Transfer news: Montiel and Cáseres

While we are closing in the last days of the winter transfer window, seems Miralcamp hasn’t stopped working. There’s been a lot of rumors about Gonzalo Montiel arriving to the Plana Baixa team, more recently from Olé, an Argentinian newspaper.

Montiel has had a lot of teams interested as Roma and Lyon, but recently there’s been a problem with the price. River Plate is asking for 10 millions of euro for him, which is considered a bit expensive for a player without European experience that is finishing the contract this coming June. The price is also a barrier for Villarreal who considers it’s too much. This puts Villarreal, with the injuries of Mario Gaspar and Foyth, with only Rubén Peña as an active member on the right flank. While I think Montiel is worth it as he can be one of the top players in the position for the near future, it’s true we are gambling money on a player who we don’t know how will adapt to European style football and has less than six months remaining in his contract.

Of course, there’s still a few people who may not have heard of him. Zach did a wonderful job talking him with stats that you can see here. I’m going to add a bit about him as a player. He’s currently 24 and came from the youth system of River Plate as a centerback. When promoted to first squad, Marcelo Gallardo converted him in a righ back where he has been ever since winning with them the Libertadores. Right-footed, he can also play with the left, but prefers the right. Good at passing, prefering short over long passes, with good tactical awareness and a good technical ability for carrying the ball even when he receives the ball while running. This can also appear in the stats as he is good with the aerial play and tends to look for forward passes to progress the game. Phisicaly, he has good stamina so he can be running the sideline the whole match. If we could put something he still has to improve is anticipation, as he can be very happy to jump to it and missing it. Tends to defend really well the attacks, always allowing the play to continue towards the sideline instead to inside and good on 1vs1 (another part that could show itself in stats). He is also no shy to playing in the rival field as can be seen in heatmaps. Last, but not lest important, he has a good decision making, which is very important for competitive play.

All in all, he’s an interesting prospect. Of course, there’s also the rumors of him being interested in renewing just so to not hurt financially the team that gave him everything. Time will tell what happens, but this last days of transfer window, I would be looking a bit how all of this evolves

In other, short, news. Cáseres has found a new team according to a report from Olé. Villarreal and Vélez would be working on a loan deal that would make him return to Liniers almost three years after Villarreal bought him for 8 millions. The loan would be for a whole year. The deal for him can be pretty nice as he would be able to return where everything started, meet again his best football with a team that was semifinalist of Copa Sudamericana (second competition from South America) and will be playing Libertadores this season. He would be coached there by Mauricio Pellegrino, who has quite his history in Spanish football having played for Barcelona, Valencia and Alavés while later went on to coach Valencia, Alavés and Leganés.