A couple of weeks ago Celta de Vigo, who are currently battling relegation from Spain’s Primera Division, fired manager Paco Herrera and replaced him with former Atletico Madrid stalwart Abel Resino. As with most managers, Resino wanted to bring his own coaching staff with him. Normally, this is no big deal; but in this case, his choice of Salva Ballesta for his assistant manager caused a lot of problems.

Salva Ballesta is one of the more controversial figures in Spanish football. His playing career saw him play for several Spanish clubs; most notably two spells at Atletico Madrid, and included a short loan spell at Bolton Wanderers in the Premier League which was in the middle of a pretty unsuccessful few seasons at Valencia.

Liverpool: Philosopher Brendan Rodgers has had a mixed time at Liverpool this season, with the team struggling at times to adapt to his preferred style of play. Things certainly were not helped when he was conspicuous by his absence for a crunch match with Manchester United, as it coincided with the launch of his book ‘Hoof It: Why Long Ball Works.’ Rodgers was then absent for three subsequent matches to fulfil promotional duties for the best-seller. Kopites will be hoping for an improvement from The Reds in the second half of the season, but it seems unlikely after news emerged recently that Rodgers has a further two publications in the pipeline: an erotic football novel ‘Fifty Shades of Joe Allen’, and sci-fi thriller ‘Suso.’

With a goal and two assists against Genoa on Sunday night, Francesco Totti became the joint second top goalscorer in the history of Serie A – sitting in second place with Swedish legend Gunnar Nordahl on 225 goals.  The Roma captain is the only player of the modern era to be among the top five of this elite group.  In first place lies Silvio Piola with what looks like an unmatchable 274 goals.