According to El Sport, Samuel Eto'o's agent Jose Maria Mesalles has announced today the agreement for Samuel Eto'o to join Inter Milan for the next five seasons where he will earn €10.5 million a year. With the Eto'o deal closed it is only a question of hours before Zlatan Ibrahimovic joins Barça. The agreement between Barça and Inter is that Barça pay €46 million + Eto'o + Hleb on loan for Ibrahimovic. While it seems clear that Inter got easily the best side of the deal I am still pleased it has finally gone through and can't wait to see Ibra in our colours.

As for Eto'o, it is a great shame to end like this. He will be remembered as one of the greats of our great club. He scored 130 goals in 200 games and went down in history after becoming our first player to score in two different...

It's back to work today for Pep Guardiola and the players. The first training session has been set for 6pm this evening.  The players who were involved with international duty this summer have a few more days holiday, but back to work are Henry, Hleb, Gudjohnsen, Cáceres, Abidal, Touré, Bojan, Pinto, Jorquera, Valdés, Márquez, Henrique, Pedro, Víctor Sánchez and Keita, Guardiola has also called on ten young players to train with the first team: Montoya, Dalmau, Fontàs, Muniesa, Espasandín, Rueda, Jonathan, Gai, Jeffren and Rochina. The team's first game of the preseason is on Friday against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley.

Pep...

Early this evening our first signing of the summer, Maxwell Scherrer Cabelino Andrade, was presented at Camp Nou. Maxwell may not have provoked the same excitement amongst fans as some of the bigger names but I am confident he will turn out to be a very good signing. At the press conference Maxwell said that today "is one of the happiest days of my life". Let's wish him all the best for his time at Barça.

Meanwhile the Ibrahimovic/Eto'o deal has still not been confirmed. It seems the clubs have reached an agreement but now the players need to agree terms.

My God! Isn't this summer dragging on. With the lack of comings and goings at Camp Nou, the local press are forced to write something to fill their pages and unfortunately it seems they will run any story if it will help to sell a few more papers. This situation makes it very difficult to know what to believe, however, it does  seem quite likely that Barça would like to sign David Villa from Valencia.

Reports of yesterday's meeting between Valencia's president Manuel Llorente and Villa and his agent suggest that we may be in for a long wait. Valencia supposedly will not accept less than fifty million euros for Villa while Barça are supposed to be willing to pay around €40 million. However, today Llorente was quoted as saying that Barça have not made an official...

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...

There may be an exellent relationship between Pep Guardiola and his players, as shown in the celebrations after winning the Copa del Rey on Wednesday night, but Guardiola showed no let-up in his strict regime by fining six first team players for arriving late for this morning's training session. Leo Messi, Samuel Eto'o, Eider Gudjohnsen, Xavi Hernandez, Toure Yaya and Dani Alves will all have to pay a fine of €500 after turning up after the agreed time this morning. The players were only ten minutes late and one or two of them arrived just one minute late, but...

The two goals from Bojan Krkic in Sunday's 0-2 victory at Almeria took Barça's total of league goals this season to 78 from 27 games, which is two goals more than we managed in the 38 matches of the 2007/08 league season, and we still have eleven fixtures remaining! Added to the league goals we have scored 28 in 10 Champions League games and 13 more in eight matches in this season's Copa del Rey. Just to put this into context, that is a total of 119 goals in 45 matches (2.64 goals a game); in 2005/06 when we won La Liga and the Champions League we scored a total of 117 goals in 55 matches (2.13 goals a game), scoring 80 in...

Once again, declarations from Samuel Eto'o have led to talk about the player's future. In an interview with French magazine Sportsweek Eto'o is quoted as saying he has made up his mind about his future but did not reveal whether that would be at Camp Nou or elsewhwere. However, the interview continues with Eto'o criticising players who kiss the badge of the shirt while reportedly refusing to be photographed with the Barça shirt. This obviously sent the local press into a fury of speculation and Barça have also apparently reacted with Pep Guardiola and Txiki Beguristain meeting with the player to agree to leave any negotiations until the end of the season.

So, could Eto'o be on the way...

There may be a touch of bias here of course but readers of this blog clearly believe that Leo Messi deserved to win this year's Ballon d'Or. With 256 votes (62%) the little Argentinian blew away his rivals. Xavi Hernandez was second with 39 votes pipping Cristiano Ronaldo into third place (37 votes) and Samuel Eto'o was fourth with 34 votes. Apart from the players listed on the poll there were also three votes each for Steven Gerrard and Ronaldinho, and there was also a vote each for "my girlfriend for her ball skills" and for "Nic for his hard work on this blog". Cheers!

I've stuck up another poll now to see who you think is most likely to stop Barça in this season's Champions...