International breaks are the absolute f--king worst!

No premier league football, no La liga football for 2 whole weeks is nothing short of outrageous. However, at least I'm not having to put up with the shit refereeing we have witnessed in the opening few game weeks - in both the Premier League and Laliga.

At least La liga is blatant daylight robbery favoring Real Madrid - anyone with an ounce of brain can see it. But the premier league, boy oh boy!

The circus there is unfathomable, intolerable and at times a mortal peril to our televisions! Or laptops, or whatever one is watching the matches on! One week they are openly making "mistakes" to favour Manchester United and the next week Man united are on the receiving end of the stick. Just this last game week before the international break after making a clear error in favour of Manchester City, the referees themselves came out telling the public it was a mistake. The circus eh! 😂

Rewind to game week 2, showing Alexis McAllister a red card for a nothing foul - only to be later reverted by the FA itself was nothing short of embarrassing for the referees. The Premier league referees have no integrity (neither does the La liga ones, mind you). I could probably write a thousand word post on just the refereeing alone in the premier league - all of these within just the first 4 game weeks!

34 more weeks to go, god help us!

Recap

Well, let's get back to what I had in mind when I first started to write this post - a recap of Barcelona's start to the season, and possibly Liverpool's too if there's time at the end.

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Barca's financial woes are not unknown to anyone who keeps up with football news. As fans, we were very worried what kind of transfer window we'd have this summer. There's a common joke among Barca fans - "There's not a single normal day at this club during the transfer window!"

And that proved true this summer too!

Starting with the whole Lionel Messi saga which dragged on for what seemed like an eternity to getting Gundogan on a free transfer - the first few weeks were quite bipolar for the fans.

Replacing Sergio Busqets was first on the agenda and when we brought in Oriol Romeu from Girona - I must say we've had our doubts. But what a genius move it turned out to be - also the only move where Barca had to spend any money this transfer window - which is a massive plus given the financial conditions. We got Inigo Martinez on a free transfer too, but we haven't really seen him up until now. He is a good defender, but we'll have to see how important he can be Barcelona.

And just when the team looked somewhat settled and we battered Real Madrid 3-0 in the pre-season (after of course getting battered by Arsenal ourselves LOL), Barca transfer window lived up to its reputation - "Not a single normal day..."

Up came the rumors of Ousmane Dembele leaving for PSG, which ended up being true! What a snake!

This was a big blow for Xavi, since he was rebuilding the team around Dembele. But every black cloud has a silver lining and Dembele leaving opened the doors for Lamine Yamal and he ahs been nothing short of a revelation! Pretty exciting to see another youngster climbing the ranks!

The opening game week against Girona was always going to be a difficult one. And it was not helped by clearing refereeing bias against Barcelona to obviously aid Real Madrid get a head start. Refereeing in that game was so bad, my blood was still boiling when I woke up the day after. The last minute penalty that was denied - oh boy the shamelessness was unparalleled!

The win against Cadiz seems a pretty straightforward win from the scoreline, but again - the penalty lamine yamal was denied - could have made work much easier than it had to be. But the biggest takeaway from this game for me was Ferran Torres' goal. He just need to be on the pitch for less that 5 minutes and he scored while we struggled to score for nearly 90 minutes. Ferran Torres seems as sharp as ever, as high on confidence as ever - almost seems back to his absolute best!

The 4-3 win at Villareal was the blockbuster game of the league so far! And once again when we were down a goal and struggled to make any inroads - it was the introduction of one Ferran Torres after 64 minutes that changed the entire dynamic of the match. It seems he can do no wrong at the moment and I don't know what else he needed to do to get Xavi to start him ahead of Lewandowski. Again, it took him less than 5 minutes to score and just like that we were back in the game. with Ferran Torres up front, we look a much more dangerous side. Ferran the shark is back! (If you know, you know!)

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Deadline Day Drama

Just before game week 4 came the deadline day! I had admission duty in the medicine ward that night and I remember checking on twitter after every patient. And every time I checked there was some different update! One time it was Ansu Fati leaving on loan for Tottenham, next time I see he's chosen Brighton (Kudos on that, great team).

One minute Abde is about to leave for betis, next minute Xavi convinced him to stay, next time he's off to betis again and the next time betis doesn't have the Financial Fair Play margin to sign him and the next time he's gone to betis!

That was a tiring line to read wasn't it! It was a tiring saga to follow too, so....

But the biggest transfer news of the night was saved till the literal very last hour of the deadline day - Bringing in both Joao Cancelo and Felix! Admittedly I didn't really think bringing Felix was a good idea - he's known for his bad attitude. But he's shown he really, really wants to be here (I mean I have never seen a player cry after signing for a club). And Joao Cancelo was Xavi's priority since the beginning of the window - since the last winter window to be exact actually! Finally no more sergi Roberto and alonso ball down the right flank! FINALLY a proper right back at barca!

I am not even going to talk about the Fresneda Saga and Eric Garcia leaving on deadline day too - the post is too long as it is already lol! The darma at FC Barcelona never ends - can't write all of them now can I! Just let us have one normal day at this club for f*ck's sake, just one normal day!

Final game week before the break

Well, another dramatic win with a late penalty. Another week of Real Madrid being clearly aided by the referees - just a normal day at the office for Javier Tebas and La liga!

Takeaways

Pablo Gavi is a beast and he is showing why Barca included a 1 billion euro release clause in his contract. People laughed at barca at the time, but Gavi is showing his worth. He essentially played as a left winger in the first 4 weeks, but the effort he was putting in helping the team out defensively was outstanding to say the least. The kid is one hell of a character, he puts his heart and body on the pitch for Barcelona (quite literally)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZK61h2IRsTI

Barcelona had been lacking such a character for a long time. And the courage he showed to keep playing with a bleeding ear and 4 stitches immediately applied on the field (which of course was not even given a foul - refereeing disasterclass) tells you he'll captain Barcelona one day. You just know it!

Lamine Yamal's attacking prowess is already being talked about all over the world. But if you see the Barcelona matches you'd be quite amazed how much defensive work he put in as well. Especially in the matches we had sergi roberto on the field, we were literally playing with one defender less and Yamal's efforts were astounding - especially in the game against osasuna. And he is just 16.

With Araujo's injure so early on in the season, nightmare's from last season started to creep in. But man, Joules Kounde stepped up big time! He has literally been Barca's saviour along with Ter Stegen (BEAST MODE ACTIVATED) since Araujo's injury. We were just reminded why he is, at the moment, one of the best center backs in the world. And also why he was so desperate to move out from the right back position to the CB - he knows where he is best at, he knows his game inside out.

And with the Arrival of Cancelo he is likely to keep his position at CB. We didn't get to see much of Cancelo - but in the 30 minutes he's been on the pitch he provided a pitch perfect ball for lewandowski with his signature trivela!

Finally a proper right back at the club!