Village Idiot

In another "no footie this weekend, what do we come up with to fill the paper" exercise, our press is linking us with De Rossi.

A squad in transition. If at least it was that. Thing is that the old time legends are still retaining their posts (half the squad lined up yesterday will be over 30 by the WC), and there doesn't seem to be a new crop of players to take over, or at least they aren't given confidence. Also, there are very, very few players around the Italian squad that are playing abroad. Given that the Italian clubs aren't as strong as they were in the past to retain potential stars, I suspect Italy is going through a talent slump.

Italy's really poor nowadays. They still scrape their typical dodgy wins, mind.

"Issues a hands off warning". A lot of the transfer talk is pretty ridiculous.

I remember the Gary Breen link. It's quite customary that we get linked to half the squad of every slightly successful WC side, particularly if Spain plays them at some point and is ridiculed by them. We were linked with Robbie Keane, too.

surely if they are good enough they'll come through whatever position. Keeper is a pretty hard position to break into. You don't get subbed in for the last minutes if you are winning, and you don't rotate your keeper in the league unless he has some truely shocking form. Always found strange that the EPL employs so so many foreign keepers.

Sad state of affairs if Almunia is the best England could select.

Xavi and now Cesc on the wing, seems we are taking a page from England in order to fit our 1000000 talented central midfielders. And Iniesta's not even fit.

Zlatan needs proper cautioning after this match. Barça players don't score against Hungary or the Netherlands

Would love for Hungary to make the WC. Kubala is one of Barça's biggest legends. He and Daucik led what - until last year - was considered the best Barça side ever.

Ashley Cole is massively overrated, but there aren't that many great left backs around (strangely, we have several great right backs). Abidal's offensive play is too limited to consider him world-class, works for us given Alves' runs to the front, though.

How many English goalkeepers are first choice for their teams in the Premier League? Half a dozen?

Really, is England still playing Heskey?

Hey, I'm just a messenger... It makes no sense for either Barça or Real to buy either. He's 31 and is starting to pick up too many injuries.

Since I'm bored and couldn't care less about international footie this weekend I'll report that The Sun has linked Rio Ferdinand with a move to Spain, and Real and Barça are reportedly fighting it out.

I think I need some Geordie - English translation here... what does "wor" mean?

How much did Man City go for? It wasn't much, was it?

I'm confident you lot will get sold before Christmas. Thing is that the situation you were after getting relegated, losing all your better players, etc... was very bad looking. You had a lot of people even pointing you to drop like a stone and beating Leeds' run into infamy. With that kind of thing only chancers and cheap bastards were probably willing to invest on the club. Now with the ball rolling, you getting good gates and winning games... everybody can see you're not going straight into oblivion, so I'm sure that other investors will see you as a potential good investment. And you might end up with a better owner that if you got fire-saled during the summer.

I'm not sure Hughton has the steel to keep King on his tracks. Excellent signing if somebody like Shearer was in charge, can't see him taking that kind of shit. King rips up trees at this level.

If you manage to get promoted amidst this disgraceful mess, you surely will deserve a round of applause.

Let's be honest, Viduka has been crap for the past five years, he was only bothered enough to have a good last season with Boro, that was enough to trick you into buying him.

And Chelsea really don't generate enough money to sustain themselves, so he'll need to do it again. chelsea can just about sustain themselves, because of all the cash ambromvich's revolution has brought via new sponsership etc 76M loss in 2008 says they don't.

And Chelsea really don't generate enough money to sustain themselves, so he'll need to do it again.

i know what a nerve! i still feel he dived last week, even though people will disagree he booted the ball out of play then dived into aluminas hands, he was already fully into the diving motion before almunia got anywhere near him just watch the slow motion replay of it. even tho his hands actually touched rooney i still think this can be seen as cheating just as much as eduardo and rooney has previous like you said so for him to come out and tell people not to dive he needs to start with himself the cheating c*nt English players don't cheat, only us dirty latins.

Can't wait for him and Barton to pair up. (canny player at this level otherwise)