Village Idiot

they sell but they spend a fair wedge on replacements and squad building though no? Third party ownership, they aren't paying the full reported fees, and will probably have a Falcao situation in their hands if someone makes it big (I think Griezmann is fully theirs, though). Their financial situation is pretty f***ed up; they recently sold 20% shares to a Chinese billionaire just to meet running costs and service the debt. However, the fact they have got a Chinese billionaire to invest in them is a good sign.

We've just signed a one-year TV contract (€180m). This means we're expecting La Liga rights to go to collective bargaining from 2015-2016 onwards.

Absolutely nobody looks anything special for ManU these days. They are grinding out the results, but it's like watching paint struggling to dry.

One of ManU or Arsenal won't make it to the semis, so they are lucky indeed.

I would really love to play Bayern while Pep is there.

I think he's going to stay as long as Atlético can match his ambitions and the club progresses. I don't know if he can keep up such high-octane management style without burning out, though. Pretty sure he'll stay at least one more season unless things go pear-shaped.

Moyá, while certainly not being Courtois, is having a hell of a season. Oblak was pencilled as the starter after spending so much money on him, but Moyá made himself undroppable in the Supercopa. I agree that Siqueira is a far cry from Filipe Luís, though. I think the "problem" is that Simeone got this group of players to perform at 150% last season, and it's only getting them to perform at 125% in this one. However, they are putting the foundations for cementing themselves at the top, imho, if Simeone sticks around for at least one more season.

I call it luck. Yeah, it was the style, but the % of times it worked was anomalous. There's only so many times you can base all your attack on deadballs and expect to win every single game, no matter how good you are at set pieces (and they are very good at them). In the last two months of last season they didn't score any single league goal from open play, and they still won the trophy. Simeone himself realized it, imho, and that's why they got Griezmann.

Atlético are more watchable this season. Last year all their attacking nous consisted in aiming at Costa's arse and see what he did with it (usually a lot). Griezmann has added another dimension to their attack while Mandzukic performs well as the tall striker. It was hard to replicate the kind of intensity and sometimes downright luck that they enjoyed last year, but they are still doing pretty well, imho.

What's so FFS about it?

After watching him through the years I have noticed one thing. Messi isn't selfish, but won't pass you the ball if he believes you'll f*** things up. That's often detrimental, but it's the way he is. Imho the key of getting the best of him is just surrounding him with players he thinks are good enough and he'll enjoy playing with.

All in all, I believe we are now playing the way Lucho intended. For all the talk about him losing the plot and him tinkering endlessly, we seem to have ended up where he wanted. We are more direct and take more risks going forward, instead of passing it around the opponent's box waiting for a hole to open. More risks mean more chances of getting countered - so the defensive fragility is somewhat by design. Earlier in the season the team couldn't cope with this new "style", we'd lose lots of balls in midfield and open us up against the opposition. PSG in particular had a field day in the CL pressing our midfield. But the team just seems to have adjusted to it now, and the ball gets to the front guys quickly and in more dangerous positions. Also, Messi. It's stupid how good he can make a team just by himself. It's not only the goals, it's him dropping deep and spraying passes... he's at his best since the 91 goals season, imho.

The team's clicking. There was a lot of instances earlier in the season where we tried playing at higher tempo and the attack would just break down, for example, as the players weren't used to it - which in turn would generate counters. The front three is gelling too and our attack right now is very fluid. So there's more to it than just twatting small teams, since the same small teams were giving us more trouble earlier in the year. We'll see when we face better teams (we managed Atlético quite well, though). I do believe that our defensive system isn't up to snuff to face the attacking threat of some of the top teams, but at least we have some teeth now.

I still believe our defensive system is too fragile to really go the distance against truly top teams, but at least I'm enjoying our games massively.

Aye, it's so weird. 40 days ago everything seemed to unravel, and now we're playing the best football since Pep left.

Gonna get done for public indecency soon. Don't think I can get my hands off my dick at the Camp Nou for much longer.

If he thought he was good enough, why was it wrong for him to move to City? You're supposed to aspire to be part of the best.

We've won a trophy! Somebody dug up a communiqué from the Spanish FA dated from 1953 granting us the Eva Duarte Cup (Supercopa precedent), as winners of the 1952-53 league and cup. Supercopa rules weren't clearly laid out back then, so it wasn't clear if we'd actually won it or not.

The whole sequence of events man. Dismal campaign -> internal inquest -> keep the manager and bring Kinnear.

You speak like UEFA isn't corrupt to the bone itself Platini was one of the main drivers for Qatar getting the WC.

So his PR filth even works in Spain? As Mike pointed out, our so-called "premier league experts" just copy-paste whatever the English media say.

He had Liverpool "against the ropes" according to our press today. I give up.

I wanted a replay tbf, would have loved to have Palace fans put up with the extra games excuse until they got relegated to League 1.

People in this board celebrating a Liverpool goal; Pardew manages the unthinkable

Classy