Village Idiot

Another trophy less season perhaps? We'll see. Today's the first friendly where we played something resembling our best XI and we looked very fresh and mobile; at least it looks like we'll be enjoyable to watch again. I'm not sure we'll be good enough to compete with the best, with so many new guys and some really questionable buys...

I can't catch a break in this forum when I try to complain about anything We might finish 3rd this season FFS.

Why wouldn't you? You support frigging Barcelona!

Rich man's Pardew.

Oh fuck it. Can't wait for the season to begin. I'm excited again.

Didn't think he could play? even in friendlies. Ban got downgraded last week. He'll play this game and then disappear until October. Heh. That Munir kid is now our highest goalscorer in this preseason. He's come out from nowhere (one year ago wasn't even at Barça B) and has been quite impressive, to be honest.

And Suárez debuts.

Man, I love Rakitic.

To be frank I had Fàbregas in my team because I know he's going to be great after we sold him.

This sound you're hearing is half the forum transferring Schürrle in.

He does drift to the centre, that's pretty much his game. Diagonal runs behind the defenders or getting late into the box. He took people on without problems there, though.

Reckon Lamela will fare better under Poche? Liked him a lot in Italy, and would love to see him succeed in England.

He played upfront for Tenerife, but started as an attacking midfielder. He's played just one year of senior football, so he hasn't really a dominant position yet.

Costa flourished as Falcao's support until he found new shooting boots. For what little I saw of yesterday's game this lad looked a potentially good SS.

38 so far, with Cap'n Costa and two others left to play.

Banega to Sevilla for €2.5m, will be reunited with Emery there. I'm a bit surprised by it, since clashes between Emery and Banega were notorious during their Valencia days.

I wish he signed for a Spanish club, a "manola" is a "w***" in Spanish.

The towel cracked me up every time.

By the way, a Spanish court has ordered La Liga to re-admit Real Murcia in Liga Adelante, after they had been relegated due to non-compliance with our FFP rules.

Peter Lim as finalised the purchase of Valencia, after reaching an agreement with the club's main creditor (a Spanish bank).

Sherwood How is he even considered a "real" manager? Eight months ago he was just a coach and he's done nothing to prove otherwise. He was massively out of his depth.

Heck, Atlético might compete again this year. A huge coup. Happy to see world class players somewhere else than us or Madrid.

Stones, glass houses and all that, but Koeman

Your mind games won't work with me

Okay, changes! Krul, Mannone Debuchy, Filipe Luís, Caulker, Van Aanholt, Hutton (yes, *that* Hutton) Fàbregas, Ramsey, Mata, Sigurdsson, Isgrove Costa, Remy, Lukaku This iteration of the team is a bit cheaper than the last, and leaves me with 1.5 to play with once the game starts.