Village Idiot

Messi benched. In Turin against Juventus. True that we need to lose by 3 goals in order to put first place in jeopardy, plus we're travelling to Valencia on the weekend, but it's still weird.

I honestly still don't understand why they didn't even attempt to replace Morata. You look at that squad and it's blatantly obvious they lack options upfront. Given us a lifeline after our own awful transfer window.

Meh. Hype is hype. We're in the CL and in a CL place. *broken record* Until we get into the new stadium and start generating the kind of revenue which will allow us to compete on a level at least comparable to the clubs above us, then I will take a CL place as a success. Teams don't play in a vacuum. The teams above us right now spent 221M, 188M and 150M on new players this summer, to add to the crazy amounts they spent in previous windows and the insane advantage they have in wage bill. We're really good, we punch far above our weight, and have done so for years. Had dinner with some Real Madrid fans this week and they're still in shock after the London game.

Heh, I have always defended Benzema's role in Madrid's striking line, but this season is becoming difficult... They have a bad conundrum. I still don't think Ronaldo is going to be as effective played as a pure #9 as if they bought a top drawer pure #9, but right now their striking line has lost all the dynamism they were famous for.

Atlético's captain Gabi after the draw against Qarabag: "The Europa League is s***". Refreshingly honest. As for Barça, we were poor yesterday. When Messi's off we have little to bring to the table offensively. That's what Neymar was about. Suárez's form is dire too.

Our press is reporting that Arsenal want to recruit our former Director of Operations, Raül Sanllehí, who's just been sacked (about time). We're talking about the guy whose responsability was negotiating most of our transfers (not target selection, just closing the deals). Why would Arsenal want to get near him? He's the dude that i.e. closed the Neymar transfer from Santos that got us in loads of trouble

Only seen the highlights, but keep thinking the team is papering over the cracks just through sheer force of will and managerial accumen - both are great, but I'd feel less anxious with a bit more quality. My worry is that a protracted sale process will prevent any January signings.

There's a milk brand under that name. Sadly don't think they will be one of the candidates.

The club will put forward a proposal for the Camp Nou's naming rights in early 2018, subject to member approval. It will be something like "Camp Nou XXXXX". Feel kicked in the balls, but I was expecting that. Sadly the sign of the times.

Today's Barça's General Assembly. I may have misheard him, but our treasurer I think has just said that 25% of Barça's ticket revenue comes from football tourists. Interesting tidbit: we pay footballers every 6 months, not monthly. Will try to read the assembly notes later.

Still not sure I'm happy or disappointed about yesterday's game. A draw at Atlético's place is never a bad a result but I have the feeling we could've won. André Gomes is useless though.

Police raiding the French HQ of BeinSports, owned by PSG's owner.

Was mint in Championship Manager Italia

Love stuff like this. Football.

My very uninformed opinion is that there's too many of the USMNT players playing in the MLS. That whole "repatriaton" trend of the past few years to bring them back to the league has hurt the competitiveness of the team's backbone, imho.

Just saw the US result - I checked Argentina early in the morning but I took US' qualification for granted and didn't bother to check the TNT game. What the hell happened?

What's more likely to happen, Barça-Newcastle in the CL or in the PL?

The thing is that if the Catalan FA pulls out of the Spanish FA following the UDI, Barça would automatically become uneligible (Barça's a member of the Spanish FA through its Catalan FA membership).

There's a rumor going round that if we go for an UDI today, the Catalan Government will force Barça to pull out from the Spanish league. Oh ffs.

That's one of the 5 or 6 goals he's going to score all season, I hope he spent it juiciously.

Las Palmas keeper has been outstanding today. We could easily be 2 or 3 up.

Paulinho and Vidal subbed at half time. Odd.

It's 50/50 - which is the huge problem.

Me too, man. It's a shame some have already been injured, still I hope some peacefulness, integrity & decency for the fellow man can be restored amongst the unrest. It's not worth it, it really isn't... No matter how justified one feels to be angry; the moment it manifests as violence to our fellow man, everyone loses... Totally agree. Really sad and broken over what's happening today in my city. This is not who we should be.

Why? There's been some violent scenes in the city as it's the day of the Catalan independence referendum. Hundreds injured and some really ugly policing from what videos I have seen. People are incensed, and I can't see the game being played in front of 80.000 people without any bother. I pray there isn't any violence outside the pitch.