In a surprise move so late in the season, the Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has announced that Manuel Pellegrini has been sacked as the manager of Real Madrid with immediate affect. He will be replaced by the more experienced Colin Mercer.

In an announcement made at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu earlier Señor Perez blamed Pellegrini for Real’s current league position and lack of success in cup competitions, stating:

“…a change of personnel is required if we are going to turn this season around…”

Mercer has had successful Football Manager campaigns at Liverpool, Monaco and Barcelona to mention just a few, most recently taking Liverpool to the Premier League title and Champions League final in his 2nd season in charge.

It is rumoured that he will look to bring players from his previous clubs like Torres, Gerrard and Messi to the Bernabéu.

This news comes as less of a surprise to the panellists on Revista de La Liga who predicted Pellegrini to be on the way out yesterday.

Oh yay its Sunday, the day of rest, the day built for relaxing and doing very little. I don’t know why they have Sundays in Spain, every day seems like a Sunday…

The day started off in a similar way to which the last had finished, with a nice beer. After getting up and stuff we headed to a local Tapas place for food. More details which I can’t remember about, the name of the place we went to and the name for the drink we had. It was basically lager with a load of lemon cordial in it. Very refreshing, perfect for that early drink. The Tapas here was also better than the stuff from the day before (did I mention we had Tapas the day before?), highlight was definitely the croquet style yummyness.

I’ve been meaning to finish off these posts and get them up ever since I got back from Spain, it really is time to do so. Over the next few days you will see, hopefully, lots of them going up.

After waking up bright and early, OK stop there, what a lie. Our flight in was delayed which meant we didn’t get into Madrid until very late, and then had a number of hour drive to Valladolid. Luckily Nicko didn’t fall asleep… unluckily Vicko did meaning Nicko had no clue where to go. Funny scenes as you veer across lanes and slip roads. We survived, and got back in time for a beer, but there is always time for a beer, even when its 3.30am.

The plan for the day was to check out a bit of the city, grab some Tapas and head to the pub for some rugby. Sounds like a good plan to me, especially when we added in the siesta and Mexican we were going to have for dinner.

I will talk more about Valladolid tomorrow, as by then we will have had a much more in depth look around the place and actually taken some pictures. For today, I only captured one thing and that’s the Bullring. Unsurprisingly, that’s where they do the Spanish tradition of Bull Fighting. A totally pointless, ridiculous activity (not even going to classify it as a sport), saying that though if there had been any on whilst I was there I would have liked to go. Cultural experience and all that.

Once upon a time I was on a plane, and I thought it would be a good idea to have a G&T…

Yep, that’s a sachet of Gin… yummy… not!

Before this little ‘story’ begins, I want you to go and check out my other travel related posts, come on, I’ve even hyperlinked it, it’s really easy for you…

Why I hear you scream, why would he put us through reading more of his posts!? Because I’m evil, and so that if I refer back to anything on previous experiences over the next few days it will make sense. What is the point of me being pure comedy gold on paper screen if the audience doesn’t ‘get it’? Have you done it yet? I’ll wait…