Albelda decries Real, Barca spending

Valencia captain David Albelda is frustrated with how giants Real Madrid and Barcelona have bought the best players from other sides weakening them in the process.

Los Che have lost Jordi Alba to Barcelona in the current transfer window and have supplied David Villa and Raul Albiol to the two La Liga giants in recent years.
 
And the two arch-rivals, who are among the top ten richest clubs of the world, have also signed Dani Alves, Adriano, Sergio Ramos (all from Sevilla) and Esteban Granero (from Getafe), to name a few first-team players, in the recent past and this has depleted the squads of the La Liga sides involved.

Albelda has seen this manner of spending by the two clubs for the past 13 seasons with the side from the east coast only twice breaking the duopoly in that period under ex-manager Rafa Benitez. Last season, the gulf between Valencia and the two sides was as wide as 39 points bringing to stark reality the difficulty of the challenge of breaking Real and Barca's current hold over the championship.

But the midfielder refused to make any pointed claims against the two sides or the Liga BBVA, which administers the league, and only indicated that it would be relatively easy for the two sides to steamroll their opposition once more in the current campaign.

"In the last few seasons they have been spending more and more and soon they have all the best players, two for each position," he said.

"This year they have come and taken from us, or we have sold, like with Jordi Alba.

"Real Madrid are the current champions of the league and had over a 100 points and their squad will not need many changes to [achieve] it."

Valencia next play Porto in a home friendly on Saturday before heading off to tour Indonesia in the coming week.