Village Idiot

It, however, reduces your stamina. It's not about being quick at the kickoff, it's about being quick when you're chasing their winger at minute 60.

Would love to see José Enrique get a run in the Spain shirt, but he hasn't much buzz right now. Not playing in La Liga or Europe makes it harder for him to get noticed.

El Mundo Deportivo reporting that Manchester United have inquired Guardiola's agent regarding his future. EDIT: Goal.com has picked it up http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2010/10/27/2185284/manchester-united-boss-sir-alex-ferguson-sees-barcelona-head

In Spanish it's pronounced I-nies-ta, though. Agüero would tie Ameobi, but again in Spanish it's A-güe-ro and not A-gü-e-ro.

Hope Xavi gets it, goddarn time a Spanish player wins this thing again. Last one was Suárez in 1961 which is utterly ridiculous

Alonso? Didn't play today, Granero is a poor version of him. There was Canales in there too, who's still too green.

Madrid drew 0-0 against Murcia in the Copa del Rey, goes to show that they'll struggle as much as we do when teams start bunkering down against them.

Early days. You forget they had similar runs last season (which was a record one for them afterall). Going to be hard to beat them of course, but I fancy us still.

You did him a favour, since Jonás was in front of him in Mallorca's picking order.

They had 56 shots on goal against PAOK. They definitely did not. If he means Panathinaikos, we had just 12 (+8 off goal). We have 70+ possession against most teams we play. One of the reasons is that nowadays everybody turtles up against us.

2006 was a shit World Cup striker-wise anyway.

If it was all about getting a better contract it's a rather clumsy way to do it. He more or less said that his mates are shit and the club is headed to the gutter, but now he'll need to backpedal on that. But he got what he wanted I guess.

I honestly can't see why an employer should be entitled to keep any rights over an employee after the contract finishes, really, no matter if he earns 400 pw or 200000. I understand the huge transfer fees distort the issue but that's something the clubs themselves are to blame for, actually.

I just caught a bit of their EL game and I hope to god it's true.

To be honest in Spain players have been free to leave after their contracts end since the 1960s (and without the age limit of Bosman's ruling), so I don't think it's the big deal people make it out to be. It always made sense to me, to be honest.

Özil has started well at Real, no way he'll be moved on. Benzema, Gago/Lass, Kaka... are more likely candidates.

I did some dirty math and I got 235000 pw

Marca reporting Rooney wants €14m wages, which would make him the highest paid in the world.

I think the point is that those in the image above are actually Newcastle ads with the sponsors added. That's how I have seen it done on other stadiums (Camp Nou included). That's how you want to do it anyway, linking your brand with something your potential customers love/want.

Both were meant as starters. What I say is that I don't think HBA is good enough to take the risk. Surely he's better than the Ezquerros, Fauberts or Drenthes of this world, but he's a riskier player regarding squad disruption, for what would ultimately be a sub role.

Barça and Madrid would never take a punt on a player with a story of such volatile personality for sitting on the bench. Still hoping he recovers and turns out well for you, mind.

Just back from the Camp Nou. It's really taking a bit to get us going this year. Well, 3 points in the bag I guess. We still have some flashes of brilliance, and we are being woeful when taking our chances, so I'm confident we'll pick up.

Hey, he hasn't even trained with us Actually I think we did fine given the circumstances. The loan to Benfica wasn't a good one since he wasn't getting a game there so we recalled him and loaned him to Fiorentina. They chose to terminate the loan early, so I guess he just isn't adapting well to Europe. Now, I think we should have taken him in preseason with us this year before dumping him back to Brazil. It was just a puzzling signing. I'm damn sure that it was brown-enveloped since Henrique had the same agency repping him and it was an equally pointless buy.

Henrique looked pants in the preseason games he played for us, but always wondered why we never took Keirrison for a spin at least. Well, both were signed behind Guardiola's back and I think it's obvious he doesn't want anything to do with them.

Keirrison and Henrique.