Martino to Barcelona means AVB is staying at Spurs

Hey guys, remember last Friday? You know, when our entire footballing world crashed down upon our ears? Benteke stayed at Aston Villa, Gareth Bale was going to Real Madrid, Leandro Damiao was flirting with Napoli, Spurs were going to get double-relegated, and Villas-Boas was going to flip us all the double-bird and piss off to Barcelona. Well, scratch one item off the panic list: Barcelona has appointed Argentine Gerardo "Tata" Martino as their new manager, which means that Andre Villas-Boas is set to remain with Tottenham.

Gerardo Martino, new coach of FC Barcelona http://t.co/jKeCFf2WOZ

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) July 23, 2013

The nerve of them! They didn't even have the decency to apologize to Spurs fans for getting us all twitterpated!

I'm going to attribute the collective freak-out on Carty Free Cappy over the weekend to a matter of poor timing, and just assume that most of you are not in the habit of believing everything you read. Because when you dig into this rumor, it's pretty darned ridiculous. The entire story was predicated on the existence of a so-called "Barcelona clause" in AVB's contract, which allowed him a get-out-of-jail-free card in the event the Catalonians ever came calling. What it didn't explain is why Barcelona would've come calling at all, with AVB's reputation barely rehabilitated and a host of more logical candidates available. Of course, they ended up appointing the skipper of Newell's Old Boys, who has never managed outside of South America, so what do I know?

I'm going to leave the analysis of Barcelona's appointment to other people and sites (summary: it's weird), but what it does mean above anything else is that Andre Villas-Boas is safe from poaching for at least another few months, or whenever the next big managerial vacancy opens up. In the mean time, load up the elephant gun and prepare to be boarded!