Village Idiot

Salamanca and Arsenal had an agreement in place indeed, but I think they broke it in exchange of a payment for Salamanca. Pretty sure there's no Arsenal loanees in there now.

Salamanca are a decent Second Division side. Not *that* bad.

Beggars belief that Milan got shot of him. Mustve been too young or something The papers here link us with a different player every 2-3 days, every week of the year. So it's only a matter of time that we end up linked with any pair of legs in the footballing world. There's always wishful thinking this one might come to pass though. I love watching him.

So you don't say I only talk dirt about Real... Board member Joan Franquesa has quit Barça after Laporta demoted him in his latest boardroom restructuration. Franquesa was one of the victims of the spying scandal this summer, when vice-prez Joan Oliver hired a detective agency to collect dirt on other board members (believed to dissent from Laporta). The club is currently a shambles at board room level, with Laporta more bothered about starting a political career than actually runing the club, can't wait for the elections (fingers crossed we don't get an idiot)

Yay, I was waiting for this one to happen at some point, finally we have been linked with Gourcuff

Luís Enrique Guardiola, Juande Ramos, Mourinho... all of them once held the post Luís has now. I know Pep rates him and they work pretty closely. I don't really have any good sense of what makes a player a good manager to be honest... Never been able to establish any kind of correlation. Take some current notables: Guardiola: captain of Barcelona, Spain regular, great playing career, midfielder = great manager Carles Reixach: captain of Barcelona, Spain regular, great playing career, midfielder = shit manager Mourinho: no playing career of note = great manager Manuel Jímenez: vicious leg-hacking defender = good manager that plays good football

To be honest that's a boss dog name.

Yes, Diarra played there for France, but he has never played there for Real so it was a weird thing to do, particularly when it means you put Gago and the bad Diarra as your midfield (still wondering why Alonso wasn't there, who was supposed to supply those 4 forwards? Are you going to play longball against a 3rd Division team, really?). Anyway, I doubt Pellegrini will be sacked before the Barça-Real game in 3 weeks. That one could be a decider for him, though. Marca are already trumpeting for him to get the boot though, gotta love how they destabilize their own team, time and time again.

Oh Jesus Christ, apparently Pellegrini wasn't aware that Ramos wasn't banned for this match and that's the reason why he put Lassana Diarra at right back.

And he makes a goal and scores another 4 - 0.

Meanwhile, Bojan scores a brace in 3 minutes to set Barcelona 2-0 against Cultural. Barcelona players are wearing black bracelets in memory of Enke. Elsewhere in the Cup, not many surprises with only Sporting Gijón and Tenerife falling to Recreativo Huelva and Celta, respectively.

I wonder what away support Alcorcón brought, it's like 10 minutes away from Madrid and this was probably the greatest day in their recent history.

R.I.P. I remember seeing him in a shop in Barcelona when he briefly played for us. Sad shit.

It's always fun to see the big, proud and mighty fall I guess. We'll get there too.

No treble this season for them

Gotta love Real fans' quickness to hiss and boo their team

First time I see him playing there, dunno what's going on Pellegrini's mind. Full backs are a problem position for them at the moment though, so he might be experimenting.

Yes. Real and Barça's support aren't very lively to be completely honest.

0-0 half time. Good I didn't end up putting that bet then, doesn't seem they are really going to put 5 past them. Real's line up, btw: Dudek, Lass, Pepe, Albiol, Arbeloa, Diarra, Gago, Higuaín, Kaká, Raúl, Van Nistelrooy

It works like this: the elected president names the board, and he names whoever he wishes, and he is fit to replace them as he wishes. Think of it as a Prime Minister and his cabinet. Then, every year during preseason, an assembly is held where members have to approve the budget and most major policies the board wants to conduct (for example the board had to obtain permission from the assembly in order to have a kit sponsor, the same when the name of the stadium was changed...). The assembly is made up of 4% (IIRC) of club members with more than a year of membership and over 18 years old, elected by lottery. I like the model since it gives free reign to the board to act as it sees best, which is the way it should be in my opinion, while giving fans a check and balance at the end of the season. It's rare that the board loses a voting in the assembly, but it's also rare that the board will put forward measures that they know are rejected by the fans. To be completely honest not many people show up at the assembly when things go well, but that's to be expected I guess. There are also mechanisms in place to impeach the president (and the board) if enough member signatures are collected (Laporta had to face a motion of no confidence last season, and only narrowly "won" it). All that said, good luck. One of the things I'm most proud of my club is the fact it is fan-owned, I wish more could follow that way.

Bah, odds for Madrid to go through are pretty shit, 11/10 on ladbrokes, 1.90 on bwin...

I was going to ask about Messi, I assume he holds Spanish citizenship, does that mean he has to pay it ? I looked around, and technically the law doesn't apply if you were a resident in Spain before it was enacted. That leaves out Alves, Messi, Eto'o (when he was with us), and any other foreigner that played in Spain before 2003 (can't think of any other big La Liga stars though)... I don't know if there's a loophole they might be exploiting, however.

Looking at the name, the most obvious conclusion is that it's been done to piss people off. There'll be other motives, but that was definitely one of them. Ashley flew in with his helicopter like the big boss, handed Hughton a contract, took the club off the market and gave the stadium a comedy name which has left fans up and down the country laughing at us again. He wants to prove he's in charge. Who's going to argue with him? Llambias? Hughton? Just to eliminate any doubt in your mind, I will remind you of our stadium's new name: Sports Direct @ St James Park Stadium. It's clearly a pisstake man, look at it. They have even tagged 'stadium' on the end of 'park' just to emphasize the name change. Ask fans of other clubs what they think and they will tell you it's clearly a pisstake, that's half the reason they're finding it so funny. absolutely. Ashley seems to have this siege mentality in whatever he does, ie 'parking the tanks on the lawn' of his opponents or calling his shareholders 'crybabies' or the dubai shenanigans or offering unqualified outsiders like Llambias, Hughton & Kinnear contracts. He does things his own way and revels in causing a controversy. I don't buy the line that he's ran the club into the ground out of spite - that makes no sense. And i genuinely think he wants to sell the naming rights to make some money. But the temporary naming, a move which gives the club absolutely no benefit whatsoever, is clearly a two fingers up at detractors. I'm an outsider, so god forbid me to know MA more than you do, but I think that the current name is just one of those "trying to please everyone" hackjobs that end up horribly. It seems to me that he just tried to tag a commercial name while being able to say he's kept the original name of the stadium and thus respected its history, and the result has been worse and more humiliating than if he just swapped the name outright.

"Barcelona on the Tyne", love it. Can't fault the NUST for trying. Has there ever been any fan buyout of a team in the Football League?

Hot chick in top less and body paint at Camp Nou. Forgot the game, still remember her breasts.