Village Idiot

No. Need to get promoted for that, and then it will only be between the time press devote to talk about Fernando Torres' last haircut and Cesc's last bowel movement. They are the only two footballers outside Spain that get any attention from press and TV.

Guardiola has agreed to extend his contract with FC Barcelona for two more years :frantic: :frantic:

I thought you could only sign pre-contract deals with foreign clubs. Surely the Sun hasn't got it wrong? That doesn't mean they happen all the time. Lots of footballers agree terms before their contracts expire. I don't even understand that rule you have in England, moving to another club (particularly at this level) isn't something that you do in a couple days in June.

To be completely honest I don't know where Rijkaard would have played him had we got him. On a wing? I can't see that working well, he already has problems getting involved playing central. Guardiola wanted him for Eto'o last year too, mind! (Zlatan is Berbatov's improved version).

We really dodged a bullet with Berbatov, certainly.

To be honest from the two other times I have seen him play, he looked allright enough. He's cheap, has already molded in your back four and still can progress. There were way worse bits of business than signing him on a permanent deal.

Arsenal pulling out of the Canales race while Madrid, ManCity and Chelsea remain and have all agreed terms (which include loaning him out to Racing for a season), according to Racing's prez. So it will be up to the kid and his family.

I don't want City to win, otherwise I don't care much who does.

I'm not sure it has. If they'd spent half decent money on a proper replacement for Ronaldo and the team was still struggling like they are now then I think you could say that it was proven. As it is, they bought Valencia. I wouldn't have exactly been overjoyed or anything if we'd bought him ffs. He's actually been decent for them, though. However that's a bit of the problem, they have slowly replaced a bunch of world class players for just "good" players. I'm actually surprised they are still doing well in the league, but still can't see them finishing higher than 3rd with that squad unless there's some transfer coup this window (and so far it doesn't look like it).

Tevez's fucked if he has to do that then.

For what my friend tells me he is a card magnet and gives out a lot of unnecessary fouls in dangerous positions. He loves to tackle. He grants that he has a great engine, but has some kind of mental block that prevents him from getting near the halfway line. He thinks he's a better DM than RB. In no way he is comfortable on the ball, but doesn't risk possession and keeps it simple.

Next time I run into Guardiola (he lives in the same small town where my parents live in Catalonia) I have to ask him to loan somebody to you lot. Joking aside, I happen to know a Forest fan and he tells me this guy's shite and he's starting the engine to drive him to Newcastle.

This move wold be so bizarre. He's too shit for Liverpool if they are even trying to finish top 4 this season, and Sunderland really can't afford to lose him.

He just never got to that level again, and worse of all, he doesn't even try anymore.

And past it indeed he is. He still been a regular for Valencia though, but I reckon he's on a fairly big contract and they might want to find somebody more cost effective.

There's no reason for him to move on already. He's training with the best players in the world every day. No better way to improve your game IMO. Yes, that's the reason that Guardiola gave back when he blocked a loan move. He's training with the likes of Messi, Ibrahimovic, Henry... every day, that's probably better than what's going to get by playing in a middling La Liga side.

Wikipedia says he's Forest's captain, would they really sell him to a promotion rival?

Mali have so many good players, yet they ALWAYS fail to do well. I mean in 2008, they had Nigeria and CIV in their group so they were up against it, but there is no way they should have failed to get out of that group. Ghana three minutes away from the quarters, but if Burkinabe score, they will be out. African teams don't seem to play very often, do they? Do they have the same amount of friendly, quals, etc... fixtures that European players have for example?

He's a talent, but he's not going to figure for the first team yet. And it's going to be hard for him to make it here, he's pretty much a fox in the box kind of player, and you can see how hard it is for Bojan to get playing time in that position (and Bojan makes a decent winger in a 4-3-3 which I don't think Rochina would be). But he just got promoted to our B team and just recovered from a serious injury, so it's still a bit early to tell.

Did you take into account the 2 keepers in your prediction?

I've heard Canales signed a new contract with Racing with a €10m buy-out clause, is this correct? And if so, could any team bid €10m and Racing can't turn it down? Yes, all professional athletes have these clauses by law in Spain. That's why it sucks to manage low-level spanish clubs in FM So why don't all clubs put €1bn buy out clause on every player so they can decide whether or not to sell him? Because I assume a bidding war between Real, Barca and British clubs would bring in more than €10m to Racing, wouldn't you think? Well, the players have to agree to the amount when signing the contract, so they naturally won't allow unrealistic clauses. In the case of Canales, also, the contract had been pre-agreed before his eclosion and triggered automatically after he played a number of games with Racing's first team. There's also a limit of how high a clause can go compared to what the player earns. Highest clause is Cronaldo's with 1000M (which is probably illegal but nobody won't bother challenging it), Messi's is a very distant second with 300M.

I've heard Canales signed a new contract with Racing with a €10m buy-out clause, is this correct? And if so, could any team bid €10m and Racing can't turn it down? Yes, all professional athletes have these clauses by law in Spain. That's why it sucks to manage low-level spanish clubs in FM

Also, on our daily dosage of baseless silly transfer paper talk, we've been linked to Rooney while Real have been linked to Gerrard.

Madrid are negotiating with Racing's prez for the transfer of Canales, meanwhile Canales' dad is in London to talk to Arsenal, Chelsea and ManCity. Bets is on Madrid since his dad is afraid about him going to a foreign country at such a young age, and Real would agree to loan him back to Santander.

I'll take Seydou Keita back, thanks