Village Idiot

But, from a legal point of view (and yeah, I'm no law expert) it's hard to explain having a subset of workers not being able to cancel their contracts like others do. I have always thought it's a matter of time an EU court stamps on this, like it happened with the Bosman ruling and free agency/unrestricted registration for EU nationals. To be honest it's sort of there, that's how you got Jonas.

What's so whattable about it? As I said, that's exactly how the law operates in Spain, clubs just found a way around it with the release clauses.

To be honest, it makes very little sense that footballers don't have the same rights as any regular worker, high wages or not. And it's not like all footballers earn premier league wages.

That's *exactly* what happened in Spain and the reason there are transfer clauses written in contracts (which are actually penalties for early termination), since otherwise players could cancel their employment contract like any other member of the workforce. I don't think there's even need to pay up the remainder of it.

Dum-dum! http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/12/16/inenglish/1387214441_486283.html

To be honest is more than 2 months away, team forms can change radically until then. Personally I think we are starting to gel and we'll be a much better team in February, plus we'll have Messi back by then (hopefully for real now).

I personally don't rate AVB, but yeah, it's way too early to sack him.

Really looking forward playing City, should be a cracking fixture

Sergio Ramos is now the joint all-time red card holder in La Liga with 18 sending offs. At only 27 years of age, the sky is the limit

Ok, I thought we played quite well despite the tightness of the score; it just underscores how badly we need a natural CF, imho. Good to see Neymar growing into the team, he can be great.

Neymar playing centrally again? Bound to get anohter hattrick in that position. Hope so, but Neymar played centrally against Celtic because Fábregas was banned.

2-2, not too bad. We have a tough one against Villarreal later today, looking forward to it though, should be a fun match.

2-0 now. What the hell... Down to 10men now. Have them on my betslip =( Ramos has to be up to 3 red cards this season or something. Unbelievable. Also where's Ronaldo the best player in the world when you need him? I will personally blame you if he turns this around, you reckless face-tempter.

Glad to see Pellegrini starting to grow into it these last weeks; pity I sort of dislike ManCity.

Apologies, thought you were Flip for a second. I like that it's ok to be a dick to Flip, and the apology isn't even about being a dick, it's about being a dick to the wrong person. Second time it happens, will need to change my avatar FFS

Pretty much, actually. The board was pretty candid in saying we just needed the money given our debt levels.

So clever.

Random, but fun: NFL badges designed as if they were European football badges. http://www.footballasfootball.com/ My favorite's got to be the Baltimore Valencia Ravens.

We're getting Arsenal. Written in the stars.

Surprised that he'd go to Real Sociedad when he could start for a bunch of top European sides. Boyhood club and all, but still.

Apparently Xabi Alonso won't sign a new contract with Real Madrid, and will be able to hold talks in January to leave on a free. Moyes seen at yesterday's Atlético game, local sources linking ManU with Koke (who is the kind of player they need)

Neymar scores, 3-0 We're due a pasting against these lot for a while now.

Sevilla's president José María del Nido stepped down after being sentenced to jail for fraud (unrelated to the running of the club).

He's in the House of Lords rather than in Parliament. Oh Christ, that's good. Yeah, massive "well played" there

Always thought that "Lord Sugar" is the name of some 70s funk singer.