Village Idiot

Guardiola speaking Catalan with a very noticeable German accent in an awards show in Barcelona He's been McLaren'd.

Banega has always been "high maintenance", seems to fall out with every manager at the club. Guess Pizzi didn't want to put up with s***, also, a lot of the players they got rid of were on high wages. Still somewhat surprised a transfer couldn't be arranged, I thought he had a good reputation. EDIT: Guardado had been deployed at LB, which was quite a waste.

We are shit not great anymore.

Valencia have had 6 out and 5 in this window. Talk about busy/panicked.

Has Mike Ashley come up with this idea for tacky merchandise yet? http://www.diariogol.com/es/img2/2014/01/telepizza-17811.jpg

It's Monaco man, not Kuala Lumpur

Can't see Griezmann staying after this season though.

Injuries. Being caught in the maelstrom of chaos and despair that is Valencia nowadays hasn't helped. Valencia still in massive debt, I think 350 million plus ?, no chance of building a new stadium or rebuilding the squad. They are doing a pretty big fire sale this window, Guardado's off to Leverkusen too. Takeover talks collapsed and there's also a big chance that the EU will slap them with a big fine for all the help the regional government has given them to keep them afloat. With little hope of qualifying for Europe this season, it's pretty damn ugly down there right now.

Injuries. Being caught in the maelstrom of chaos and despair that is Valencia nowadays hasn't helped either.

Canales to Real Sociedad for a mere 3,5 million. If he can get his career back on track he'll be a very good buy.

Obviously it's the movie rights for James Milner's biopic

Clubs can deduct a lot of expenses in youth development, infrastructure, etc... so the losses posted in accounts aren't equal to "FFP losses".

Pretty telling graph of why Atlético won't be able to keep the pace: http://estaticos04.marca.com/multimedia/graficos/futbol/2014/rotacion/rotacion.jpg That's what money buys.

Man, can't imagine the amount of dirt surrounding the Neymar transfer if he's ready to quit because of it. Oh well, can't see us having a good season with this upheaval, here's hoping that we can retain our key players and get a decent board in the summer.

Aye, I prefer watching a game with just 2 goals instead of 5, that's how I like my football. I mean, I don't.

Incidentally, it'd been relatively long since I had seen Messi score one of these goals. He's leaner too, looks like the time off might have done him the world of good.

First reports say it's just a strain. Seems there's a curse when both Messi and Neymar are on the pitch, one always limps out.

Heh, Howard Huges-tastic, this.

Okay, wrong board to say that.

Idiotic clause all the same, I can bet you Thiago won't make that figure at Bayern this season. Oh man, our DoF is so f***ing useless.

Last year they were in the relegation zone (but improved as the season went on) and still threatened the drop until Pochettino was appointed. Now they are in the top half. Their recruitment has been shrewd, but it's not surprising to see people praising the manager too. He got some pretty great runs with Espanyol (although never sustained them enough to get an European placing) with a pretty dour squad, I don't think he's a "great" manager but he will get you the results.

I don't know. Never wanted to know.

Don't get me started on that...

Isn't Fabregas basically a replacement? No. He works best in the #10 or #8 role, he's pretty average playing from deeper like Xavi does. I see Fàbregas more as Iniesta's replacement (although they are very different in style).

Nah, he no longer lives with his parents, he moved out years ago. He's even married now,