As there were only four official games in August, I decided to combine August and September for the first Player Of The Month award of the season. Results are based on the Liga and Champions League games played so far plus the three supercup games we played in August.

Not too many surprises that the first winner of the season is Leo Messi. He has only played in eight of the ten games but has started in excellent form scoring eight goals including two in the games against Atletico Madrid, Racing Santander and also two in the Supercup game with Athletic Bilbao at Camp Nou. In second place is Gerard Piqué who continues to...

I've a lot of catching up to do over the next few days. Coming soon you will have a Player by Player Review of the Season, the Player of the Season award, as well as the final fantasy football table. For today you are getting the Player of the Month for May, and I have to say it was another close one. Given that some of our games this month were somewhat more important than others I've based the results on performances in the games at Real Madrid and Chelsea and our two finals against Athletic Bilbao and Manchester United.

The May Player of the Month goes to Gerard Piqué after scoring the sixth goal in the Bernabeu, driving the team on against Chelsea when we were down to ten men and a superb performance in the...

Despite the disappointment of the last two drawn games it has still been a pretty good month for Barça. We remained unbeaten in April, we are still in poll position to win La Liga this season and we are just one game away from reaching the Champions League final. We played some excellent football this month and few will forget the two outstanding 4-0 victories over Bayern Munich and Sevilla. Andres Iniesta wins the Fcbnews player of the month award for the third consecutive month and it is not surprising that some fans now consider him to be even better than Leo Messi. The sixty minutes he played against Sevilla will be remembered by those fortunate enough to see it as one of the best individual performances seen at Camp Nou in recent years, but...

Leo Messi won the battle against Barça team-mates Thierry Henry and Eric Abidal as Argentina beat France 0-2 last night in Marseilla. Messi capped a good performance in his first game under Diego Maradona with a cracking goal in the 83rd minute. The ball came out of defence to Messi who deftly laid the ball off to Carlos Tevez who had just come on as sub, Tevez carried the ball forward before returning the ball to Messi 40 yards from goal, Messi ran at the defence, jinked past Sagna before firing a powerful low left foot shot into the net from just inside the area (Click here to see the...

Spain's national team coach Vicente Del Bosque has included Sergio Busquets and Gerard Piqué in the squad for the friendly game against England in Seville on February 11th. This is the first call-up to the full squad for both players and is recognition for the form shown this season. Also in the squad are regulars Xavi Hernandez, Carles Puyol and Andres Iniesta which means Barça together with Liverpool are the most represented team with five players each. The full squad is as follows:

Iker Casillas (Real Madrid),...

Last week I wrote a piece in praise of Leo Messi, Samuel Eto'o and Thierry Henry. However, it could be argued that the form of Barça's defence is just as important if not more so to this season's success. Victor Valdés has only been beaten nine times in fifteen league games which makes Barça's the best defence in La Liga so far this season.

At the start of the season there were still a few problems at the back especially when it came to defending at set pieces.  The first clean sheet in the league wasn't achieved until the 0-1 win at Athletic Bilbao in the seventh jornada. Since then we have managed another six clean sheets in La Liga and have now only...

There were six Barça players on international duty yesterday and the star of the night was Thierry Henry who scored twice in France's 3-1 win in a friendly against Tunisia. Tunisia took the lead after 30 minutes but France hit back with goals from Henry in minutes 40 and 49. Karim Benzema scored France's third just before the hour. Henry played 83 minutes before being substituted by Malouda. Eric Abidal played the full 90 minutes in central defence.

Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets and Bojan Krkic were all in action for Spain's under-21 team who beat Switzerland 3-1 after extra time to qualify for the under-21s European Championship. Piqué and Bojan played the entire...