A hot day for Baaaaaacelona?

The sun is up. The sky is blue. Sweltering weather is promised.

The pubs are calling. The pubs huddled on the corner of Shepherds Bush Green. The pubs up, down and between the Uxbridge and Goldhawk Roads. So get on the Western Avenue. Get on the Westway. Get on the Central Line. Get on the Hammersmith and City Line. Get yourself down the Rangers 'cos it's that time again. Time to let go of the arse end of summer. Time to dig in for ten months of twists and turns.

Up first? Welsh interlopers in an English league. Interlopers? Yes, yes. Hell, yes.

It's impossible to cross that bridge and enter the Principality, especially to see a game of football, and not sense a degree of hostility towards dear old Eng-er-lund. Sometimes you even get the impression the cheeky buggers would kinda like to go their own way, taking down those Union Flags and hoisting everywhere the ancient (adopted in 1953) Y Ddraig Goch. What's that? You don't like merrie England, Mr. Taffy Thomas? Not a fan of the sturdy bulldog breed then, Mr. Dai the Steam? Is that ugly beast on your standard a bit of a green-eyed monster? Pissed off that you have not won first prize in the lottery of life? Fair enough. Shit happens. But if you feel that way, do please pick up your bastard Swansea City and your ruddy Cardiff Lucky Red Dragons and take them to where they belong. Take them to play their natural opponents - Airbus UK, Cefn Druids and the snappily named The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club (no more dancing on the streets of Total Network Solutions).

In the meantime, though, we must entertain visitors from that hostile little province. You know the ones. The ones whose team was swept along by an intense media wankfest last season, every hack in the land getting hard and moist at the sight of a side that kept the ball for ages and ages without going forward. Drooling over the wannabe tika-taka. So compelling was this slow and tidy keepball that the mighty Liverpool have broken a few Jacks' hearts by pinching the mastermind who made it happen. So Brendan Rodgers is on Merseyside now, continuing the good work of his predecessor there and sticking to the plan of paying too much for British players. Notably, Rodgers has somehow got around the much-publicised matter of not being supposed to take players from his former club. Exit Joe Allen. For FIFTEEN MILLION QUID. Sweet Jesus. The game is bonkers. The Rangers have pretty much built a new team for less than that.

So let's see how Swansea get on minus the midfield maestro of their Barça-lite stylings. Directing the proceedings will be Brian Michael Laudrup, fresh from bickering with the directors of troubled Spanish side Mallorca. Prior to that gig, Laudrup was moving between Spain and Russia, making a name for himself as a proponent of an attractive style of play and as someone who didn't care to remain at any given club for more than a year.

Pitted against the visitors is a Rangers side studded with new signings. Mockers wanna mock. Haters gonna hate. So not everything you've read out there suggests that the Superhoops have shopped wisely. But the feeling amongst the W12 faithful is that a lot of good business has done by the club. Optimism seems to be rife. A decent win today will add to that feeling. Anything else, especially if the performance isn't great, and the doubts may start to creep in earlier rather than later. Getting spanked by Bolton on the opening day last time around was bloody horrible. But perhaps defeat then was not a total shock, given the inauspicious context of Briatore and co. still being on the scene and preventing the manager from preparing properly for the top flight. Expectations are much higher now. Let's hope against hope that these expectations are not wildly misplaced.

Right, let's get down the Rangers.

U RRRRRRRRRRRsssssssssss