David de Gea signs for Manchester United!

Young Spanish goalkeeper David de Gea has penned a 5 year deal with Manchester United. The 20 year old will join up with United from Athletico Madrid, replacing Edwin van der Sar between the sticks at Old Trafford. Sir Alex Ferguson is very plesed with the deal, even though it takes his total summer spending to over 50 million pounds. SAF has reportedly been tracking the youngster since van der Sar announced that 2010/2011 would be his last at United.

de Gea plays for the under 21's national Spanish team, and looks to be taking the reins from Iker Casillas, when the veteran shot stopper calls it quits. David de Gea flew to United a few days back to undergo a medical and agree to personal terms with the club. The signing has once again triggered rumours that long time United back up keeper Tomasz Kuszczak will be allowed to leave United, after once again being shunned in favour of another keeper. Unless de Gea makes a meal of his opportunity at United, Anders Lindegaard the other United back up will find himself warming the bench for a much longer time than he originally expected.


The exact figure of the sum was not yet released by United, although the agreed fee with Athletico was in the range of 20 million pounds. This proves to be the most expensive signing for United this window. Looks as though the posts at United will be well guarded for a long time to come!

Big guns line up Aguero!

For the past few years Sergio Aguero has slowly been establishing himself as one of the star forwards in Europe. And it looks as if all his hard work has almost paid off as he starts to attract the attention of a host of big clubs around Europe. Already this transfer window has seen the likes of Madrid, Chelsea and Juventus come calling for the services of the Argentinian.

The 23 year old looks to be one of the star prospects for the next 10 years in football, and rightly so, bagging 23 goals in all competitions in 2010/2011. However his services will not come cheap, with Athletico Madrid vowing not to let go of their prodigy for anything less than his buyout clause of 45million dollars. With many clubs finding themselves in financial difficulty the price tag would certainly restrain any other signings.

So far Aguero's agent claims that they have been in no talks with any clubs, Athletico Madrid confirmed this by claiming that "they have not received any bids for their striker". Aguero is currently training with the national team for the Argentinian Copa America campaign.

Spanish La Liga, has it become too uncompetitive?

During the Christmas break we take time to evaluate how each of the several leagues across Europe and the world have faired both competitively and financially. The first league we take a look at is Spain's premier league the La Liga. The La Liga is rated by FIFA as the second most successful league in the world after the English Premier League. However, in recent times the league has come under much pressure to offer something new both in terms of marketing and football.

One of the biggest problems in the La Liga is that the league has seemingly divided itself - overtime - into four different tiers.

One tier is played between Barcelona and Real Madrid to win the title.

Just under them is the second tier which consists of Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Valencia and Villarreal, fighting for places in the champions league and the Europa league.

The third tier varies, but usually consists of teams like Atletico Bilbao, Espanyol, Getafe and Deportivo la Coruna, who are quite happy to stay out of trouble, but still play to achieve that elusive Europa League spot.

The fourth tier, of course is that between the teams trying to avoid relegation. Although the quality of the teams do not match those in the "first tier" the competition between these teams is quite exhilarating especially towards the end of the season.

These "tiers" or leagues are divided greatly by the level of football acustomed to each of the clubs. One big example of this was the recent match between Real Madrid and Levante - a team just sitting above relegation-  in the Spanish Cup , the 8-0 victory to Madrid including two hattricks to both Benzema and Ronaldo shows the difference in footballing ability between the two clubs. 

The fact that Madrid and Barcelona are always increasing the gap between all the tiers below them - mainly for money. Shows that the La Liga is bound to become more uncompetitive unless the influence of lesser known clubs becomes greater. Through both transfers and media publicity. Although everything is possible with newly promoted club Hercules putting up stiff challenges against Barcelona (1-0 Victory) and Real Madrid.



By Isidoro Munoz Mendoza our Spanish Correspondant
(Born in the Bernabeu) - Facebook follower