What links this summer's pre season games?

So Parma have been announced in the final piece of the Operation Premier League Preparation as it will catchily be known as.

There's a running theme, if you haven't noticed. All we needed was a trip to Dagenham and Redbridge to make it a little more explicit.

The theme, if you haven't caught up is we're playing a batch of teams who have seen the ill-effects of over spending. Or run into money troubles. Canny work by McNally et al, screaming 'SEE!! That could have been us (you)!!'

Think of Zaragoza in 2007. Aimar, D'Allessandro, a decent Diogo rather than the recent Diogo, both the Milito's and more. A flopping, expensive dream team, but a dream team nonetheless.

And then Parma of the 90s and 2000s. Spent like there's no tomorrow on as much of the talent they could get their blue and yellow mitts on. Both sunk like the proverbial stone.

Really, secretly, it's a celebration of the return to the heady heights for this new triumvirate.

But the trend doesn't end there. After all, two for a trend really would be stretching it.

Coventry welcome us back to the Ricoh, a team that struggled to fill a bench at the end of last season.

Palace deposited 10 points back to FA after slipping into administration and Saaaaaafend did the same in '09 (to balance out we're going to Histon, who did the opposite).

So we'll sit in our comfortable debt of £20million or so and spending quietly well this pre-season and look out at this pre-season at see what we nearly became.

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