The Warm-Up: Everything gets a bit undignified as Barcelona sue Neymar

Well this is all getting a bit ugly. Neymar is a PSG player, gone from Barcelona but apparently not forgotten, as the Catalan club have apparently called in the lawyers over the Brazilian’s world record transfer.

Barca want the €8.5 million back they paid to Neymar after he signed a five-year contract last year, a bonus that they feel is not now entirely fair given that he skipped off to Paris with a massive sack of cash over his shoulder.

In a statement, Barcelona said: "The club demands the player return the already paid sum for his contract renewal as he has not completed his contract; 8.5 million euros in damages; and an additional 10% because of delayed payment. The Club also requests Paris Saint-Germain take on responsibility for the payment of these fees if the player cannot do so himself.

"FC Barcelona has started these proceedings to protect its interests following Neymar’s decision to buy out his contract just months after he signed an extension until 2021. This legal defence will be carried out following the established procedures with the competent authorities without entering into any verbal arguments with the player."

You can sort of see their point, but you wonder whether they should have more important things to worry about. While all of this was going on Neymar himself was having a lovely time with his former team-mates, old pals invited to the birthday party of his young son. The Warm-Up’s Spanish and Portuguese isn’t great, but we suspect the messages posted beneath these tweets are not entirely ones of support.

Meanwhile, Barca joined the ranks of celebrities and social media unfortunates who had to clarify that their account had been hacked, after a post from them appeared to confirm the signing of Angel di Maria. Going to be good fun if that actually does happen, now…

The Warm-Up joshed and japed yesterday about Celtic just about hanging on to qualify for the Champions League, but in the end that wasn’t far from the truth. Taking a 5-0 lead into the second leg against Astana, the evening looked like it would be a pleasant stroll – until Astana took a 4-1 lead on the night, that is, and suddenly Glaswegian bottoms began to twitch a little.

But in the end everything was fine, and a couple of late goals from Olivier Ntcham and Leigh Griffiths made sure that Brendan’s boys ultimately ran out comfortable 8-4 winners on aggregate. “It’s a wonderful achievement to gain our qualification,” said Rodgers after the game. “I think what we would like to do is try to progress this year and be in European football after Christmas.”

Elsewhere Napoli eased through with a 2-0 win over Nice, with Mario Balotelli’s performance for the French side attracting negative reviews from manager Lucien Favre (“I don’t want to comment on Balotelli,” Favre said. “It wasn’t very satisfactory, it was not good enough.”).

Sevilla qualified 4-3 on aggregate despite going 1-0 down to Istanbul Basaksehir on the night, Slovenia’s Maribor got past Hapoel Beer-Sheva on away goals after in a 2-2 aggregate tie, and Olympiakos beat Rijeka 1-0, 3-1 overall.

Have you ever tried the fizzy energy drink which sponsors the League Cup these days? It’s horrible, and we don’t recommend it. What we do recommend is some red hot football, and there was plenty of that last night in the second round of the competition.

The biggest upset, if you want to call it that, probably came as Bristol City beat Watford 3-2, the Championship side coming from behind at Vicarage Road in a game that featured a red card and two injury-time goals. Sounds like lovely fun. Elsewhere, Bristol Rovers completed an upset double for their city by getting the better of Fulham, Doncaster beat Hull, Aston Villa thrashed Wigan 4-1 and Leeds gave Newport a 5-1 hoying.

There’s plenty more for you tonight, you lucky punters. But seriously though – don’t drink that stuff.

Social media does odd things to some people. Craving acknowledgement from famous people will always be something that the Warm-Up doesn’t really understand, but at the very least you’ve got to admire one man’s persistence. A chap on Twitter known as ‘AJ’ spent a full 77 days continually tweeting Anthony Martial, posting a picture of the United forward every day until he got some form of response. And, eventually, this week he did. We hope it was all worth it. Although it depends on your point of view whether this sort of thing is admirable persistence, like Andy Dufresne writing a letter a week to the prison board to ask for books at Shawshank, or whether it’s just a bit weird.

What a goal this is. Particularly when you consider it was scored by Daniel English, a member of the England blind team in their 7-0 spanking of France at the European Championships this week.

Not only did the Sheffield Wednesday boss manage to get himself sent from the stands during their 3-2 defeat to Bolton Wanderers on Tuesday, but he also became involved in an argument with a steward when he tried to take his place in the stands. “It was a person with age,” Carvalhal rather delicately said. “I must respect older persons but in that moment he acted really badly.”

The determination of some people to play football, to make it a part of their lives despite everything around them telling them no, is remarkable. Suzanne Wrack has the story of some girls in Pakistan who are doing exactly that.

It was 13 years ago this very day (well, actually, 13 years ago yesterday, but who’s counting?) that Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s ego received the base coat of gold paint, with this remarkable goal against NAC Breda. He probably should have passed about four or five times in his assorted shimmies, but where’s the fun in that?

More Champions League qualifiers tonight, and the most high-profile is of course Liverpool v Hoffenheim, as Jurgy Klopp’s side take a 2-1 lead into the second leg at Anfield. There are four other games, and only one side has a two-goal advantage from the first game, and that’s APOEL Nicosia who are away at Slavia Prague tonight. Meanwhile we also have the remainder of the League Cup games, the pick being the ever-spicy Lancashire derby between Blackburn and Burnley, while Newcastle host Nottingham Forest and Southampton face Wolves, among others.