Wullie

Bayern Munich have won the Bundesliga in all of the last 9 seasons. In only 1 of those seasons was the points gap less than 10 points. It is an absolute procession for Bayern every single year, no less than PSG, who have at least fucked things up to come second twice in the same period. I think the "no competition to test themselves against" thing is increasingly offset against, in England at least, by the sheer number of competitive games played.

Oh if you get your feet under the table at these clubs and prove you can put semi competent performances in for them you're absolutely laughing career wise. Once you're on a big wage at one of them, the only ones who can afford you are the others. So players like Morata go from one to the next to the next, winning every trophy under the sun, all while being bog average (relatively speaking of course). It just absolutely amazes me what that guy has won and the clubs he's played for.

How do Bayern Munich factor into this rather overly simplistic equation?

We talk about the importance of winning things, "Kane has to move to win things" but actually if you're a player of that sort of calibre, winning things is really really fucking easy. Move to Bayern Munich. There you go, there's a major league title in the bag before a ball is kicked. PSG, Juventus, Man City, these moves are a guarantee of success. If you don't win the title this year, you'll definitely win it next year because whichever team beats us will lose all their players. If Kane moves to Man City he'll win a load of stuff that they would have won anyway. Him winning 3 titles there doesn't prove anything about him that staying at Spurs wouldn't prove. It's not even an achievement any more to win a domestic title, unless you're Leicester City and do it against the odds. But top players do want to feel fulfilled by success, that's why the Champions League is what they all want, because it's hard to win. It's the same tournament though that has made the clubs so rich and powerful, and made them too good for their leagues. I love the Champions League, the late stages are as good as football gets, but it has absolutely poisoned the well of European football over the last 20 years.

It's not about the money, it's about the Champions League, it's all players at that level are interested in winning. Domestic titles are so last century. That's not an endorsement of that position, I think it's a grim outlook for the game.

Rangers

Can anybody honestly say with their hand on their heart that they'd have been as much as a nanosmidgen more excited about the move if he'd gone to Bayern Munich? Short of him signing for Atalanta, every single club he could ever realistically have signed for is much of a muchness to me.

Definitely, I said that the other day. There's been at least 2 World Cups he's turned up at looking completely goosed (and he's now 34).

Yeah maybe. I'm just not convinced that moving to Bayern or Juventus (at the time Ronaldo did) or Man City is any more exciting or even more of a challenge really. Domestically it's highly likely to be a procession whether it's against Nice, Aston Villa, Bologna or Eintracht Frankfurt. Sure it would be interesting if he does a Maradona and joins a midtable team but when does that ever happen? Top players now all cycle round the same ~10 clubs because they're all obsessed with winning the CL, that's just the way it is.

It's not my recollection that Ronaldo's move to Juventus at a similar age was seen as being a grim and depressing indictment of modern football that Messi's is, despite the fact that Juventus had just won 7 Serie A titles on the bounce while Messi's not even moving to the French champions. Is there a reason for that or am I remembering it wrongly? I definitely don't remember a clamour for Ronaldo to go and play for Watford for free in order to cement his legacy.

Quite common among footballers to do that I think.

"Serie A on BT Sport kicks off on Saturday 21 August and every single match will be broadcast, with at least five live games shown each round, totalling more than 200 live games across the season." What does that mean, they'll show the other five but not live?

I grew up on Teesside, watched that with a load of Boro fans at someone's house, Heskey scoring with the last kick of extra time to force a replay is one of my favourite footballing memories. 12 years old, taking the absolute piss.

As above, Tranmere, Leicester won 2-1. Not a game I can remember in the slightest.

Who did Leicester beat to win that League Cup? I don't remember this even a tiny bit.

What's the state of play with fans in stadiums? Someone better bloody buy the rights before next week, preferably someone I already pay for.

Good for booking fans.

A lot of those clubs would require him to put a serious shift in domestically, some of them couldn't afford him unless he takes a huge cut and some of them simply wouldn't present a good enough opportunity for a CL (I don't give the Italian clubs a cat in hell's chance). He'll definitely have his eye on the World Cup next December as well. PSG is by far and away the biggest opportunity to be able to both win the CL and not put that much football in his legs before then (the only other would be Bayern but they have quite a strict wage policy I believe). Re: the CL, you can get BT Sport in a TV/broadband package with Virgin for under 50 quid, I used to pay more than that with Sky with no sport.

As I understand it (though I stand to be corrected), he couldn't. Barca are already over the new La Liga salary cap even if he played for free, they are not allowed to put him back on the books. Some serious hyperbole though, PSG aren't even the French champions, he's not effectively retiring. He wants another Champions League and they're certainly the best available opportunity for that.

Got smashed 4-0 at Old Trafford in a friendly.

It did that last night on the Champ game, once the game is listed on the in-play menu, you seem to have to use that.

Ake/Ndidi cards 55/1