Village Idiot

Ah, I see Palace lost again.

Really looking forward Valencia - Espanyol later tonight, in a "watching two trains crash" way.

Has only existed for two seasons and it would be hard to argue with any of the choices up to this point. He's just finished a Ballon D'Or year. I find rather incredible that he didn't deserve it at least one month before January 2016.

http://www.superdeporte.es/elementosWeb/gestionCajas/SPD/Image/MIRROR.jpg http://www.superdeporte.es/elementosWeb/gestionCajas/SPD/Image/tuitvcf.jpg

Market pool money (derived from the sale of CL TV rights to a given country) is split between teams depending on their performance. Juventus took the lion's share of Italy's because other teams underperformed. We had to split with Atlético and Real Madrid which got deep into the competition.

http://cdn.totalsportek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Champions-League-Prize-Money-distribution.png

Or if this was an American sport. Liverpool would have threatened to move to London.

It was a long time ago, but Van Gaal always gave a lot of free reign to our wingers.

Fantastic strip.

http://gifsec.com/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2014/03/Nope-GIF.gif?gs=a

Kaptoum equalizes for us. This is like the third time I have seen him play, but he's looked handy in all of them.

Footballers have really short careers. I can't fault them for wanting to make the most of them, financially.

In more China news, their local press are now banging about a bid for Arda Turan, €20m/year.

Thanks I'm just afraid the extra games we've had over our rivals and the shortness of our squad may catch up with us at the end.

We will. When CL games start coming fast and furious, it will be hard to stay strong in the league. We've already played 8 more games than Madrid this season, and we have a shorter squad. Madrid's bet is our legs falling off during the home stretch. This kidney thing with Messi might be a blow like, theoretically he should have been fresh the remainder of the season given how much time he missed early on. He's only going to miss the cup game this Tuesday. I meant potentially really, read he was having tests to check the status. Obviously if the results aren't great then it might have an effect. He's just had a few kidney stones removed today and has left the clinic. It doesn't look serious at all.

We will. When CL games start coming fast and furious, it will be hard to stay strong in the league. We've already played 8 more games than Madrid this season, and we have a shorter squad. Madrid's bet is our legs falling off during the home stretch. This kidney thing with Messi might be a blow like, theoretically he should have been fresh the remainder of the season given how much time he missed early on. He's only going to miss the cup game this Tuesday. I mean, it's just kidney stones.

Was amazed when I read that Dummett has been our fastest this season: http://talksport.com/football/revealed-top-six-fastest-players-premier-league-including-liverpool-and-manchester-united The stats are usually meaningless for this, crap defenders always find an extra 3MPH of 'OH s***' speed when they need to backtrack when out of position. A few years ago, Piqué was the fastest player in our squad according to these kind of measurements, too.

Going by available evidence, the Derby way consists in narrowly missing on promotion, and Clement seemed poised to deliver that.

Easily the worst-form teams in La Liga.

We will. When CL games start coming fast and furious, it will be hard to stay strong in the league. We've already played 8 more games than Madrid this season, and we have a shorter squad. Madrid's bet is our legs falling off during the home stretch.

The Modric-Kroos-Isco/James midfield has always been a terrible idea, but managers have to go with it because politics. Yeah, it works at the Bernabéu to tear hapless rivals to pieces, but not when on the road or when facing proper teams. They offer very little protection to the defense, and Madrid often concede goals because the opposition exploits the hole in there (like we did when we mauled them earlier in the season). I always found it funny the stick Benítez got for playing Casemiro so much. They need a player like him.

Our relegation zone sides are refreshingly cavalier this year, Levante were up for it this morning too, and Las Palmas are usually watchable. Most other years those sides just drift and lumber like zombies.

Granada very spirited out of the blocks, I hope they can keep that up.

My friend from Sevilla just texted me, in all caps "WHO'S THE f***ing IDIOT THAT THOUGHT IT WAS A GREAT IDEA TO BRING HIM BACK" (+some untranslatable Spanish expletives)

Liked them until they started breaking out the pro-wifebeating chants a few weeks ago. They are probably going to get (rightly) mauled for those. What the hell? Rubén Castro is facing jail for beating his GF, repeatedly. Fans have been signing "You were right Rubén, she deserved it" in several games. Aye, no wonder they are coming in for criticism for that. Had no idea Castro even had those charges over him, still performing seemingly as he was good today and played well against Madrid. When's it going to court etc? It's wrapping up pre-trial, should get a date before the start of next season.