Centre-backs at the Nou Camp are a bit like London buses - you wait five years for one, and two come along at once. Having been scared to invest in a centre-half since the disaster that was Dmytro Chygrynskiy in 2009, Valencia defender Jeremy Mathieu joined Thomas Vermaelen in a wave of new Barcelona recruits this summer. The underwhelming tidbit, however, was that one was a crock and the other was 30 years old. With just four French caps to his name, Mathieu is certainly not an established name in the world of football, so eyebrows were definitely raised when Barcelona agreed to part with £15 million for the Valencia centre-back. Paying that sort of money for a 30 year old seems ludicrous, even in this inflated market. Barcelona supporters will have also winced at the fact for all his experience, he had only been playing at centre-half for 18 months, having been converted to that position following a career switching between being a left-back and left-winger. However, the underwhelming signing has proven to be a massive hit at the Nou Camp. The Catalans have made a nigh-on impeccable start to the season, setting a La Liga record for consecutive clean sheets.
Recent Journalism & New Media graduate. Insatiable thirst for all things football, and hopes to break into the field of sports journalism in the near future.
Have made a significantly insignificant playing career out of receiving several slaps around the head for not passing the ball.
