Welcome to Celtic Alex Valle

The option of two further seasons is a bit of a dampener on this deal. Enjoy him while he's here I guess!

 

Es fantastico ver que el Barcelona tiene fe en nosotros para llevar a este chico hacia adelante y hacia arriba.
Thank you Barca.

 

Welcome to Celtic

hope it works out well for you

smash it wee man.

 

If it works out I think we'll try and get deal done for him

 

Liverpool has two established LBs, whereas Barca is in shambles due to their financial situation. His competition at LB were a 20-year-old and a 22-year-old, both coming from la masia. Valle wasn't even a lock to start for Levante in the 2nd division last season, yet people expect him to be better than Taylor. Personally, I think it's a short-sighted move. Best case scenario, we develop a young player only to lose him for free next summer. Worst case, he's not ready to provide serious competition for Taylor. Would have understood the optimism if we had included an option to buy.

 

Welcome!

 

Welcome to Celtic, Alex!

I am looking forward to this for a number of reasons. First off, this is a position that needed to be addressed and really wish it had been treated as much more of a priority, long before now. But here we are and at least step has been taken, whether as competition for Taylor or in leiu of him.

GT has been proven to be a guy that produces his best football when he has a point to prove and competition for his place. This has been missing for quite a while now. When GT lacks that competition, I fele as though that security in knowing he is pretty much set to play so long as he is fit, means that his standards drift.

So this move covers this, whether it is to be competition for GT, or for AV to leapfrog him entirely in the pecking order, which could light a fire under GT, to lift his game if he wants to try and reclaim the spot.

Either way, Celtic as a team should benefit.

But that does not mask the fact that this is only short term solution for this season, as I don't think there is any option to buy, but that in itself is fine, as I feel as though it is possible that there is a longer term strategy in play here though.

It buys time for the club and for the aspiring players that we have, nor just for those wishful thinking about KT, but to assess the progress of the other LBs that we have on the books.

This includes the likes of Anderson (19) and Frame (18) (and decide the future of the likes of Bernabei (24) and Montgomery (22) ), and their chances of developing and proving that they are going to make the grade or it's time to have them moved on.

When you include Taylor and now Valle, that is 6 LB's that the club now has on it's books to whatever degree.

For the time being, happy with this.

Welcome to Celtic, Alex!

 

Signing Engels and Trusty would make this a satisfactory window.

A 6/10.

 

Can’t wait to see him play, a big immediate upgrade on the position.

 

From memory, Liverpool had an injury crisis and were without both Robertson and Tsimikas for a reasonably long spell last season. During that time, they recalled Beck from loan, had a look at him and decided that he wasn’t good enough; so loaned him back out to Dundee.

The age of Valle’s competition at Barcelona is pretty irrelevant, especially when the first choice is as talented as Balde. The second choice (Martin) seems to be highly rated by Flick. Last year Valle would have had Joao Cancelo and Marcos Alonso to compete with too. So instead he went on loan to play regular football and from what I can see was selected every time he was available, with the exception of 6 games, over the course of a season. I’m not sure of the circumstances around those 6 games, but from a quick look I’d suggest the manager may have had one eye on the future and knew Valle wouldn’t be there.

I can understand your frustration on the lack of option to buy, but personally I think Valle is a quality player and one I’m delighted to have in the door even if it’s just for a year. For a bit of context by the way, I watch Barcelona every week and keep a close eye on their youth developments too. I also have family out in Catalunya who aren’t too pleased that Valle has been allowed to come to us and for me that speaks volumes about his quality. So I’m not just being blindly optimistic. We’ll see how it goes but I have high hopes.

 

Can we please, please not ruin another thread with arguing. It's getting exhausting. Every time I go on to any thread there are 2 people going back and forth for page after page after page.

I agree with McGrory1888 on this, but I can maybe see what jvalin is trying to say. If you really need to talk it out take it to DM, but I'm sure there'll be no agreement.

 

Add a more attack-minded CM, and a winger, and it rises to an 8/10 for me.


…then throw in a second new winger or another striker, and it’s 9/10 and set boaby to stauner.

 

Looks like he's been played on the right fairly often for some reason.

 

Happy we have another option at LB that looks like he could be good enough to be our 1st choice for the season. Less happy about there being no option to buy and with barca's option to extend his contract by 2 years little real chance we get him long term.

If we are planning to scout properly and bring in another in January to get up to speed for our qualifiers it makes sense and I'd be ok with it, if we do * all until the end of the season when he's away (most likely scenario) I'll be pretty *. Not at him, obviously.

 

Regularly watching Barca games means close to nothing cause he has never played for Barca apart from pre-season friendlies. Academy prospects are a crapshoot. He may be great, he may be out of his depth. Chances are he'll be a serviceable backup. Hope you are right, obviously. Problem is, even if he's world class, we'll lose him for nothing in 2025. Regarding Liverpool, they recalled Beck and loaned him out again once Robertson was fit. Tsimikas became available a few days later.

 

If we signed a left back on a permanent contract and he was world class, we would likely lose him next summer as well.

This deal kicks the can down the road for sure, but I’d rather that than sign the likes of Beck just for the sake of having another left back. Because for me, Beck would have been a completely pointless signing. No better than Taylor and we would have had to spend circa £5m on him. He would also have likely got a 4-5 year contract. The way Rodgers was speaking the other day, I expect our whole scouting setup to change, which should then allow us to actually act in a professional manner and get a quality left back on a permanent contract.