Village Idiot

For fuck's sake, this club is crazy

Goals flying all over and I don't own any of the strikers scoring them, VdV missed a pen FFS. I'm fucked.

It's like every low league player that puts on a Blackpool shirt gets superpowers or something.

Everybody you want to lose is losing, at least.

Should be a great game by all accounts. Yesterday on the telly they said this was the tie with most average goals of the last five years, averaging 5,5 goals a game which is utterly ridiculous

A fun stat for tonight's Barça - Atlético. We are currently on our league wins in a row record (15). Last record (14) was established under Rijkaard, and finished at Camp Nou, on a 5th of February, against Atlético de Madrid...

Three set piece/ long ball goals with Huth involved on them all. Stoke

Most Spanish clubs called "Sporting" or "Deportivo" were born the same way too. As multi-sports clubs that later became football teams. Sporting CP is a multi-sports club still.

Better lay all my "Spurs to win the league" bets then.

I know it's not a popular opinion around here, but I hope Stoke lose this. Absolute blight to football. At least Allardyce's Bolton still had some flair players.

IIRC it's because they were formed when the Olympic movement (remember Pierre de Coubertain was French) was starting and they were intended not as just football clubs, but multi-sport clubs to foment the practice of sports amongst the population, which was one of the pillars of the modern Olympic movement. Some of the French people or Baba might know better though.

Only football game on... Bah I'll pass.

It's ridiculously easy to get a Spanish passport if you're a south-american living in Spain. Two years working legally allows you to start the process (which can be slow or fast depending on how you grease the wheels). We have and have had a shitload of latin american players sporting Spanish passports in La Liga. Kun Agüero got his last week, Forlán has had one for a while, Dani Alves, Robinho, Messi... Marcos Senna even managed to become a Spain regular because of this. Also every Argentinian player in the world seems to have an Italian passport. Yeah but the names you quoted are all highly sought after by others ? If there is an easy way to sign cheap south Americans I expect the likes of redknappe, Bruce etc sucking them up like how we scourge cheap French players of minority ethnic origin. To Bruce's credits he is the first to take full advantage of established players in lesser countries. I really think we ought to do the same, hoovering up national players from Korea, japan, Paraguay, Colombia, USA, poland etc Yeah yeah, I used those names because they are the ones I know for certain that have Spanish passports without looking them up. But Alves for example was Spanish before even being called up by Brazil. Pretty sure there are a bunch of talented SA players in Spain with EU passports. For example I just looked up Piatti and he has an Italian one.

So does that mean the Eldon Sq Northumberland st store will be the only one in the city centre apart from the ground . Yeah but remember, most clubs only have one store, at the ground, some might have a city centre store. We will still have 3 stores within Tyneside. We have 6 stores (most of them opened in the last 4 years), and Barcelona's metro area has around 4 times the population of Tyneside.

José Ángel? He's actually pretty good.

Incidentally he hasn't made the last Spain callup, Capdevila being the only natural LB in the squad. Even if we aren't calling El Búfalo, it's damn time we started bedding in a new LB, particularly in a friendly.

It's ridiculously easy to get a Spanish passport if you're a south-american living in Spain. Two years working legally allows you to start the process (which can be slow or fast depending on how you grease the wheels). We have and have had a shitload of latin american players sporting Spanish passports in La Liga. Kun Agüero got his last week, Forlán has had one for a while, Dani Alves, Robinho, Messi... Marcos Senna even managed to become a Spain regular because of this. Also every Argentinian player in the world seems to have an Italian passport.

I'm not sure if that's your case, but most big clubs don't actually control their club stores directly, they are franchises operated by whoever you have sold your merchandising rights to (Nike in Barça's case for example, and I amusingly work for the company that operates Real Madrid's ones ). Since your owner already controls a sports chain he might have kept control of them, mind, but most big clubs don't.

Forster is first choice keeper for a side challenging for major honors (as crap as the league may be), would he be willing to go back to your club to just play in the cups?

At least in Spain they are mandatory. A transfer can't go through without the approval of a medical team, but as you say those can be rushed or not very strict.

Jefferson Montero has been peddled on loan to Levante. I have him for a quality forward and he's about 3rd choice for Villarreal so I can see him looking elsewhere.

Have read a couple of articles and nobody has mentioned a buyout clause. We're injury plagued so we need him regardless, but I hope of course that we have reached such an agreement..However, I have found no information about it. Anybody else who knows? It's not normal at all, the Ben Arfa deal was unusually good. That said, Ireland would probably be available for a decent price as they're probably desperate to get rid of him. Honestly, I don't think your board contemplates signing Ireland long term. He is on stupid wages (70k a week I have seen brummie say), and he won't give them up, less so if he has a successful campaign with you.

Yeah, what a medical will look for is if the injury is healing well and make sure there won't be long term consequences on the player's fitness. FM has done a lot of damage in this area.

Buyout fees aren't that common, there's usually little interest for the selling club to include them since it doesn't include any obligation for the buying club, and they might lose out on bigger bids if the player increases in value during the loan.

Vicente del Bosque has been made marquis by our king. Marquisate >>>>> knighthood imho.