Barcelona have €50m to spend on Cesc

"The club has approximately €50m net to spend on new players each season. In the case of this season buying David Villa [€40m] combined with the sales of Yaya Touré and Dmytro Chygrynskiy balance themselves out. This means the club still has €50m to spend."

- the Barcelona FC website

Barcelona are starting to resemble the boy who cried wolf. They’ve tapped up Cesc, they’ve tapped up his folks, they’ve tapped up the media. They’ve trotted out all the Spanish Barcelona players to say how much they’d love Cesc in their side. They’ve blasted Arsenal for holding them hostage over “unreasonable” transfer demands.

And now what they’re doing is trying to convince the world that they’ve got the money to buy Cesc Fabregas. They’ve got €50m left in the bank after a €150m bank loan, and they’re prepared to spend it all on Cesc.

I’m getting really sick of it. Proper clubs conduct their transfer business behind closed doors. They don’t splash details of their accounts to the media, manipulate the press, try to drive down the price through under-ahnd tactics. Barcelona do all this, and as a result, I’ve lost a lot of respect for them. They used to be my second favourite club. Now, they’re fast becoming my second least-favourite club.

I realise I should probably stop focussing on Cesc-to-Barcelona, but honestly, what other Arsenal news is there? We’re in pre-season or something at the moment, and we’re not signing anyone, and Almunia and Fabianski are still at the club. The only thing happening is rumour and hearsay.

Melbourne Heart played their first ever match the other night, a 0-2 loss against Everton. It’s a naff name, and it’s a naff premise to try and set up a football club for the “purists”. All the purist clubs were expelled from the national league with the creation of the A-League, and were replaced with commercial franchises with no soul, no heart, no history, and designed to appeal to a wider, mass audience fan-base. For a new franchise club to spring up and suddenly claim to represent the ghosts of all the ethnic-based clubs of the old NSL is pretty damn stupid.

So on the 283rd last day of my 20s, I worked, stood in line at KFC for lunch before thinking better about it, then went home. Having been thinking about asked the GOMD out again. There is very, very little chance that she’d say yes, but then, it’s that very, very little chance that makes it still a worthwhile goal. Won’t see her tonight, which is vastly disappointing. I have Friday on my mind.