catalan Army, which was one goal behind at the time, complete a comeback and win the second Champions League title in the club's history. After that, he went to Manchester United as a loaned player to play short-term work for more than three months and scored three extremely crucial goals, helping the Red Devils, who were riddled with injuries at the front, survive the most difficult period. Even Sir Alex Ferguson, who has always been demanding, was full of praise for the Swedes and even wanted to keep Larsson at Old Trafford permanently!
With outstanding professionalism, correct game attitude, comprehensive personal abilities, and the ability to be a substitute and plug-and-play, Larson is undoubtedly an excellent super substitute candidate in George's eyes!
Faced with the poaching from Tottenham, the new Champions League champions, Barcelona's senior management, who had just emerged from the shadow of the Gaspart era and had not fully recovered (especially because the poor financial situation has not been effectively alleviated), hesitated. After some discussion, he finally agreed to the 3 million euro transfer offer offered by the other party for Larsson, and allowed Marotta to discuss personal treatment matters with the player himself!
The reason why Barcelona readily agreed to let him go is because Begiristain, who is in charge of player transfers, concluded that based on Larsson's performance of only scoring three goals in 12 league appearances this season, the Swedish player was already aging. The old gun will not bring much help to the team! Rather than letting him stay here for a not-so-low salary, it would be more cost-effective to sell him when a team is interested in him and earn a transfer fee.
The Barcelona general manager will not know what a stupid decision he made, let alone the amazing energy that Larsson, who he personally agreed to let go, will explode in the coming season. Of course, if he could predict this, he probably wouldn't let Larson go so easily.
In fact, the reason why Larsson performed poorly in the 2004-05 season was mainly because he was in a period of transformation in his team role and his own positioning. Before that, the Swede was the absolute main force of the Glasgow Celtics and the core of the team's offense, and all offenses revolved around him; but after arriving at Barcelona, Larsson became Eto'o's number one substitute, not only Playing time has been greatly reduced, and he has to play as a role player around the core of Ronaldinho. With the obvious changes in the team's role and the huge gap in status, no matter how adaptable Larsson is, he will not be able to complete the transformation at once, so his performance in Barcelona's first season will naturally not be much better.
Larsson himself is also interested in joining Tottenham. Although the Swede won a La Liga title in his first season with Barcelona, his low scoring efficiency caused him to be criticized by Barcelona fans and the media. Under such circumstances, the Swedes naturally have no resistance to playing for Tottenham.
As for playing time, Larson doesn’t think it’s an issue. Because according to his understanding and Marotta’s introduction, coach George Nelson likes rotation very much. In addition, Tottenham will face four fronts at the same time: League Cup, FA Cup, League and Champions League in the new season, and they have to run midway through the season. He went to distant Japan to participate in the Club World Cup, so even as a substitute for Drogba and Klose, he will not lack playing opportunities at all!
Not to mention, in the just-concluded 2004-05 season, Villa, as Tottenham's third forward, scored an astonishing 25 goals in all competitions. With the successful case of Villa, Larson's worries were naturally reduced to a minimum!
In this way, Larsson, who was looking forward to his future at White Hart Lane, readily signed a two-year contract with an annual salary of 1.2 million pounds, becoming Tottenham's third player in the summer transfer market. Three signings!
At the same time, Paratici arrived in Monaco in the south of France, preparing to poach this season's second dark horse in the Champions League!
Although George is also the boss behind Monaco, some superficial work still needs to be done, and it is not a good thing to let too many people know that the same boss is behind Monaco and Tottenham. So Paratici only thought that Monaco and Tottenham had a certain cooperative relationship, and had no idea about the actual situation!
The reason why George changed his mind about bringing in a right back instead of the center back he initially planned was because of a season summary report submitted by Tottenham Labs a few days ago. The report clearly points out that among the two right backs in the first team, Phil Neville, who is the substitute, is only 28 years old, but this all-round defensive player is no longer suitable to continue to serve. The requirements for physical fitness and physical fitness are relatively high. As a right back, if he is forced to continue to be in this position, I am afraid that his performance on the court will only become more and more inadequate!
George attaches great importance to the opinions given by the medical experts in the Tottenham laboratory. After a season of operation, Tottenham's laboratory has proven with real performance that they are worthy of George's large investment. So this time, George still chose to trust the opinions of these experts and decided to transfer Phil Neville from the right back position!
In addition, the 29-year-old team vice-captain Stephen Carr was also pointed out in this report that there is a high possibility of a decline in status in the next two years. Therefore, bringing in a young and promising right back this summer is naturally on George's agenda!
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