Village Idiot

Ah didn't know about that! Cheers, For some reason my favorite feature of SJP has always been the "Newcastle United" letters in the upper stand. Something simple, but actually not very common.

Already played against Hamburg the other day. But good for him.

Remember that one of the things that precisely held back Barça after Cruyff left was our insistence in playing a pure playmaker as #4 (the "Guardiola role") even though football was becoming more physical (think how Desailly absolutely murdered us in the 1994 CL final). Sir Bob played Popescu there, which was reviled by the fans (but it worked). After he left Popescu was promptly sold and we went back to putting Pep/Xavi in front of the defence until Rijkaard signed Davids and struck gold.

Canny article One of the things about Busquets is that he has some awful body language when controlling a ball, etc... that makes him look less technically adept than he is. He had a great World Cup.

He had one good season, but glad we somehow tricked Ajax into buying him. We have had way worse than him though. Oscar, Roger, Cembranos, Celades, Javi Moreno... our 1995-2000 crop of players was just s***. You've had some bizzare squad fillers in the past like. I know he wasn't Catalan but what about Ezquerro? What was the deal with him He was on a free, was decent at Bilbao, we had to pad our squad a bit upfront after Larsson's injury.

He had one good season, but glad we somehow tricked Ajax into buying him. We have had way worse than him though. Oscar, Roger, Cembranos, Celades, Javi Moreno... our 1995-2000 crop of players was just s***, but Cruyff had gone Wenger at that point (before Wenger went Wenger himself) and kept playing them.

He's at his level, imho. He doesn't start for Celtic in the SPL. He is another Arnau Riera Nah, Crosas is twice the footballer that Riera was. My opinion of the SPL is very low, mind, Nacho Novo was a star in that league FFS

He's at his level, imho. He doesn't start for Celtic in the SPL. Well, he isn't going to be another Arteta but I think he's been playing somewhat regularly up there. EDIT: 41 starts in 2 years according to Celtic's website.

He's at his level, imho.

I'm not watching that game, but how many English youngsters are in the Arsenal lineup? Just 3. Walcott, Wilshere and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. That's not going to help England much Wilshere is class though. Looking forward to his career.

Man, you know you're a brat when even Eto'o is calling you out http://www.sportinglife.com/football/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=soccer/10/08/01/SOCCER_Balotelli_Etoo.html&TEAMHD=soccer

I'm not watching that game, but how many English youngsters are in the Arsenal lineup?

Madrid has sold another one of their youth products. Rodrigo to Benfica for €6m. He scored Spain's lonely goal in the U19 final. Watched him play for Celta and he looked good, maybe not Real Madrid level though.

wtf i thought he'd never leave Espanyol. Actually he put in a transfer request earlier this season, had a very bad relationship with the current manager.

Tamudo is 32. Should be able to do a job for a promoted side.

Raúl Tamudo has signed for Real Sociedad on a free.

Pareja left Espanyol for Spartak Moscow. Canny defender, would have preferred him to stay in La Liga (not at Espanyol though!)

Our lower table teams are technically pretty good. I don't know if they would survive in a physical league but they do play football well.

I'm still not conviced that Raúl outside of Real Madrid will work. So odd. It won't. He was a great player but he's completely past it and he won't get the protection he got at Madrid in his late years.

In other news Marca reporting today that Schalke might go for Mario Gómez to be Raúl's partner (that would work... not).

Didn't beat Xavi FC though

Aye, he honestly looked a great prospect in the WC. Hopefully he'll catch the German sickness of doing sweet FA until the next major tournament.

Khedira finished his medical in Madrid. Seems they paid €15m.

And subsequently, he signed an extended contract with Arsenal, something that your club don't seem to respect at all. Well, he himself has said he wants to leave so you should take it with Cesc too. He shouldn't have signed that contract if he wanted to leave. I personally don't think he's dying to play with us so much, he's just seen Arsenal is a lost cause trophy-wise. @Shearergol We settled 1m in tribunal fees for Cesc which is exactly what we owed for Overmars. Hardly broke Arsenal's bank there.

Really though, you got like 28mil for a player that maybe had two great years left in him? Pretty good deal from Arsenal's side. £28m? It was more like £16m i think Also, i'm saying the Cesc deal isn't what Arsene wants, not the Henry one. €24m+addons, I don't know how many pounds it was at the time.