Wullie

Come on now Dougal, lighten up!

Villa have confirmed he had a £100m CL release clause. Really good statement from their CEO.

Wow fucking hell.

Love the story about how he asked Italian journalists to interview him in Italian after about 6 weeks, he'd already learned enough to interview fluently. Speaks about 8 languages.

Abraham should absolutely jump at the chance to join Atalanta.

I don't know if anyone has noticed this but you can now make the video full screen on Bet365, rather than having to watch on a tiny little box. They have the rights to basically everything outside the UK.

Looks like no Bundesliga 2 which is a shame as I quite like that division. Now who's going to pick up Serie A?

Is losing Grealish going to see a change in formation? Doubt Ings has come to sit on the bench, and he's used to playing in a pair.

Rangers making a bollocks of CL qualification, 2 down at Malmo.

Felt there was more than a hint of that about Alexis Sanchez.

The lines are different on each shirt.

Same, really smart that new away shirt, best I've seen us in for a few years.

96 has become 97, Andrew Devine has died having been brain damaged on the day.

PFM's absolutely love the phrase "ran around", John Anderson uses it all the time. Any player who he thinks has played well has done so primarily because they ran around.

Nobody's currently got Serie A rights either.

Wow fucking hell

Looks like no UK Bundesliga coverage this season, didn't realise BT had relinquished the rights. Fancied watching Schalke Hamburg later as well.

Can't they be both?

Aye no speculation please.

Serie A are banning green kits from 2022-23 (because they blend with the grass on TV), which will outlaw the colours of Sassuolo.

Your idea of big money seems to be stuck in about 2001.

International tournaments are by far and away the football I look forward to and enjoy most these days, has been the case for a few years. It's the purity of it I think I enjoy most. Everyone is there for the football, the chance of glory, every player and spectator is fully committed to every single game. More than ever with the club game there's a grim cynicism to it, a pretence that everything matters when actually a lot of the time it doesn't. This game in the league is worth more than that game in the cup, this game in the Champions League is worth more than that one in the league. Several trophies are treated as basically worthless, a joke that nobody wants, a hindrance to participate in. Almost every club in the pyramid is now primarily a vehicle for players to get themselves a bigger move, even down the leagues which used to feel a bit more pure (I've watched with sadness as most of the Hartlepool team which got promoted in June has now fucked off). Clubs buying other clubs as a talent pool, or advertising themselves to players as stepping stones to bigger things, or teams made up almost entirely of loan players, or players being asked about their next transfer on the pitch after winning a cup, I know I almost certainly sound like a grumpy old bastard but these things all suck the joy out of the club game for me. I still watch tons of club football because I still absolutely love the game itself, once the whistle goes I'll watch anything but I increasingly hate everything that surrounds it, and that sense always feels massively heightened after I've watched a summer tournament.

I'm still absolutely gutted, proper sulking.