It is reported that we have reached an agreement with Victor Nelsson (not Galatasaray).
I think this is a desperate attempt to try and make things work in the CB department. Most likely what happened is Lope adamantly asked for CB’s that can understand each other and play well together. What our management might not understand is that Galatasaray and specifically the Turkish league is not what it was before, in fact, it is totally different - for the worse.
Back then teams like Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas were doing very well in Europe and a they were attracting lots of decent players, above average, to play for them and seriously compete. I’m talking about at least 10+ years before. Gradually the league’s quality has deteriorated - now it attracts low quality footballers and their clubs are from from competitive in Europe.
Galatasaray in particular has done generally well last season as they were eliminated from Barca in the round of 16 in the EL. However, their league performance (in an already weaker league) was terrible. They finished 13th with 14 wins, 10 draws and 14 losses. They scored 51 goals and conceded 53 - 9th ranked defense in the league from goals conceded. This tells a lot.
Also what tells a lot is that Marcao, arguably their best player that we have signed, has lacked in fitness and has literally not played in ANY pre-season match so far. He is doubtful for the Cadiz match too and that will probably be the first time a direct replacement for a key CB (Diego Carlos) that doesn’t feature at all in pre-season and is doubtful to start the season.
Our club first mentioned lack of fitness and not being ready to play, then a slight injury… then what not, but the prognosis is not good already.
Now imagine, we are about to sign his weaker colleague (Marcao was already their best CB), only to satisfy the ‘chemistry’ needs, thus neglecting all the facts that I mentioned above.
This is beyond crazy at this point. Now, it is football and anything can happen… it might work along the way, but I still think we will suffer at the back this season. Granted, I didn’t expect much from Lope even with a full decent squad as I mentioned lots of times before. However, to sell his best CB’s and to provide 2 totally unproven CB’s in La Liga as replacement, from a league that has inferior fitness levels and training system like the Turkish league and from a club that did disastrously even in their own standard in their league… I really don’t know what to say anymore.