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- As Lucas wrote earlier, the Gareth Bale-to-Real Madrid transfer saga has kicked into overdrive during the past 48 hours and could be resolved anytime between now and...eternity. Whatever the time frame it'll continue to not be fun.
- Sky Sports is now reporting that Bale has flown back to London with the rest of the Tottenham squad. Stay tuned.
- For a perfect and rather stunning example of the magic goggles many British journalists seem to don while watching Gareth Bale play--check out this Guardian piece that argues Bale's ultimate destiny is to 'usurp' Cristiano Ronaldo. I'm pretty sure this isn't satire, so...um...wow.
- I'm going to take this opportunity to editorialize briefly on behalf of myself and the numerous Managing Madrid community members who are also against the idea of this transfer and emphasize that we are indeed not fans of this proposed transfer, not at this time, not for the outrageous numbers being thrown about in the press and certainly not if players such as Angel Di Maria and/or Fabio Coentrao are also involved in the deal. Despite signing an impressive handful of quality young players this transfer window, from afar Florentino Perez appears obsessed with the specter and spectacle of Neymar's arrival in Catalonia and thus the apparent lust for a 'name' signing. But if we needed reminded--the abject failure of the recent David Villa sell-on debacle is only the most current example that perhaps Barcelona's transfer policy is really not worthy of emulation. I respect Mr. Perez's business acumen and one need only glance at the recent Forbes rankings to see the results of his leadership and expertise, but as the great poet Kenny Rogers once said: Sometimes you need to know when to hold em'
- Finally, Rob Train has some interesting tactical analysis of Real's 1-0 victory over PSG, particularly worth reading is his assessment of Mesut Ozil's role in this match. Train also shares a few thought provoking comments on what he saw from Dani Carvajal and Casemiro.
Thoughts?