"He's old... he's ugly.... he's 31.... 20 million!?!?!"
The reactions here aren't surprising but still, perplexing nonetheless. Most of the opinions here aren't formed by actual observations of Mathieu but rather superficial and lazy perceptions. He's fast, versatile/mobile, magnificently tall, and has good technique. Sure he isn't a defender of the very highest pedigree but that complaint just affirms that people on this forum want players that are either overhyped and young or have big names and pretty resumés rather than seeing their abilities and effectiveness on the pitch. Mathieu is a very good player and was one of the best CB's in La Liga last season despite continuous instability at Valencia. He's experienced, knows the language, knows the league, and has the skillset to learn our system. What he gives us is precisely what we lack, learn to appreciate that at least.
I understand that the price isn't ideal but complaining about Barca overpaying for transfers is like complaining the sky is blue. There's nothing new in that regard and this is especially understandable given how little leverage we have with the state of our defensive crisis. Yet people take this price tag or his age to prematurely form bad judgments of the player when I'm certain that a vast majority of this forum knows nothing about him given their lack of exposure to any teams that don't have a 5 star rating on Fifa or whatever. Neymar's transfer got us tangled up in a huge financial scandal and cost us an astronomical amount of money as we ultimately funded his father's retirement for 2-3 lifetimes. Yet the reaction to that was "Oh noes the money isn't his fault he's just a player, we have to protect and love him". On the other hand, now that Mathieu is here for an inflated sum you guys are locked and ready to crucify on command despite the fact that he even took a damn paycut to facilitate the transfer. Mob mentality and double standards galore.
