Rafael Doesn’t Know Jack!

Sir Alex Ferguson is lucky that Eric Assadourian doesn’t like Arsene Wenger or his former flunkey Damian Comolli. Assadourian is the youth coach at S.C. Lens. Clearly, something unpleasant happened years back between Lens and these two vacuum-cleaners of young French talent, and Monseuir Assadourian has a long memory.

“Raphael Varane is special,” he says. “He is physically very strong, a superb tackler and already very wise in technical and tactical thinking.”

Barely seventeen, with parents of a Martiniquais background, he is according to Lens’ head coach, the garrulous Jean-Guy Walleye, “going to be up there with Franco Baresi and Rio Ferdinand. He is certinly no old school lumbering center back and although not a physically huge or intimidating at 6’3”, he is clearly bound to bulk up. Having slotted in to the first team this season as a a replacement for an injured Eric Chelle and Ala Eddine Yehia at defferent times, he has already proven invaluable enough to be able to demand a place more recently as a central defensive midfielder.

Clearly this lad brings a lot to the table for a club like Manchester United. Having made goo-goo eyes at Jack Rodwell for two years now, the Gaffer may understand why Everton keep attempting to hike up his price. The word is that the cheeky Toffees want a fee of £25M or £18M and Danny Welbeck. Not that Rodwell, another big lad with the adaptability to play both as a central midfielder or a center back, isn’t any good. He is a fine long-distance finisher and very desirable to P.L. clubs because he’s English. At the same time, he is already susceptible to repeated ankle and achilles problems. Clearly, beyond the fact that he’s English, Rodwell is worth, at most, £10M and Darron Gibson or Johnny Evans as a sweetener. far better to let Chelsea and Manchester City try to outbed each othrr and then, most likely, sit him on the bench for most of nest season

Which brings us back to Varane. Lens have money troubles like anybody else these days and two very very fine big men in Chelle and Yehia. Having repeatedly irritated Assadourian by trying to get Lens old boy Alou Diarra on the cheap before the club’s savvy chairman sold him to Olympique Lyonnais instead. Arsene Wenger seems to have been working on Eric Chelle, trying to talk his agent into persuading him not to sign with Lens again.

Finally, there’s the relationship from youth academy football that Varane already has with the apple-of-the-Gaffer’s-eye Paul Pogba. These two are friends already from years of playing together in France’s youth and Under-18 squads. Additionally, for Varane, what better teachers of the center back position could he have than in the best pairing in the world, Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand? Having only made seventeen appearances this season for Lens and recently signed a new four year contract, United may have to dig a little deeper in their pockets than they had wanted to at first. A fee of around £7.5 should certaInly get Lens’ nterest , however.

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Category: Manchester United