Village Idiot

I guess my memory is fuzzy then. Fair enough.

I remember watching the UEFA semifinal between OM and Newcastle, and Woodgate turning Drogba into a whole pile of nothing. Of course I didn't watch the other leg, where I think you got spanked, and maybe he was dire there... Really, I was pissed off when he signed for Real (although his tenure there was truely dreadful)

Jonathan Woodgate made a complete joke of Didier Drogba, how many people can say that? I understand that he didn't get a good run in your team, but he is still immense if by any odd chance he manages to stay fit.

Yep, that. He only used it sparingly when he was with us (Spanish league enforced a 1-11 starting lineup), but it became attached to him nonetheless. Since then, it has only been worn by his son Jordi, Ammunike (don't laugh), Ezquerro (who ended dropping it for 17), Gerard and Henry. Bar Cruyff himself, everybody up to Henry have been notorious flops, so the talk was that the shirt was cursed.

In my opinion, number 9 goes to whoever wants it the most. A striker has to want to be a striker, and by nature they should be hungry and ambitious players. Whoever is ballsy enough to carry on the legacy of Newcastle's number 9 should get it, if you ask me. (For Barça, our "big deal" shirt is #14 and there's a lot of seasons where it has gone unassigned)

Rumour going round that Abel is close to getting the sack, and Bernd Schuster the first choice to replace him at Atlético de Madrid (which would be a nice managerial upgrade)

Sol Campbell Although I didn't recognize who were the masks from?

Your friend needs new shooting boots! He often played DM and at the back, to be fair to the lad. Heh, just looked at their site again and they come to play against one of my town's colleges this Saturday.

Middling managers. PSV has had as good players as Ajax and has got Hiddink and Koeman managing them, while Ajax has been a bit of a hot seat with lots of overphyped managers (Van Basten, Blind) or simply not good enough (Ten Cate was a great Ass Man but not manager material in my opinion). We'll see how Jol does, I rate him.

Florentino Pérez said today that he wants to build a Real Madrid theme park outside Madrid

It has surfaced that we were interested in signing Luís Suárez as Eto'o's replacement, and scouted him before going for Villa and ultimately Zlatan. Now, the rag reporting it says that we are still in for him for the winter market, given our lack of replacements upfront, but that's less substantiated.

Valencia's chairman has come out and said that Unai Emery's post as manager is not under threat, which in Spain it usually means it is.

Arteta.

Your friend needs new shooting boots!

They barely avoided relegation last year, but their start of the season has been very impressive and not in a flukey way, but playing very very nicely. They could have easily got in front when Barça played them a couple weeks ago. Let's see if they can keep that up. For now, they offed Valencia 3-1. Also, with Bilbao's defeat today 1-0 against Tenerife, Barça and Real are already the only teams with a 100% record.

Messi has 5 in 3, yes. If either Villa, Cronaldo or Messi keep something close to that average, they are going to blow the 50+ years old La Liga goalscoring record (38, although in 30 matches)

Rather have Silva, we need a wide player, and he has more years in him. Abel (Atlético's manager) will probably get the boot soon, I reckon. Better now than later, I say.

Villa scores his 5th in 4 (same as Cronaldo) but Valencia go down 2-1 to Getafe at half time.

AC Milan lost 1-0 against Udinese. Oh boy.

I don't know why, to be honest. I came to this board when SBR died, always admired the man and I wanted to see what impact the news had in Newcastle. Afterwards, I sort of found you a fun lot. Also you're interested in world football which is something you don't usually find in most club boards. Also, while born in Barcelona, I have been living in the USA for the past years so I do hope my English is good!

First real challenge is Sevilla away in two weeks IIRC. We face Valencia away the following week.

Villarreal are going to be poor this season, they failed to qualify for the CL and that has aggravated their financial problems (punching above their weight). I expect upper midtable from them, with a chance of going lower than that if the manager fails. Still, if Real gets 4 or 5 past them, the Spanish league will have officially reached Scottish PL-like joke proportions

This Notts County business is so going to end in tears (for Notts County fans).

When I played non-league football, one of the teams in the division (eventual champions) was captained by Vicente Sánchez - a complete unknown to you but former FC Barcelona captain. Guy ran circles around us even if he was 40, but I had the best day of my life (I was the goalie) and we sneaked a 3-2 win after I stopped like a half a million shots from him. Also one of my school mates was a centrehalf that eventually made it to the Spanish Olympic team, and played at Villarreal in La Liga, but his career took a nosedive shortly afterwards.

Why have they been given an extension? La Liga does that on some circumstances, where you lose a player for the entire season for reasons beyond your control ("out for the season" injuries being the most common one). You have to sign a player that plays in the same position of the one you lost. In this case, they lost one of their midfielders on the night of deadline day to Zaragoza given a buyback clause, and La Liga gave them 30 days to sign a replacement since they couldn't have planned for it (and they are disputing the way Zaragoza triggered that clause).