Village Idiot

Some scary scenes in the Cádiz-Barça game. A spectator had a hearth-attack and the game was stopped while they tried to save his life. He's been evacuated to a hospital and seems he'll survive. The game itself was okay. Xavi rested a bunch of players for the Bayern game, and we struggled to break them down. However, we improved in the second half (Lewy coming in helped...) and ultimately ran away 0-4, of which Lewandowski scored 1 and assisted another. Cádiz are really bad though, they look certain to go down.

It's getting a bit lost amidst all the "Lewandowski is a goal machine" stories, but Dembelé is having the best run of form since he joined us. 5 goals/assists in 5 games. His rapport with Lewandowski is pretty great, they have clicked instantly. Regarding all the "they can win the CL" talk, we'll see how we do against Bayern.

Getting thoroughly beaten by Real Madrid? I hope not!

Also, there's a rumor that Luís Enrique will leave the national team after the World Cup, and I wonder if Sevilla might want to try to keep zombie Lopetegui around until then.

Very close, but I don't think he'll be fired just yet. He still seems to have Monchi's support. Also, not many replacements available unless they swing for Pochettino, whom I think will probably want to wait out for a PL seat.

Yeah, there was no real reason not to give the 2020 award. He had a strong case for 2021 too.

Great game yesterday. I know it's a "no shit Sherlock" statement but Lewandowski is amazing. Raphinha is also getting into the flow of things and had a great game, too.

I don't think I've ever done as many signings in FM as Forest has so far...

Braithwaite to Espanyol on a free. He will be great for them to replace De Tomás. Feel the club has been a bit shitty with him, but at least he gets to stay in the city, which he clearly loves. Looks like we're getting Bellerín to replace Dest. Him and Marcos Alonso are going to be a rather meh pair of FBs but we've already spent a shitload. Hopefully Balde keeps progressing.

Arthur to Liverpool is interesting... I honestly haven't kept track of him in Italy, but over here his issue, besides lack of pace, was lack of professionalism. But he was really talented and watching your match I felt that Liverpool lacked creativity in midfield.

Looks like PEA to Chelsea is done. €12-15m (depending on the source)+Marcos Alonso. That's probably out best transfer in quite some time. Came in on a free, scored loads, and now we sell at a profit.

I despise the way the offside rule is applied. The spirit of the rule is to prevent goalhanging which would force teams to defend deep, which would be terrible. Who the fuck cares if somebody's elbow is 1 cm offside. It drives me nuts.

And that's your Haaland. Isak's terrific. Chuffed you got him, tbf.

Haaland is absurd. City are going to be unstoppable.

We haven't really had good performances in the CL for a while, though. And even most of our recent deep CL runs have been capped off by embarrassing collapses. It's a monkey we need to get off our backs.

I'm weirdly relishing it. It is very tough, but at some point we need to show we can compete against the best.

I was over the moon when they bought him. He's washed. Anyway, nice game from us yesterday. Yes, the opposition was weak but it does look like stuff is starting to click upfront. Lewandowski is a force, and Dembele is finally putting together a string of consistent games (until his next injury, I guess), he ran Valladolid ragged yesterday.

Yeah, but not sure we can use that formation consistently, it's definitely a "break the glass in case of emergency" thing. Which I guess it's good to have. Still, there are so many new pieces that I can excuse us looking somewhat dull. But it's obvious Xavi hasn't quite figured out the team yet.

Fati We were pretty dogshit until he came in though. Xavi is being weird.

He's played both wings during preseason. We'll see but I agree with you that he should be on the right.

I didn't vote for Laporta and I've always thought he's a classless twat. I feared stuff like this would happen, because he already did a lot of ridiculous evil shit last time he was in charge (he spied on his own staffers!). So for me this isn't something "new", I guess people didn't pay attention back then because Ronaldinho and Messi. Also, we don't really have a cash flow problem (short-term). We could pay all those wages. We *do* have a balance problem though (a serious one), which in turn creates a wage cap problem given La Liga's financial regulations, hence all the deferral malarkey to bring new signings in. I personally would rather spent another year rebuilding and healing our finances, since we do have a crop of very talented young players to build around, and we have to deal with the rebuilding of Camp Nou, but Laporta has gone all in to try to contend right away - which I don't think it will work.

I'm guilty of watching PSG games just for him, and worst of all, wanting them to win Football is just too beautiful when he's in it.

I suppose the fact we've been shit makes us an easier target for negative coverage. The Athletic has been having a field day with all those "HAHAHA look at how terrible Barça are" for a while now.

What have we done that we weren't doing 10 years ago? I mean, don't get me wrong, we're reprehensible, just not sure how it has worsened as of late. I mean, remember the Abidal cancer feelgood story? The Spanish courts have, for years now, trying to ascertain whether we helped him pay off a dude to buy his liver I suppose Messi et al covered up a lot of shit.

Thanks, I appreciate it.