Village Idiot

Xavi, get in! 0-1, Sevilla's keeper playing the game of his life.

I'm really in no position of poking fun at Liverpool for getting out early of the cup, but what the hell I'll do it anyway :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

FFS Torres is in my FF team, don't get injuried again dammit

The net spend amount is heavily distorted by the Cronaldo transfer though. It speaks volumes that money remains largely unspent, though.

Hehe, I read this cartoon every day when I'm back in Spain. Just good ole' blame deflecting on the ref, business as usual

Spain has 48 hour days jesus mate?! How do you see the game going? Not optimistic, We need to score two and don't concede at their turf, so they can just wait and hit us in the counter, something which they are great at.

Maxi Rodríguez? Not at all, he destroyed his knee a 3 seasons ago, but recovered from it well and he's been fine ever since.

Atlético's finances are in tatters, a recent independent study put their debt at €510m, second highest in the league and more than Barça for example.

Keeping with the cup theme, Barça plays the second league against Sevilla this evening (21pm start). Should be a cracker and I hope we put up a good fight!

Allardyce complaining about foreign signings in the EPL? Talk about the kettle calling the pot black fat.

Isn't Djourou out until like April or May? You look like at last presenting a credible challenge for a title again, and these next few months are critical.

Do you remember you lost that game, don't you? Bad signing too, Wenger should be building your depth at the back, this is only a patch (and a bad one probably).

In my opinion, a target man is the guy you give the ball to upfront and he keeps possession while allowing the rest of the line to come forward and exploit the openings that are created when the defence focuses on him. That's why height and strength are great assets as they help to obtain and shield the ball. He is not meant to finish the play, but to be the last link point of it.

Or strikers be tall I guess ultimately it's a question of semantics. Yes, Barça uses Zlatan as target man sometimes, bombing the ball to him or having him play with his back against the defence, but he does lead the line.

We use Zlatan's height and ability to retain possession upfront, but I really wouldn't call him a "target man" for us. It's just that his bag of tricks is so large. We did use Henrik Larsson as a target man during our League/CL double in 2005-2006 though. He was an impact player however.

Genius

'Tis no joke, we scouted him at some youth championship and offered him a trial, he turned us down. Of course he would have signed for our youth teams, not the first squad.

He turned us down, that's how good he is

To be honest I have thought sometimes of betting big amounts of money on very low odds games, but I'm too chicken.

With this and the reports of ManU needing refinancing on their debt and all the similar problems all over English footie (Pompey, Watford, etc...), I really believe the house of cards is starting to crash down on us. A report published a week ago about the state of Spanish football showed truly staggering debts for a lot of mid and small clubs that were simply unsustainable (Atlético and Valencia for example had debts on the same ballpark as Barça and Real... and small teams like Racing owed 150m, while they have turnovers almost a tenth of that).

It's the flag of the island of Tenerife, the cross of Sant Andrew was the flag of the Spanish Empire and a common motif in our heraldry of the time. And yes, they still use it as away kit iirc, don't think you'll see it tonight.

That's pretty momentous. Even if you do, you usually wouldn't say it openly. I expect at least three more protest campaigns and 100,000 candles lit in front of Anfield by midnight. Also a poetry book.

Keita is injuried, did his ankle in the CWC final and still was 1-2 weeks away from recovery when he went to the ACN.

It will be interesting who lines up as centreforward tonight for Barça. The prior games where Ibra wasn't available for a league game Guardiola tried first with Henry and then Messi, to not very good results. Probably it will be Henry since he showed improved form against Villarreal (for all the good it did).

His international form has earned him that, more than his performances in Italy. I don't particularly rate international football at all versus club football, but he's been great for Brazil.