Village Idiot

Villa have spent a lot, but the top 4+ManCity probably still outspend them and have larger wage bills.

Pedro León, Getafe's winger, been linked to ManCity, Spurs and Stoke.

Valladolid are awful, but indeed they have been getting results and I think it's more the confidence and sort of siege mentality that they can still pull it off when everybody had them written off a couple months ago.

Playing for Everton has kept him sharp, but I think so much time without rest will make him jaded after the World Cup.

Heck, I'm going to post some more of his quotes: "I know why we managers are sacked: for losing. What I don't know is why they hire us. It's as mysterious as the Coca-Cola formula". "Iniesta represents the whole and Messi the part. Messi needs more Andrés than Andrés needs Messi" "Possibility and probability aren't the same. I prefer teams that look after the probability" "Football has become a social dildo" "Not being risky is the riskiest choice. Hence, to avoid risks, I'll be risky" "Somebody that only knows football not even football knows" "Messi represents the sistemic and contextual paradigm. We are all in context and context is in us. Leo Messi is the most obvious proof of this" "27 years managing have thaught me opening your mouth will get it punched" (talking about Fernando Redondo) "His work as possibilitator of possibilities to the rest of the team is what makes me admire him" "Messi has improved a lot and I hope he keeps this up: not playing trascendentally balls that are, in fact, intrascendent" (on tactics) "To take care of the juncture you first have to understand the structure" "It's very hard, not only in football but in life, to attribute a cause-effect relation. Just five minutes later, or the next game, the effect is clashing with the cause" "Football is a game played with the least docile part of the body: the foot" "It brings a smile to my face knowing that my family and friends are all well. That, and watching Iniesta play." (after being sacked from Real Sociedad) "The human being has the necessity of being respected, we are beggars of respect. But desire has three phases and in all of them we are instatisfied. So, we are f***ed" "I'm not one of those that believe that leadership starts from the dugout. I believe that the manager is like God. Everywhere and nowhere" "Some people talk about anarchic players. Mistake. They just follow a different order. We need to adapt to it" "The opposition is also part of you" There are a bunch more if you feel like it. He is a philosopher-cum-football manager. A legend. Guardiola considers him one of his mentors.

Almería manager Juanma Lillo before today's game against Osasuna: "Looking down we are going up, so we'll keep looking down lest for looking up we start going down". Love the man (they have gone from 18th to 11th since he took over)

I see that once again Wenger is a sore loser.

DC United have a great following. Check out the Super Eagles and La Barra Brava and La Norte. Three great support groups. Yeah, that's why they tried to move it to Baltimore

Real Salt Lake two up, bah.

Leeds are outnewcastling newcastle it seems.

If it's something North-Eastern I may have picked that up from my smoggie friend. I tend to pick up stuff from the people I talk to frequently, inconsciously.

Some of the touches and interplay with Messi towards the end from Zlatan were very nice. You could see the confidence flooding back. Aye. That's the best thing to get out of this game. Goal aside, he was much more involved in all our moves.

0-1 FT to us Again not a great performance, but I'll take the points. Best news is that Zlatan has had his best game since January.

They will probably be back in Barcelona this same evening. Regarding clubbing... they are a bit the same, but they don't have the press stalking them as much as they do in England so it's quite under the radar except some of the most famous players. Barça's regulations are much stricter nowadays after what went down at the end of the Rijkaard days so it's pretty quiet so far in our front.

What the fuck Zlatan has just done with his back, this should have been a goal!

ZLATAN! 0-1

Top US sports franchises have inferior revenues than the top European football teams, however. The New York Yankees "only" have €275m compared to Real Madrid's €400m, Barça's €366m, etc... http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/33/baseball-values-09_New-York-Yankees_334613.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte_Football_Money_League The fact they don't pay transfer fees in America allows them to pay these silly wages to players.

He was also pretty shit and now he is great for Mallorca. A Samson in reverse?

Some of these markets have the size of a small European country. Those numbers are not great, but decent enough to get by.

Milito is playing so well since ha came back, chuffed for him We started badly but we are getting into the game now.

I'm honestly really surprised to see how Nani has developed this year. Always had him for a headless chicken kind of a player. Cheers to the lad. And with this, Ibra misses an one-on-one.

He's very raw. Guardiola seems to rate him but I don't think he's going to be great or anything. But he's the more traditional winger we got.

f***ing tell me about it! Especially when I looked online before we went and there was supposedly a direct bus from Port Authority. Went there, asked at a desk where we got it and were told they stopped running that service a few months beforehand! Ended up having to get a train from Penn Station to Seacaucus (didn't even know what train we were getting on as a ticket inspector wouldn't tell us, rude b******) then a bus from there to Giants Stadium. Was a right carry on! They have added a train service since then, so now it's easier to get there. But the bus deal was a pain in the pass, particularly with how awful traffic can get in this city.

New York has 8 million people, and the Red Bulls only attract 12k every week... the Giants stadium was a pain in the ass to reach though, the new stadium is more easily accessed with public transportation.

It's a footballing cliche but boy it really is terrible. Sky