How the club mismanaged the Pulgar situation

Hey guys. So I have been thinking about the Pulgar-saga over the last couple of days, and how the club definitely could have dealt with it in a better manner.

To start at the beginning, the rumors about him leaving had been there for a long time. His stellar performances and importance at the club, alongside his low release clause meant that he was always going to be a popular name in the craziness of the mercato. Already at that point, the club should have been lining up a replacement.

Then, Pulgar went away with Chile to play the Coppa America, and he made the infamous comments that he wanted to take a step up in his career. Oh, how he changed his mind about that. Nevertheless, with Pulgar at that point having communicated that he wanted to seek greener pastures, now we definitely were at a point were a replacement should have been lined up, but it did not happen. Despite us being linked with new names quite often, it seemed as though the club were still hoping that the midfielder would remain.

Then Pulgar returned from holidays and started training with his team-mates. The hope was clearly that that was going to be a permanent case, but eventually Pulgar joined Fiorentina. Since then, we have been linked with a plethora of midfielders, but not one has joined us. Apparently, we are interested in getting hold of two midfielders before the window closes, but name after name has been crossed off the list of late, and a new name almost appears in the newspapers every day.

I do think the club have dealt with this transfer-saga all wrong, as it has always seemed as though Pulgar wanted to leave. The club have had enough time to get hold of a replacement, but still no player is ready. Do not get me wrong, I am quite sure that a midfielder or two will indeed join up with us before the window closes, but a new regista should have been here way earlier so that the respective player could have trained with us for the greater part of pre-season. That is not the case, and the team is considerably weaker in midfield.

There may be a silver lining in this big mess though, and that is Michael Kingsley. He has impressed heavily in pre-season, and started the Coppa Italia match against Pisa. He has now signed a new 5-year contract, and may well start the first league game of the season against Verona. Time will tell.

Photo: Bologna FC