Village Idiot

He has, but we won't use it unless he starts banging in 20 goals per season. The board pretty much included it to save face since Bojan is still pretty popular amongst the fans (him being Catalan and wearing Barça's #9)

We don't produce that many forwards, we have already blooded Pedro and given up on Bojan. Next forward in line that can reasonably make it is Deulofeu who's 16. (That's one of the reasons we have signed Femenía).

I think he's pretty important for our future, but not necessarily this season hence why Alexis was prioritised.

There was an article today on how there's a stretch in autumn where Barça will play two games every week, six weeks straight. All 4 will see ample game time, same with Cesc if we sign him.

No, the whole point of this transfer is having 4 great attackers, not 3.

No, the talks to extend his contract are stalled but that's because he's asking for a longer deal. There's no way we'd let Abidal go.

Where will he play? Left-wing? I expect him to be deployed on both wings, but mostly left yes. Our front three are pretty fluid anyway. Well, I must admit I haven't seen him play outside of the last WC and this Copa América but for what I have heard I'm pretty excited to see him turn out for us, might add some explosiveness to our attack that sometimes we miss. Better option than Pedro for sure. What's the situation with Bojan at the moment, is he on his way out? I can only assume you don't watch Barca much, Pedro's mint. Sanchez gives them better depth as another top quality option across any of the front 3 positions, which is what they needed really. Have you been in for any defenders, VI? We have been mildly linked with a few, mostly bargain buys (Botía, José Ángel, Capdevila), we need more bodies in there so I hope we get somebody. We have a number of good prospects playing for Barça B (Bartra, Fontàs, Montoya, Muniesa), so I hope one or more of them can become first team players. Someone like Jose Enrique would be pretty good for yo.. oh f***. We were linked with him earlier in the transfer window, I think it was just paper talk, though. It seems we are mostly looking for a LB (who would allow us to move Abidal at CB if necessary).

Yes, but we let it expire this season. He's been very good for them.

Where will he play? Left-wing? I expect him to be deployed on both wings, but mostly left yes. Our front three are pretty fluid anyway. Well, I must admit I haven't seen him play outside of the last WC and this Copa América but for what I have heard I'm pretty excited to see him turn out for us, might add some explosiveness to our attack that sometimes we miss. Better option than Pedro for sure. What's the situation with Bojan at the moment, is he on his way out? I can only assume you don't watch Barca much, Pedro's mint. Sanchez gives them better depth as another top quality option across any of the front 3 positions, which is what they needed really. Have you been in for any defenders, VI? We have been mildly linked with a few, mostly bargain buys (Botía, José Ángel, Capdevila), we need more bodies in there so I hope we get somebody. We have a number of good prospects playing for Barça B (Bartra, Fontàs, Montoya, Muniesa), so I hope one or more of them can become first team players.

Pedro is key to us, not some sort of passenger in a great side as lots of people seem to think. Great workrate, movement and finishing (last season he had the best goals/shots ratio of La Liga). He has scored in both the CL semifinal and the CL final this year, can't ask for much more from a forward. In a way he reminds me a lot of Raúl, a player who became great because of his intelligence and knowing what to do and what not to do.

Where will he play? Left-wing? I expect him to be deployed on both wings, but mostly left yes. Our front three are pretty fluid anyway. Well, I must admit I haven't seen him play outside of the last WC and this Copa América but for what I have heard I'm pretty excited to see him turn out for us, might add some explosiveness to our attack that sometimes we miss. Better option than Pedro for sure. What's the situation with Bojan at the moment, is he on his way out? He's on the verge of being sold to Roma. Barça were just waiting to complete the Alexis deal and the sale should be finalised soon.

When Sir Bobby died I thought about going to a NUFC board and reading what Newcastle fans had to say about him, since you were his club afterall. After that I found this board a pretty fun place to hang around and talk about football so I stayed. I have always followed English football anyway, so was cool to find a place to talk about it.

Where will he play? Left-wing? I expect him to be deployed on both wings, but mostly left yes. Our front three are pretty fluid anyway. Well, I must admit I haven't seen him play outside of the last WC and this Copa América but for what I have heard I'm pretty excited to see him turn out for us, might add some explosiveness to our attack that sometimes we miss.

Barça have just confirmed the signing of Alexis Sánchez: €26m+€11,5m. Hell, that took ages to complete.

Real Madrid have spent €30m on Coentrao, and €12m on Sahin. Tomorrow we'll probably announce the signing of Alexis Sánchez, and Agüero will move soon it seems (which should start a merry-go-round as Atlético use the cash to sign somebody like Rossi and City offload some surplus strikers).

Apparently we have agreed a deal to sell Oriol Romeu to Chelsea for €5m, with a buyback clause (weird that Chelsea would agree to that). I guess it's been done to raise money for Cesc/Alexis, but Oriol was doing very well at Barça B. I guess we have way too many midfielders though.

Is there any expense involved in having more subs? (appearance fees?)

Jose back to them? Or have they already got someone? They signed Zapata from Udinese.

Benfica have signed Capdevila from Villarreal.

The shirt is a fake (look at the sleeve). But really, seeing all those Asian fans acting all wannabee hooligan makes me cringe/laugh. Somebody posted the other day a video with a guy wearing a ManU shirt in a Liverpool game that was hilarious.

On that subject me and a friend were commenting the other day how hilarious it would be if after all the saga he ended up failing the medical. Surely any medical would only be bureaucratic... Medicals are mostly for insurance purposes so we can't really make them "bureaucratic" even if we wanted to. Another thing is that we might shoulder the risk anyway if something comes up wrong.

I'm oldschool, the new generations have it easy. Come on, when I was a kid our star striker was kidapped when we were leading the league with 5 games to go and we ended up losing it! Of course I'm going to believe the sky can fall at any moment.

Anyhow, according to the Catalan telly, our vice-president is in London.

Wonder what would have happened if Japan had attended this tournament? For starters I doubt Argentina would have got out of first round.

None, it's just the chronic pessimist in me. It's just anechdotical stuff and the whole "prodigal son coming home" hyperbole that went on at the time too. It hurt the lad as hype was sky-high. Cesc's fitness does worry me though, although he's so pivotal to Arsenal that has been rushed to action many times.