After some weeks of speculation Victor Valdés has signed a new five-year contract which will see him remain at Barça until June 2014. Valdés will earn €5 million a year with the possibility of another €2 million in bonuses for various objectives achieved, while the get-out clause in his contract has gone up from €100 million to €150 million.

Valdés will no doubt always have his fans and his critics, but I for one am delighted he is staying. He may not be the best in the world but bringing in a new goalkeeper can always be risky as is clear if we look back over the last few years at keepers such as Vitor Baia, Lopetegui or Bonano who all struggled under the pressure of keeping goal at Camp Nou. Valdés has proved he can...

It seems as if the majority of readers agree with me that Leo Messi was our best player in the 2008/2009 season. Messi polled 333 votes giving him 56% of the vote. In second place with 109 votes (18%) was Andres Iniesta, followed by Xavi Hernandez with 57 votes (10%), Thierry Henry 33 votes (6%), Samuel Eto'o 25 votes (4%), Toure Yaya 12 votes (2%), Dani Alves 12 votes (2%) and Gerard Piqué 5 votes (1%). The new poll continues the Eto'o or Villa theme: who do you want to see as our first choice striker next season?

It is looking as if we will soon know who will be our main striker will be next season. It is well known that Barça have made a bid of over €40 million for Valencia's David Villa and that Villa is keen to come. At the same time Manchester City have made an offer for Samuel Eto'o that could see Eto'o become the highest paid player in the world.

Of course, a transfer is not complete until the contract is officially signed by all parties. Valencia may turn down the offer from Barça while Samuel Eto'o may decide he is not suited to the rain in Manchester with no Champions League to play. Maybe we end up with both players or...

Excellent news this morning. As expected Toure Yaya reached an agreement with the club to extend his contract until 2012. Toure, who is 26, will see a rise in his pay although the details of this were not given. His release clause has gone up from €60 million to €100 million euros. Toure definitely deserves the improvement in his contract, having been one of the team's most consistant performers since joining the club in 2007. 

Another week goes by and still no movement in the transfer market. The local press continues to add names to the growing list of possible signings, but it really is very difficult to read between the lines to see which of the names are the most likely to come. It seems we are looking to add five players to the squad: a left back, a centre back, a defensive midfielder, a wide attacker and a centre forward.

One of the players who may sign in the next week or so is Deportivo's Brazilian left back, Filipe Luis. It also seems likely that the other left back option, Zhirkov will finally move to Chelsea. The centre back could be Shakhtar Donetsk's Dmytro Chygrynskiy, while Barça may decide to keep Henrique out on loan for another season.

I'm not...

Good news for Culés in California. The last game of Barça's summer tour of the United States will be at San Francisco's Candlestick Park stadium against Chivas of Guadalajara. The game will take place on August 9 at 0500h Spanish time. I'm not 100% on the time difference but I believe California is nine hours behind Spain so in San Francisco I presume the game will kick off at 8pm on Saturday 8th August. Maybe someone can confirm this. Last year we beat Chivas 5-2 in a preseason game in Chicago.

Our preseason schedule now looks like this. (times are Spanish local time)

July 24 - Tottenham (Wembley 9pm)

July 26 - Al-Ahly (Wembley 2.15pm)

Aug 1 - Los Angeles Galaxy (Rose Bowl, Pasedena 5am)

Aug 5 - Seattle Sounders (Qwest...

Apologies for the lack of posting over the last week or so, I really have been very busy. Besides, to write every day about the latest transfer rumour quite frankly becomes a bit boring. For today you have the chance to vote for the player you think was the best for Barça over the last season. I´ve already voted for Leo Messi, but there is certainly a case for other players. So, who is it for you?

We are well into the second week of transfer speculation and while Florentino waves the chequebook to bring in Ronaldo and Kaka, we still haven't signed anybody. So, should we be worried? Personally, I feel there is no need to make any rash moves, however, with United and Milann now with money in the bank there is a risk that this summer we will see elevated prices in the transfer market. Both clubs will want replacements and are likely to bid high for players like Franck Ribery.

It may be dangerous but I like our policy on transfers. It seems we only want to sign players who truly want to play for us. In this sense the most likely signing would appear to be Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Franck Ribery, but it seems the club are ready to wait to try to negotiate a better price....

It may not be as important as winning the treble but Bonito Baba managed by Layibiyi can be proud of winning this season's Fcbnews fantasy football league with a total of 1917 points. Bonito Baba have led all the way and were really no contest for any of us. Layibiyi also takes a lot of credit for finishing 16th in the overall Oleole league. Hopefully you will all take part again next season.

The final positions were as follows:

It's taken me longer than expected but finally I bring you the Fcbnews Player by Player Review of the Season. For each player there is a brief resumé followed by the statistics for La Liga, Champions League, Copa del Rey and overall figures. There is also a player rating taken as an average for their ratings in every game this season. I would say that anything above 6.5 is an excellent score. It is interesting to see that three of the most argued-about players, Abidal, Eto'o and Valdés all achieved the same score of 6.55 for the season. You can make your own conclusions, here's the review:

Victor Valdes: Another good season from...