Village Idiot

FWIW, we are being strongly linked with Rashford atm, although on loan. We do need a striker because we depend way too much on Lewy, but I'm not sure Rashford is it.

And I know they're your benefactors, but I utterly despise this being played in KSA. Gotta love our new FA president saying they want to extend the deal the day after several Mallorca female fans reported being harassed by locals.

Damn, if it wasn't for Chestnut losing his mind, this could have been a historic drubbing. Can't wait for tomorrow at work, nonetheless! What a strange week for Barça.

6 hours to go, and La Liga has yet to okay Laporta's latest stupid firesale scheme to get enough funds to fit into the FFP rules. That means that we could lose Olmo's registration and the player leave on a free. What a monumental fuckup would that be, but that's Laporta for you. Why oh why were my fellow members so fucking stupid to elect him.

Spain football news of the day is that - to the surprise of no one - the Spanish FA has elected another crook as president. It's a requirement for the job.

And of course we have since sucked. That teaches me.

This is fun/interesting. Top 5 passing clusters for each La Liga Club. The Barça one is very zen and may seem counter-intuitive given how Flick has us play, but it really isn't if you watch us. We just move the ball quicker in the other areas.

Xavi's system required more creativity from the front three - which it really isn't Lewa's or Raphinha's strength. Now that their job is focused on looking for spaces and finishing, they both are having fantastic seasons.

Lewa had a falling out with Xavi last season, you could see he wasn't comfortable with how we were playing. But still, being such a goal machine at his age - what a player

And Mbappé playing centrally also hurts Bellingham's game. You can't have all those 3 on the pitch and have them be effective. But it's not the first time Pérez worries more about the trophy signings than the squad building.

Ridiculous that La Liga is playing this weekend with what's happening in Valencia. Heck, many managers are saying that players are just in no mood to play. But the spice must flow.

Oh man, loving seeing RM throw the toys out of the pram because of it. Perfect two days.

Xavi has been strongly linked over here too. To which I can only say: why?

I'm not gonna lie, the past 2 years or so have been a bit shitty for me and I retreated a bit from all things internet. Still got an eye to follow NUFC, mind. And yeah, one thing Flick is showing to be much better than Xavi is in building the offence. He's got each player playing to his best strengths - Raphinha in particular - and it shows. But the biggest positive takeaway of the game for me is seeing Cubarsí/Fermín/Casadó keeping their nerve on a big stage. We're broke, so we'll have had to plug the many holes in our squad with youngsters, and they'll need to get used fast to playing at this level.

Ok, I'm sober now. Actually I don't think we played supegreat, it was one of those games where both teams' gameplan sorta breaks down and it's just a constant run back and forth - which I guess was great for neutrals but nearly gave me a hearth attack until we started scoring, and Madrid collapsed. But we're so much more fun to watch now, even when compared to Xavi's one good season. And love the kids we got going.