Village Idiot

Messi out, I'm intrigued to see how we do with Neymar as the theoretical main man.

As for emulating goals I always tried to chip them in a la Romario It rarely worked out...

Bale is in Spain already actually. Been photographed in Marbella.

One of our wingers these years has been Pedro, though, whose workrate is enormous. Any variation of 433 demands a lot from the wingers.

Özil never had the engine or workrate to work effectively in the wing. He progressively got better at it under Mourinho, but it'd still be a waste to play him there.

You aren't.

Cani = "Chav" in Spanish. That's why I never could take him seriously as a player, as good as he is, it's a really unfortunate nickname to pick.

Suso had a good game against Getafe today, hadn't realized he was on loan at Almería.

5k at Getafe - Almería They are such a joke, should start playing closed doors games and save themselves the bother.

Giuseppe Signori was my favorite Italian player when I was young. Never won a trophy.

That says they've reached an agreement with the player, pending conclusion of talks with Spurs. The article says "in a matter of days", so it's not completely done yet. Next week I suppose.

Froggy's accruing some massive karma in this thread like

That first season with us, man, pity he was such a party-loving lazyarse.

:smitten:

Loved Cantona as a kid, like. Impossible not to. Particularly after that Nike ad.

Guardiola was my first local hero, he was the personification of what all the kids of my age dreamt; to turn out for Barça and captain the side to glory. And 15 years later he does the same as manager Easily to understand why he's so crazily idolized over here.

I was late for Keegan, but there was a comic book I used to read about a fictional Barça player, and in one of the issues they played against a Keegan-led Hamburg. That made me look him up, even got some tapes off their EC matches. What a player

Van Basten was obviously my first non-Barça idol, like most kids from my generation probably.

My first Barça idol, I was 8 at the time when he was banging them in for us That hattrick against Real Madrid and was furious when Cruyff sold him

Marin looked utter class for Sevilla yesterday, although the opposition was piss.

"Those are not the strikers you're looking for".

They only pocketed 24 for Illarramendi; 6-7 went to their creditors and the rest was tax as they forced Real Madrid to activate the clause - which carries VAT - instead of agreeing a transfer of an equivalent amount (which is what's usually done between Spanish clubs). They were in the shit back when they got relegated and entered administration, but got amazingly good terms and they are in pretty good shape now. Dunno what their intentions are regarding the fee but I suspect they'll bank them to try to get better contracts to some of their key players next year. Xabi Alonso is on the last year of his contract and there's lots of talk he'll go there on a free next year. He's always been clear he wants to retire there.

They seem to do that a lot recently, don't they?

Vydra should start instead of Anelka, right? Thinking of switching Anelka for him. Want to keep my WC until all transfer business is completed.