Goodbye Gaby

By: Jennifer | July 8th, 2009

It is a shocking and tearful goodbye I must say. Who would have thought Sir Alex would sign Gaby? I think all of us were expecting him to come back after a somewhat unsuccessful run at Lorient and help out with the impending loss of Fernando and Chamakh, but to United?

I think a lot of people know that Obertan has the talent to be a fantastic fantastic player. but he never really got the jist of his role on the pitch and often put in spotty performances. Sometimes he was brilliant and you could see him working everywhere and even playing a part in the goals, but often times he was lacklustre and invisible on the pitch (see Gouffran). But we all realize that he’s only 20 and has lots of prove at Bordeaux, despite a less than stellar run at Lorient (he had a great start with that goal though).

Sir Alex has a great eye for prospects, but United is not a place to MAKE yourself. There have been a lot of emigré and reforming at United, but nonetheless it is a challenging and difficult squad to break out of, and right now I’m doubting Gaby’s abilities to break out of even the Bordeaux squad (which of course is nothing compared even to a downgraded United squad).

Personally I don’t think that it’s a wise decison on his part, seeing as he will have much more opportunities at Bordeaux after the departure of many of our star players. I was depending on his return to relieve our need to spend more on midfield but alas our brilliant president thought it was apt to sell Gaby for a mere £3m (€3.5m). So good luck to Gaby in England (he’ll always be my baby Gaby…jks).

In other more uplifting news, our new hope for midfield (ha ha ha) Grégory Sertic has chosen France as his country despite pleas from his native Croatia. Croatia has been trying to lure oh so many players to play for them, i.e. Zlatan and the slightly less known Goran Slavkovkski (haha name drop, what did happen to him?) The amazing Martha linked to an article about the multicultural German squad recently, but perhaps France should be even more receptive of that title. I actually wrote an essay on globalism and multiculturalism in football in France and I must say it really is interesting to research a lot of the global trends now in terms of talent in different fields.

As well, the squad have now returned to training (July 3rd) first at the Hallian. Then they managed to fly to beatiful Dinard, right by the beach and relaxing at a 3 star hotel (I think) with a spa. Chamakh is at training and Gourcuff, after his adventures in NYC was expected on Monday. (They are doing some weight training and sprints w or w/o the ball.)

Turning to the whole Chamakh issue, JLT have been denying a 13m bid from Sunderland claiming that they have not recieved any offers for Chamakh. It’s a bit too early to weigh in on this situation because I do expect a last minute bid that Chamakh would want to take..

Howeverl, Bordeaux has come to an agreement with OM for Diawara (nooooooo!) and obviously did not come to training at Hallian (he’s with the OM squad in Evian). His transfer costed OM 7m, apparently Bordeaux are on the losing end of this equation, seeing as we did not manage to secure the signature of Ronaldo Zubar in that transfer (he’s signed for Wolverhampton for 2 or 3m). What it comes to is a lot of good out (potentially) and so far only one in. I hope Blanc has some really good ideas (one perhaps involve getting rid of Placente). Olimpa, our 3rd keeper has extended and loaned off to Angers as well.

I really apologize for making this post SO long, but it has to be done to keep up with all the changes. Check out our new signing Carrasso!