Village Idiot

A bittersweet rollercoaster? WTF is this walking crevasse on about? What is the sweet bit? Must have missed that. The gist of those quotes is that "we're losing despite me doing a good job". Priceless.

What he meant is that if you don't have a midweek game, there's more chance that the players will switch off during the week; while if you play on Monday and are playing again on Wednesday, and then Saturday, and then midweek again... keeps the players "on point".

Incidentally, this reminds me of how Guardiola once claimed - and I believe he does have a point - that the more competitions you're in, the more focused the players are as there's no chance to "switch off".

They had an amazing run in the last third of the season, which is why I believe they didn't "switch off" for the EL; the deeper they went into the EL, the higher they climbed up the table. At the end, it went down to that San Mamés game, and they gave up after losing that. They rested Rakitic that day, I'll give you that, but they played with their other heavy hitters (Bacca, Iborra, Gameiro...).

Apologies, nonsense was probably a too strong word. I'm a bit cranky today. Last season Sevilla were never in the CL race, though. They had a terrible start to the season and didn't make ground until they appointed Emery. There was a point were it looked like they could contest it but they lost at San Mamés, which pretty much clinched 4th place for the Basques. Then they went on a bad run as they only had the EL to fight for.

Nonsense. Sevilla are very much in the CL race (currently 5th just 3 points off 4th and 4 off 3rd), they haven't given up anything.

IIRC Guardiola has been at odds with Bayern's club doctor for a while.

If Liverpool finish 5th, I think that's about what their squad merits imho. Would be a bit unfair on Rodgers.

He's just brilliant Love this one:

There's too much board interference and bullshit at Real for Klopp, I'd say.

Looks like around 40k sold so far plus whatever Spurs bring. If 15k season ticket holders stay away it'll be sub 30k. Our lowest ever PL crowd is just over 32k which was due to the reduced capacity when the Gallowgate was being rebuilt. In fact we are the only club in the history of the Premier League never to have had an attendance of under 30k. That's commendable, even us have occasionally gone below 30k at the Camp Nou in cup games against poor opposition.

Also, Xavi was immense in the second half. He ran passed circles around PSG's midfield and gave us back control of the game when PSG were pushing for the equalizer. He's still got it when surrounded by the likes of Mascherano or Rakitic that can do the leg work he no longer can. We're gonna miss him.

Fun fact, all managers in yesterday's CL games (Guardiola, Lopetegui, Blanc and Luís Enrique), played for Barça in the 1996-97 season.

How many ST holders are there? Around 40,000 I'd guess? Probably only a small % of tickets actually go on sale every game.

That escalated quickly

Suárez wow. What a player. Pity about that silly og but it's still a fantastic result.

Busquets Easily our best midfielder at the moment.

Cabaye just murdered Iniesta there.

In episode #3234234 of good footballers gone really fat, Javier de Pedro. http://colgadosporelfutbol.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/De-Pedro-1.jpg http://41.media.tumblr.com/e222ea08e2d3c1423aaac617785ff86e/tumblr_nmsynamXAv1s9y3qio1_500.jpg

Please, be a quitter. Courage and self-belief are such misplaced virtues in the incompetent.

Labbadia was linked to you at some point, wasn't he?

To be honest Spanish commentators shorten stadium names a lot ("El Bernabéu", "El Calderón", "El Villamarín"), even in print media, and I don't see much malice in it.

Not conceding away goals was crucial for Aleti; they couldn't go to the Bernabéu needing to attack - they aren't built for that. Madrid look in better shape but they have a chance.

Griezmann out, he's been rather inconspicuous today but he's their best goal threat at the moment.

Benzema clearly pushed the wrong button in the controller there.