Village Idiot

Gonna save this for the awards.

Tooj's favorite footballer Sergi Samper has been promoted to the senior team. I hope he gets more chances than Sergi Roberto did.

Looks like James skipped a court appointment re: that speeding offence where he ended up fleeing from the police. It coincided with his birthday

Aye. Having an in form Sissoko playing every week in the Championship would feel a bit like cheating My feeling is that he wouldn't give a damn and be consistently poor while trying to engineer a movie in the winter. Best to cash in now.

Par for the course. The taxman isn't actually interested in jailing people, they want to get paid. They were asking for 22 months in this instance. The idea is that the threat of jail will make you cough up the cash (which Messi did). If you agree to pay and do it promptly, they will never ask for over 2 years.

Not really. Only Espanyol were reportedly interested in him. Granada are a step-up from Rayo anyway. I think bigger clubs still see him as a bit of a risk.

Sevilla sign Ganso. Flip, is he still a flop?

Will probably sign a new contract to meet what Juve was offering and stay. I loathe player blackmail, but he's key.

Yeah, Robert Fernández. He joined last summer but didn't have enough time to leave his stamp then.

Alba loves a pulled hamstring like, Digne will have plenty of chances.

We have bought Lucas Digne from PSG. We needed a backup/competition for Alba so it's welcome. I'm liking that we're buying young defenders for once, instead of Vermaelens and Mathieus.

Linked with Real Madrid in our press as a cheaper version of Pogba, but I wouldn't give it much credit.

We are heavily rumored to approach Vicente Caparrós, who's the Spanish equivalent to Fat Sam. Looks like bright years are coming for continental football

Sad for the lad, but it's best that he found out in time. I hope he can find a way to remain in the game.

Yeah, my Atlético friends tell me that even if he didn't play that much for them, he never put a foot wrong when he did.

My Atlético friends reckon he can fill in on the left, too.

I imagine he'll be a nailed on starter. How are his crosses? His crossing is average, I'd say. He used to have a great engine (he's 31 now, so we'll see if he still has that) and by all accounts is a solid defender. He's not a flashy player, really, but very dependable.

Steady player. Didn't really feature at Atlético but was always solid for Málaga and was in the fringes of the Spanish team during his peak. I guess you're signing him as backup? Hasn't played much these past two years.

Obviously the law wasn't made with Messi in mind, but the idea is that sending somebody to jail for a first offence can be a self-defeating purpose. You commit a fairly petty crime (as I said, violent crime is excluded from this), and you go to a place where you'll be surrounded by criminals, with a very big chance you won't get employment once you get out, which all means you'll be headed straight to a self-perpetuating cycle of crime. So we aim to short-circuit this vicious circle by giving a "first strike" to first-time criminals. A second chance, if you will. You get a criminal record, and your name will be on police databases all over, so it's not like you won't end with your ass in jail pretty soon if you do it again, and you'll get extra penalty for recidivism.

In Spain you don't go to jail for a first offence if it's under two years, and there wasn't intentional violence involved. That's the law, and it's the same for Messi and for anybody in the street.

Tranfermarkt has him valued around the 4.5m mark? (not sure if euros or £ but there's not a great deal of difference in the rate atm He's one of the best players in a team that's been consistently top half in the past seasons, and that doesn't need any money since they just sold Nolito to City. Whatever transfermarkt says, €6m just isn't going to cut it. Given how stupid the market is nowadays, I'd say twice that.

Friend of mine from Vigo says the Jonny bid is true, but they have turned it down (€6m looks very little given how highly rated he is).

That's pretty good news actually. There was a lot of fear around here that the EU would order us to become commercial companies - and thus stop being fan owned - but instead they just want us to pony up the difference in tax (which I'm perfectly fine with).

He's had a pretty good season, possibly his best since he left Liverpool. Happy for him.