Valencia chairman Anil Murthy has proclaimed that there is no longer ‘toxicity’ at the club following the exits of nine first-team players this summer.
Murthy claimed that there needed to be a reset at the club and promoting youth players into the ranks rather than make any new signings this summer was the right approach.
The exits of club captain Dani Parejo and Francis Coquelin to Villarreal from Los Che were confirmed this summer, following the exit of star winger Ferran Torres to Manchester City while striker Rodrigo Moreno has joined Leeds before Geoffrey Kondogbia moved to Atletico Madrid this month.
Furthermore, Cristiano Piccini has joined Atalanta on loan, Ezequiel Garay did not have his contract renewed and the loan deals for Jaume Costa and Alessandro Florenzi both expired.
Reports mean that the financial uncertainty meant Los Che had to reportedly slash their wage budget by a whopping 40 percent for the current campaign, with the club’s financial situation explaining the gutting of the squad.
The club have gained an unspectacular 11 points from their opening nine La Liga matches but there is a fear that the situation will worsen significantly with a lack of investment in the squad, but Murthy believes the new youthful side is a good thing for the club.
Murthy told OffthePitch, as cited by Marca: “We need young people in the team, the toxicity is now gone from Valencia that was here before.”
The chairman also rejected the suggestion that club owner Peter Lim was considering selling the club: “Peter Lim is not going to sell the club despite rumours in the local press . If he wanted to sell he would not have put more money into the club to pay his debts.
“Besides, if you look at Lim’s companies, he never sells them. For Lim managing a football club is a challenge that he enjoys, he wants to see Valencia doing well. ”
Murthy also defended the decisions to sell multiple first-team players this summer and even revealed that more could have been offloaded: “We decided to take a sensible path. The best way to deal with the situation is to sell. Selling footballers reduces the cost of the team, the liquidity problems and we can use that liquid to pay the people we owe them.
“I wanted to sell more, but the market moved 20% of what it usually does – so it was slower than what was ideal.”
