Jype

It's not small team mentality, it's being smart.

I think it's more like people hoping to get an offensively good left-back like Luis to help unlock Hazard's potential in the final third and then just having Azpi in his own RB position because whichever way we look at it he's still capable of doing a better job there than Ivanovic. We don't need to have full-backs bombing down the wings on both sides, left side will do just fine IMO.

Yeah they changed it, but at least yesterday the Spanish and Catalan versions still had the low parting shots they've now removed from the English one.

Yeah, the statement was distasteful to say the least. At least aside from few of the worst cunts out there that's something the Barcelona fans on the forum also agreed on and even though their feelings about Fabregas were quite clear most of them were still ashamed to see that their club would do something as low as that.

In the last four seasons Puyol has played just 61 league games out of 152 possible so they haven't really been able to rely on him much. Mascherano has played as an awful makeshift CB and in my opinion Pique has never been all that good to begin with and in his first few seasons at Barca was mostly just made look a lot better than he really is when he played alongside a world class Puyol. Trust me, ignoring the huge need for a world class CB or two has played a massive role in Barcelona's decline together with some of the other things I mentioned earlier that have nothing to do with Cesc. Fabregas could have adapted better too so he's got to accept some of the blame as well but for the Barca fans to say it's all been his fault and closing their eyes to all the other obvious problems their club has had is just laughable.

Every era comes to an end at some point and at least to me it was always obvious that Barcelona simply can't keep being the best team in the world forever, this has been more than expected IMO. It's just the timing of Cesc's arrival that happened to be around Barcelona's downfall that made some people think he had something to do with it. Just look at the Spanish national team, it's also nowhere near as good as it was a few years ago and Fabregas has been a part of that team for almost a decade. Tiki-taka has been found out badly and the managers have had to think of some alternative tactics that have so far failed but I wouldn't say it's Fabregas' fault for not fitting in. Barcelona should have known what they were getting when they bought him three years ago, it's nothing like Torres because Cesc is still very much in his prime and hasn't declined at all but his direct style of play just has no place at Barcelona and the board should have thought about that before getting him. Also, blaming him for Thiago's departure is unfair. Barca had the opportunity to sell Fabregas for £40m last year instead of letting Thiago go but they decided it's better to keep Cesc and let Thiago leave. If at the time they really thought Cesc is a cancer for the club that has set them back years, they would have been more than happy to take the money and run while keeping Thiago but the club decided against it. If anyone should be blamed for the club's failures in the past few years, it's the clueless and clearly corrupt Barcelona board. For years they've been ignoring their obvious problems in the CB department while signing players like Ibra, Sanchez, Neymar etc. for crazy money when it was obvious that they weren't really lacking in the attacking areas but I guess signing sexy big name attacking players makes for much better PR for the club presidents who only cares about being re-elected so they can continue to embezzle money from the club. If they honestly expect to keep winning the treble every year and blame it all on one single player if they fail to do so, it's a prime example of being spoilt.

But how would they know where to look if the pictures were only made available to registered users? I'd imagine they wouldn't show up in any search engine if that were the case.

Just visited some Barcelona forum to read what they think about the transfer and I was shocked, it was almost identical to our Torres thread. The people were calling him a cancer for the club and just seemed so happy to see him gone. Amazing really, because at least statistically he was definitely one of their best players in his three seasons at the club despite mostly being played out of position and Barcelona's tiki-taka not suiting him well at all. I know he always went out of form in the second half of the season but fucking hell, saying he was the cause of all their problems in the last three seasons is taking it a bit too far. Spoiled bunch of cunts that lot.

Jovetic started two PL matches last season and made 11 substitute appearances so even though we was injured quite a lot that's not really the best of arguments. Anyway, they also have Negredo who actually got a lot of games but City play with two strikers so three or four is minimum for them. No one is saying we shouldn't be able to have a world class striker (Costa) and Lukaku in the team but it all depends on what Lukaku himself wants. Mourinho rotates his strikers a lot, we saw that at Real Madrid with Benzema / Higuain and also at Chelsea last season with Eto'o, Torres and Ba so Lukaku certainly would be getting a lot of games even if he was number two on paper but judging by his recent comments he would prefer to be the number one, if not at Chelsea then somewhere else. Costa and Lukaku would IMO be the perfect strikeforce for us next season but I would understand selling Lukaku for a hefty fee if the lad is not willing to stay because it's not good for anyone's sake to keep unhappy players at the club.

They've already replaced Lewandowski by getting Serie A's top scorer last season Ciro Immobile and also bought Adrian Ramos who scored 16 goals in the Bundesliga for Hertha Berlin. They could easily afford to lose Aubameyang after getting those two. Yeah, but like The Skipper said he would ideally come in as a backup striker to Costa in case Lukaku goes. Being able to offer another option out wide is only a bonus. For the rumoured £6m price tag I would definitely consider him.

Bushman gone, what have I missed? Where can I find his last posts that finally got him banned?

Song would be homegrown so that's got to be worth something. Selling Mikel for around 10m and buying Song for roughly the same price makes sense IMO.

Pretty much, yeah. If the plan is to still get another new signing without any significant sales aside from Ba and Mikel who you already excluded, we can just make room in the squad by leaving out one of the three non-HG goalies. At the moment Schwarzer's contract is up and if Jose plans to keep both Cech and Courtois for next season I'm not sure whether it would be worth renewing but if for example Cech was sold we'd be fine with Courtois / Schwarzer / Blackman and still have another non-HG place remaining. Or if we somehow managed to get rid of Torres, receive crazy money for Ramires or something like that we could just give their place to any potential new signing.

Exactly. I mean, for a wealthy man like him to go over there and eat the food that is meant for all those hungry children. What kind of a monster does that? :carlo2:

The Daily Mail (I know...) are saying Arsenal will get £5.6m of the deal, not from the sell-on profit clause they had but because some performance related add-ons from the original deal that took him to Barca were now activated when he got sold. Basically Barca only got £21m for a player of this calibre after paying a significantly higher amount for him three years ago, insane really.

Kind of an expensive bench warmer at 150k a week, don't you think? Think they've signed him just to send a message to Arsenal that City can get whoever they want from their team.

Nope. For next season the line for U21s is drawn on players born on 1st of January 1993 or later, and both of these guys were born in 1992.

Chelsea are not a club to keep players against their will so I wouldn't think that to be the case here either. And as for Lukaku, the HG requirement is three years and he will meet that in August before the final squad list has to be submitted. The wording in the HG rulebook is dubious to say the least, and there is some confusion whether a player is required to have been training in the country for the 36 months prior to his 21st birthday or if it's okay to complete that period before 1st of January the following year so it's not 100% sure if Lukaku will count as HG but at the moment that seems to be the most common opinion.

But do the players want to stay? Bertrand I would be more than happy to keep as a rotation option at LB because he has always come across as a solid player to me but from what I've seen him say in interviews I think he's off permanently. Moses is shit, no one in their right mind would pay the 10m we paid for him two years ago. Best we can realistically hope for is maybe to get enough to cover his remaining FFP book value, which is around 6m if I'm not mistaken, and to also get him off the wage bill. We're fine with just 5 AMs and we can play a youngster as the sixth. Oh, and there's also this bloke Fabregas. Also, I recently did a quick check and we're fine regarding the homegrown quota for next season. We now have four HG players (Fabregas, Cahill, JT, Lukaku) and 15 non-HG players after releasing Hilario, Schwarzer and Eto'o so even without sales we can still add Costa and Luis in the squad, no problem. If we sell players like Ba, Mikel and God forbid even Torres, we'll have even more room in the squad for potential new additions. Zouma, Omeruo, Piazon, Ake etc. will all still count as U21 if they stay.

ok, nvm.

I guess if I stretch my imagination enough I could maybe see a glimpse of a tattoo on the right elbow, where Fabregas has one. Wouldn't be the first time for photos like that to leak before a signing is made official, I remember that being the case with at least Schwarzer and Zouma in the past year alone. I want to believe it's the real deal but let's just wait and see before getting all excited.

Not an expert on this stuff but that looks like the real deal to me. Very good job by someone if it's fake.

Sepp Blatter is a senile old cunt and the sooner world football gets rid of him the better.

He had a bet with someone promising he'd cut his hair if he wins the Champions League.

Manchester United at the Bridge, please.