Village Idiot

Ilan was pretty decent for Wham on the tail end of last season.

And yet Scholes got shunted to the wing.

Sorry about that.

That was Petrov.

Let me think about it... pretty sure Beckham never scored at our place... Chelsea scored a few goals here over the years, but think it was Drogba/Essien. Will check that.

Does Bellamy count as Englishman?

La Liga clubs have agreed to go on strike April 3rd if the Spanish government doesn't remove the obligation to show one game in free on-air TV every week.

Just love how giddy he still is about it all. And he's past 30!

I have a hard time taking somebody called "Lord Sugar" seriously.

Also our press saying Liverpool will bid €20m for Bojan in the summer. If we weren't so thin upfront () I'd sell.

Elmander has just had 4 good months in the premiership, and currently hasn't scored in 11 games or something like that. I'm really not convinced.

I like to believe that Cesc would only leave us for you, I'd be very disappointed if it was for anybody else. It's just Marca stirring the pot, most probably. That said, don't think we'll (seriously) go for him this summer. If Carroll and Torres go for those amounts no way Arsenal would sell Cesc for any price we can afford. I'll blame Mike Ashley.

Hope he becomes a manager in the future. Love how they watered down the cursing in the translation

Txiki was our former DoF, Zubizarreta the current one. Pep isn't involved in the bartering but he usually okays all the deals or asks for particular areas to be covered. Some transfers, like Txygrynsky and Hleb, were direct petitions of him. He did want to get rid of Eto'o but don't think he chose the replacement. As usual sometimes it's hard to tell since the club always makes it appear that he's involved in everything. However when somebody has been signed behind his back (like Keirrison or Henrique) it's pretty easy to tell since he won't give them the time of the day.

Fair enough, guess that given his age he saw it as a last chance to get into the big boys club.

Its better to try and fail than settle for mediocrity. Its was his chance to manage a big club. He will work his way back. Dont blame him for trying. Were you trying for a Haiku there? And yes, I get what you mean, but he should have known better. Liverpool were never going to meet their fans' expectations this season and it was always a losing proposition. Surely he could have gone to a more stable club.

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.