The Valencia of now has nothing to do with the one of 365 days ago … or very little. The difference is that In Peter Lim’s eighth project, Valencia has chosen to reinforce the team, while in the seventh they decided that there was no incorporation of any kind and not much less an expense. Why with Bordalas yes and with Gracia no? That is one of the big questions.
The difference is abysmal. Last year there was zero reinforcements for Javi grace and in this one up to six incorporations have been made. Alderete, Hugo Duro and Hélder Costa, as assigned, although all with purchase options, and the full acquisition of Marcos André and Foulquier For about 12 million euros. In addition to the bargain that has been Mamardashvili. Discovery out of nowhere.
The COVID crisis coupled with Valencia’s serious financial problems caused that a little over a year ago the club will take a drastic decision. Lower costs as it were. It started to take out top level players of the team with high costs … but there were no actions in reverse. They closed the tap of the incorporations. Meriton was beginning to apply her ‘biannual plan’. The first, that of the 2020-21 season, of impact that had serious sporting repercussions and the second, that of 2021-22 that was going to be less severe and in which open your hand a little with reinforcements but adjusting the belt a lot.
Javi Gracia: he was at the wrong time and place
Then Javi Gracia had the misfortune to be at the ‘wrong’ time and place. The one of the year total drought. And that didn’t sit well with him. Such is the point that a public battle. Against the club. Statements where he showed much discomfort and disagreement. In which he asked for signings, in which he revealed his discontent and that situation was definitively twisted when he asked to leave at the beginning of October. Lim could not bear that disloyalty despite the fact that he kept it for months due to the delicate financial situation.
Grace and her lag, Bordalas and her control
There are differences in time but also in forms. Grace started that battle, while Bordalás left the cards on the table from the first moment and although he has gone through difficult times this summer because I did not see the entrance of reinforcement he has known how to handle himself within the correct margins of professional coexistence and in the end the balance has turned on his side. Six signings of which four are from his ‘harvest’. A big difference Over the previous year.
Bordalás has been taken into account. Gracia no. His way of acting and moving led that relationship to be broken practically from the beginning with the first and it has already gone to something more than professional. Meriton marks whoever gets off the rails.
The club has learned: first step, the ‘scare’ of last season
MARCA revealed in April 2020 the real intentions of Meriton in Valencia. And they have been fulfilled. Economic restrictions. That plan. Two years. The first was with many risks. Take out and don’t bring. Hard season of digesting and flirting with the lower part and that instability that I generate.
One of Meriton’s mottos before the crisis: transfers of 6-8 million, the 25 have finished
But they have learned in part. Lim already transferred at the end of the year what he wanted for that second year of the biannual economic containment plan that they had drawn up.
He was going to undertake reinforcements but with conditions, he was going to continue reducing the financial pressure of the first team with high chip outflows (and their amortizations). There was fear of living another year the same and that is why an effort has been made with Bordalás at the helm and making an effort in the squad.
The question: Why the change from last year to this?
It was Meriton’s plan. The way to cut expenses radically to which the global crisis due to COVID was added, which further complicated that plan if possible. In fact, Valencia was the first club that did not avoid that moment and given his complications to maintain financial balance (there is a budgetary gap every year that is difficult to fill … only with sales) he began to put the scissors in that way. Hard first year, which Gracia suffered and did not know how to digest. Second year with restrictions but less severe with which juar Bordalás has known and has come out a ‘winner’.
