Aritz Aduriz is the final piece

By: Jeremy | August 27th, 2008

In what has been an up and down summer with basically an overhaul of our entire team, we have seen the club move into Basque country to spend some of that booty we got from the sale of Guiza and other stars who ran away to bigger clubs.

Anyone who has been following the club knows Manzano has been looking for another striker that can help us keep our reputation as high scoring and fun to watch. I dont know if I consider Bilbao further down the food chain then we are, as I love the history and philosophy of that club, but they are facing the same problems we are in that their talented players are being scooped up by bigger clubs. Mallorca brings 5-6million to the table for Aduriz and while they did not want to sell them, the money helps them keep other players for the future so they let him go. For us to offer that kind of money for a player means we see him as vital to our success. We now have him for four years and he will probably be in the mix for the lead striker with Webo and Keita with the hopes that one of them will emerge as Guiza did last year. This continues the philosophy of the team which is bring in hopefully undervalued players with talent, combined with youth, which hopefully leads to some wins and a top finish. After last years results who can argue but somehow we will need to get the money to buy a real superstar or two if we ever want to play regularly in Europe. I still dont know why we blew off the Intertoto Cup last year.

Arduiz scored 22 goals for Athletic over the last two years and should be in his prime at age 27. He was ready for the challenge but probably preferred to stay at home. Similar to players who dont want to leave Mallorca, the money is hard to turn down. I dont see much difference between Mallorca and Athletic as Athletic clearly is a mainstay in LaLiga, but with Mallorca improving and Athletic having a harder time playing with only Basque players, they have to be candidates for relegation before we are. The bottom line is we got another good player and we now have a young talented team that returns some strong steady veteran players ie Moya and Arango as the foundation and some young talent dying to improve and show themselves or take that next step and come out of nowhere as Guiza did for us last year.

With the season soon starting and the money spent on Aduriz, I dont see any more major moves. It is now time to study the roster and look at it honestly and see where we think we can finish. Considering the losses of players this summer, I am surprisingly optimistic heading into this year. Manzano and management really should be commended and we head into the season with new players and in better shape financially then many LaLiga teams.

We should be one of the more exciting teams to watch this year.