Village Idiot

So Roy will end up managing a worse team than were he was before moving to Liverpool. That worked out well for him.

Pep is a great motivator, first and foremost. You can see from the reactions on the pitch and in the press that the players would die for their manager. He takes great care on keeping the team's spirit, which is the reason he has little time for players that probably would need more pampering/management to get integrated (Eto'o/Zlatan). He is also a workaholic, I think he lives his job way too intensely and he'll burn out at some point in the future (the main reason he only takes 1 year contracts). To be frank I don't think he'll spend many more years with us. Tactically, we play a refined version of Rijkaard's tactics, which were a (significantly) updated version of Cruyff and Van Gaal's Dutch school. He is the man that has put that blueprint to work in the best fashion since I'm watching Barça though, I find the talk "anybody could manage this squad" talk utter bollocks, since pretty much the same squad was crap the year before the treble. Last season he's started to show a lot more tactical fluidity, with stuff like Messi playing as a deep striker or we switching to variations of 4-4-2/4-2-4 in some games. And yes, I'm skeptical of him in the transfer market. Most successful signings (Villa, Alves) were not his (but in fairness, some of the duds either). He says he is a fan of small squads in order to make everybody feel he's contributing to the team (he always takes the entire squad to away games), but I think we are letting ours shrink a bit too much. On the other hand, he believes in the kids and will put them on the pitch. Pedro and Busquets would have never happened under Rijkaard.

He still scored a nice goal in the Brazilian league last week.

This season's shirt is lush. Will probably end up buying another one next season off the bargain bin.

"El Mundo Deportivo" just posted this mockup of the next Barça shirt. http://www.elmundodeportivo.es/gif/20110211/e__archivo_photo_10_1_1_20110211_ba10f1.jpg6.jpg We're gonna play in pajamas

Marca reporting Real Madrid has bid €60m for Cesc.

Pedro's strike rate in the league is around 25% this season (47 shots, 12 goals). As comparison, Messi's on 25% (93 shots, 24 goals) and Cronaldo's on 15% (163 shots , 24 goals). He's great. He reminds me a fucking lot of Raúl (don't tell my friends I said that), in the way that he doesn't seem to be excellent at anything but he is amazingly smart on the pitch and uses what he has to the best.

Don't Villa have 200000000000 good wingers already? Larsson will probably want betters terms/sign on fee if coming on a free.

Gibson has a great shoot on him but looks extremely average overall going by his ManU appearances.

Our forward roster is certainly thinner than Kuqi.

Did I make some grammar mistake or is it because I'm calling a squad with Pedro, Messi and Villa in it, thin?

We are very thin upfront. Pedro-Villa-Messi are awesome, but there's just Bojan and Iniesta out of position afterwards (plus Afellay now). Putting Neymar would actually allow us to rotate more and get him primed to replace Villa in a couple years. My only worry is if he would fit our system, or if he could be molded into it (he's still very young afterall)

Some Spanish rags reporting our president is in talks to buy Neymar. He has close ties with the Brazilian market from his times working for Nike and he brought Ronaldinho here so it's not so far-fetched. Figures quoted are alongside €20m-€30m with probably Keirrison or Henrique heading back to Brazil as part of the deal. Cracking player, I'm just fearful we might not be the best match for each other. But if it worked out well

We don't get out of second gear for friendlies, which I something I have nee problem with. I wish Del Bosque used them for something meaningful like bedding in new players instead of copy-pasting the WC squad.

FWIW in Spain an assist was a "goal pass" (pase de gol), and a lot of people/media still use that word. "Assist" feels like I'm watching basketball to me.

The Lucy from Peanuts one

Yes And he won't be the only one! Proper waste of money that. Stop wasting the internet, you. Drop the s*** attitude. For a poor player that is going to be on the bench, and leave the club in 6 months or so...surely proper waste. No it's not. They're Finnish, and Kuqi's the first Finnish player to play for us. For them it's well worth the money to have something to remember it by. He's not finnish yet, he's still got a few goals in him!

Hum, are Savage and Kuqi in bed together in this?

Actually I loved the most that other celebration he had with the retarded dance while he clapped his hands over his head (hope it's not some Finnish folklore thing and I'm offending an entire nation here).

Both Madrid rags reporting that Real Madrid have decided to not extend Pepe's contract after not reaching a compromise about his wage demands. His current deal runs out in 2012. He's already been linked to a host of PL clubs (Chelsea, Arsenal, City).

Norwegians are seriously stupid, Swede. Doesn't make up for that tattoo no matter what, you are labled How do we know Carew doesn't want it to say his menstruation, though? He refused to comment about his reason for getting the tattoo, he probably wants to become a woman. I'm highly more amused about the fact that in Norwegian a simple stress mark is the difference between "rules" and "menstruation" It's in French.

Norwegians are seriously stupid, Swede. Doesn't make up for that tattoo no matter what, you are labled How do we know Carew doesn't want it to say his menstruation, though? He refused to comment about his reason for getting the tattoo, he probably wants to become a woman. I'm highly more amused about the fact that in Norwegian a simple stress mark is the difference between "rules" and "menstruation"

I like Bendtner actually, think he would flourish at a club that started him week in week out and not feeding off the scraps he gets at Arsenal. I'm just afraid he'd command a big chunk of your current wedge in fee and wages.

Aye, because regular joes don't work hard and don't pay prices to keep their jobs. w*****. you face the same privacy issues and public attention doing a regular 9-5 job? Most pro footballers train around 15-20 hours a week, I work 40 hours. They have way more time than me to enjoy their family life or go out with friends. As I said, we all make our sacrifices. Also only a minority of footballers actually suffer this kind of privacy issues. I really doubt Chris Samba gets much attention when he's out.

Aye, because regular joes don't work hard and don't pay prices to keep their jobs. w*****.