Chris Samba speaks! Plus thoughts on Europe and transfers.

By: David | April 8th, 2008

Chris Samba has spoken to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph (from goal.com):

Blackburn Rovers stopper Christopher Samba has admitted that he hasn’t been able to produce his top form this season.

“It’s my first really poor season. I have to work on my consistency a little bit more during the season,” Samba told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph.

“It’s not easy to keep up your performance in every game, but I am working on it and I can only get better.”

The French-born Congo international won a move to Ewood Park last year after a successful five-day trail while still on the books of Hertha Berlin.

Still, with just five games left of the season the 24-year-old hopes that he and his teammates can finish strongly and perhaps even get back into the mix for a European place.

“Of course we can make it to Europe,” added Samba. “We’ve got five league games left and, for me, they are like five consecutive cup finals. We need a good finish to the season.

“We will give it everything we can and do our best, and we’ll see at the end if it is good enough.

“But I think we have to improve in some areas. Our last pass has not always been exact and we need to work on that to create more chances.”

This is a fantastic interview in my opinion. I think he’s being a bit harsh on himself (at the start of the season he was sensational) but it’s true that his form has been poor recently - Berbatov’s goal on Saturday and the failure to deal with Dean Ashton against the Hammers spring to mind. However if he thinks he can perform even better than he was at the start of the season (and most importantly he wants to) and do so consistently than we should be confident about our defence for next season if he and Nelsen can stay fit.

Samba

On a side note I’d like him to re-sport this hairstyle that he had back at Hertha Berlin - this look would scare most center-forwards away from our goal, but I digress.

His desire to get to Europe is great to see and the importance of it for this club cannot be understated - particularly when it comes to summer signings.

The next article is from vitalfootball.co.uk:

Blackburn Rovers manager Mark Hughes already has plans in his mind for what the summer will hold as far as transfers goes.

Hughes is understood to have around £10 million to spend at this moment, but should the season go as well as we hope it can do then at its end Sparky might have a little more to play with, and he already has ideas in his mind as to how he can strengthen the squad over the summer to make sure Rovers CAN challenge stronger next season.

Hughes told the Official Blackburn Rovers Website: “The process started a number of weeks ago. We are obviously trying to plan for next year.

“It is a process that carries on right through each season you are involved in.

“We kept our powder dry in January because I didn’t think there was anything that we needed to move for that was at the right quality and at the right price.

“The market is a lot more steady and stable during the summer months and I’ve always felt that you get better value.

“That is where we are. We are just trying to get the best value for the money that I’ll have available.”

More good news I say. £10mil isn’t much compared to most of the EPL (Reading apart) but by our standards over the last few years it’s a lot. If Hughes can pull off even more bargains like he has in the past then fantastic.

On another side note, lets look at how much our first team has cost (according to my memory/approx - feel free to correct):

Brad Friedel - £0

Brett Emerton - £3mil (ish)
Ryan Nelsen - £0
Chris Samba - £0.4mil
Steven Warnock - £1.5mil

David Bentley - £3mil (ish)
Steven Reid - £1.8mil
David Dunn - £2.2mil
MG Pedersen - £2.5mil

Roque Santa Cruz - £3.4mil
Benni McCarthy - £2.5mil

Total: £20.3mil or £1.85mil a player. To spend such a little amount of money and stay in the Premiership is good - to be a top half team for the last 3 years is fantastic.

This all bodes well for the summer, so who could we pick up relatively cheaply?

Well we need a midfield player, and one person who springs to mind is Steve Sidwell. This guy had a sensational season at Reading last year and was an absolute fool to go to Chelsea on a free transfer thinking he could compete with Makelele, Ballack, Lampard, Essien and Mikel for the midfield positions. He seems to have completely disappeared from the footballing radar and Chelsea paid nothing for him so he wouldn’t cost much - can Hughes rejuvinate him?

Sidwell

However there seem to be few Premiership players who would be availiable at a good price in the right positions, so I think we should look abroad. In particular I hope Hughes is looking in the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 for some good, cheap players of a multitude of nationalities and styles. One player I would love to see (if Benni isn’t going to find some form) is Dortmund’s Alexander Frei. Other nice additions would be HSV’s Rafael Van Der Vaart (is that a realistic wish?) and Nigel De Jong.

Frei

Problem is, I’ve heard of these players. And one thing Sparky does very well is bring in people I (and most others) haven’t heard of (think Nelsen, Samba, Pedersen) and make them above average EPL players.

And so perhaps all this blogging about potential signings is pointless. I think I can trust Sparky to do a good job and not be reckless with his above-normal budget.

On a final aside, the fight for European places is a lot more complicated than anyone bargained for, what with this year’s FA Cup drama and Spurs’ success in the Carling Cup. It seems that if we finish above Villa and Man City we will get a European place of some sort, likely Intertoto and another short summer break for the players. I’m confident we can do this.

Contemplating additions.....