Village Idiot

Just checked Aliadère's wiki. What a monumentally shit scoring record. I haven't followed him much since he left Arsenal but he always looked a crafty mobile player. Is he played on the wing nowadays, maybe?

yeah I got the same response when I asked about him on a Rennes fan forum earlier. That said, opinions from fans of a player that is trying to engineer a move away are hardly the best metric. If Messi was leaving us I'd say he's shit at headers.

Also I suppose these "European competitions" are new, I'm certain our kids don't play in any bar the odd international tournament. Personally I don't see the need of an "U18 Champions League" which would be a huge expense with dubious benefit for the kids' development. About the reform to be honest it makes sense. If you extract kids from their communities you have to make sure there is a structure to look after them, particularly if they come from other nations and don't even speak the language. That costs money, but it's how it has to be done for the sake of the kid. What is needed is protection for small clubs so their players aren't easily pilfered.

This is a myth that really needs dispelling. Arsenal academy isn't great. It's their scouting network that's the winner.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3323755/Liverpool-set-to-sign-Rennes-midfielder-Sylvain-Marveaux.html Linked to Liverpool early in the winter transfer window, apparently.

By all accounts he is. Very talented but disgraceful pro, actually. Did he pull off the same "injury" and nightgoing antics for you that he did for Málaga?

Time to do some scouting!

Eh? Can you explain both terms and the context? Don't really get it. When Benítez signed for Liverpool and started bringing in a bunch of Spanish players our press coined the "Spanish Liverpool" thing, and it became the most reported/fawned upon English club in Spain, which annoyed me to no end. I remember the buildup to the Istambul final to be particularly nauseating, with our papers calling Spaniards to support Liverpool. "Spain has a team in the CL final". What the f***? Now that Benítez and the Spanish players are gone, that fortunately has died out, and the next English team with a Spanish manager and a bunch of Spanish players is Wigan.

Atlético linked with ManYoo's Anderson in "As".

La Liga has threatened to go on strike on February 20th to pressure the government into giving into a few demands. Mainly: - They want a cut of bets involving La Liga clubs from firms operating in Spain (do you have that in the UK?) - They want to remove the "free" weekly La Liga game that has to be offered on free on-air TV according to our law. - They want to limit some of the free access the media have to match footage in order to make news reports. - They want to get a fee from radio stations broadcasting games (football radio broadcasts are still very big in Spain)

Fernando Llorente has revealed that Bilbao refused a bid from Liverpool for him in the past transfer window. "Marca" reporting that Madrid are preparing a bid of €28m+Negredo (which they can buy back for €17m) for Sergio Agüero.

Albert Luque was actually immense for Depor. There were reasons to get anyone's hopes up.

Honestly though, Luque was surely on a bag of peanuts at Depor (hardly a rich club), didn't your chairman bother to research how much he was on? He probably quadrupled his wages.

I was a huuuuuuuuuuuge fan of Ginola when I was a teenager, still got his PSG shirt somewhere in my parent's house. That hair But I didn't see Robert much for you, and I haven't seen enough of HBA to judge him either.

Love it how he still manages to say that "Liverpool are a great club" and that it was "a great transfer" a few times despite "apologizing" "Sorry to cheat on you with a guy with a big dick, because his dick is very big you know, but I really shouldn't have done it, even though his dick is really big" FFS man, you're saying that your current club is shit compared to Liverpool and it's better to be there than to be at NUFC. Even if you think it shut the fuck up for the sake of your supporters.

Lendoiro is known to strike hard bargains, rarely a deal is quick with him.

85000 a week Given the pound was way stronger back then that's probably more than we were paying Ronaldinho at the time

You signed quite a few players this window, though. Makoun, Bent, Bradley, Walker... your squad is still very large. But I agree on the point that people seem very oblivious about how much wages, bonuses and fees add up to. No such thing as a cheap/free transfer.

Incidentally, can somebody explain me all the crazy loans in the Calcio? Genoa loaning Kharja and Boateng to the two Milan clubs?

To be honest I wish football watching opened up a bit more. We only get La Liga and the PL down here regularly. There's the odd Calcio/Bundesliga game in an obscure cable channel but that's pretty much it.

I like Bari, always loved their Kellogg's badge.

Good goal.

Can't wait to see Sneijder back and on form to be frank.

Worst dive of all time

An innovation in the Hitler genre for sure