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Alonso “too slow” for Juventus
Published by fiz on October 9, 2008
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Claudio Ranieri says Juventus chose not to sign Xabi Alonso because they felt that he was “too slow”.
Alonso had been linked with a move to Juventus all summer but the Italian club reportedly pulled the plug because they couldn’t meet the asking price.
“He was a player we wanted,” Ranieri said of Alonso as quoted in Sporting Life.
“But he is a player, who even though he is an extraordinary man and a great professional, left me perplexed by the slowness of his movement in midfield.
“In the midfield of Rafael Benitez Liverpool, where all of them are little soldiers, he finds himself in a fantastic position.
“But in our midfield, he would have found it hard to support the midfield line seeing as (Juve wingers) Mauro Camoranesi and Pavel Nedved are not players that come back to give support like Liverpool’s wingers.”
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I’m always baffled when people come out after the event and make comments like this.
I’d love to know what happened between Juve making there interest known and eventually not buying him that made Ranieri realise that Xabi wasn’t quick enough.
Was he asked to do sprints during negotiations?
comments like this just make managers like ranieri look foolish.
They signed Christian Poulsen instead of Xabi Alonso.
Now Christian Poulsen is a decent player, but if I were a Juventus fan, and I found out that my manager passed up the opportunity to sign Xabi Alonso in order to sign Christian Poulsen, I would be just a little bit pissed off…