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Barnes had rested enough, the litter filling his broken hot tub duly testified. Now it was time to start work again, and what an opportunity! The land of the rising sun, bullet trains and Chinese Dragons. Korea! He felt that familiar surge of excitement. All the things lying ahead of him to savour. Virgin territory. New players, naive media and a plethora of untasted fast food. He’d heard of that kimchi stuff. What was in it? Cabbage? Fuck that then, they'll have a McDonalds. Did they drink there?, he wondered. It wouldn’t matter. He would get in shape in case he was needed off the bench, confident his bloated 63 year old frame would still cut the mustard against those slopes. Barnes cleaned his face and dressed himself for the Zoom call with the KFA. He felt confident and assured. Those decades of media training at United having served him so well, once more his calm gravitas would win the day. Heading to the office in the back of his garage, he drove off on his usual routine. He always liked to drive to work, even when working from home. It helps me make the separation, he reminded himself as he inspected the stains on his ragged old sweatpants. Whilst in the Burger King Drive Thru he saw an old fella walking a dog. They eat dogs there, don’t they?! A brief wince, a furrowed brow, thoughts coalescing. “Here’s your order Dr Barnes, have a nice day”. He grabbed his 3 bags whilst confirming they hadn’t forgotten anything then pulled away smoothly in his leased Tesla. It looked a bit naff but had peerless acceleration and more talk than Talk Radio. The interview went very well, there was an air of formality about it. As things were wrapping up he felt stirrings down there, and down there was rarely wrong. The job was his. "One last thing, Mr Barnes. Do you have any questions for us?" "Erm." Thoughts racing. Fuck, he hadn’t prepared a question! Schoolboy error. He briefly considered asking if he’d get a game but thought better of it. Fuck!! Quickly, what do you want to know about Korea!! "Errrr, I was wondering something before to be fair. What do dogs taste like? Is it bacon?"

Kyril reaction shots: "But if there's a Championship club that's ambitious... ... wants to work in the right way... .... And be open and honest about things... ... I'd love to do that."

They really are in their own little "we're man united" ego fuelled bubble aren't they? Ratcliffes statement made no fucking sense, that comparison to pep was actual nonsense like anyone in football just lets their players wander off for free when they don't want to be at the club anymore. His very own Man United wouldn't even sack Mason Greenwood because they thought they could get a fee for him somewhere down the line the cunts. "We had a very grown-up conversation with Manchester City about Omar" Why didn't you do that with us then you dickhead? Instead you contacted Ashworth and fluttered your eyelashes at him through your media mates and now want to act all precious when we turn around and tell you that thats actually not acceptable and we'll either have our fee or you can wait. Their fans keep going on about this being "small time" which makes no sense either, surely the small time thing would be for us to bend over "oh yes mr man united please, please take the technical director we hired less than two years ago, would you like anything else sir" Its either that or "This is exactly what they did to brighton". No, we approached Brighton first, who gave us permission to talk to Ashworth then placed him on gardening leave until a deal was made. Which is how this should have been done. I'd started hating Man U less over the last few years, they were more of a laughing stock than anything else, but the sheer ENTITLEMENT of everyone on their side over this, pure brexit-style british exceptionalism has reminded me how much I despise that club.

His suggestion that honouring contractual clauses isn’t “how UK law works” bodes very well for his time running a football club. Mind, this is the bloke who has spent most of his time dodging tax and now wants to use public money to build a new stadium so the cunt is clearly in cloud cuckoo land. More great news

TBF what's the point in reaching middle ground? They haven't done us any favours and will continue to make things as difficult as possible for us because they know we are coming for them, for all of them. So we should just make any and everything as difficult as we can for them all. Fuck'em.

Aye, I think it’s purely from the social media perspective they are coming at this. 11 year old lads who hang out at the training ground and Gemmill is the phrase you were looking for btw

'You are a nailed on virgin like'

Knowing our luck with injuries this season it’ll hit Bruno

Does any money we get for Ashworth help with FFP? If, so squeeze as much out of them as possible. If not, he can do the full 20 months horticultural experience.

Well Canada do play in red and white.

If he's a 10/10 sporting director I'm sure they'll have no trouble or qualms about paying a 10/10 compensation fee to get him on board.

I'm absolutely thrilled to report that Sir Jim Ratcliffe is very much adopting a "GUYS! We're Manchester United. Just hand him over." approach. I'm sure this will endear him to our lot. "I won't get dragged into that, but first allow me to get dragged into that." Cunt.

I believe they've now written off promotion this season, very kindly stepping aside to allow the teams ranging from 7 to 31 points ahead of them a fair crack.

Middle ground probably saves us a million quid. Not a great incentive for it. Every month that comes off his GL is way more valuable to them than it is to us.

There's a separate quote where he calls Newcastle suggesting that Ashworth sit on gardening leave for 1.5 years "completely stupid". He seems VERY charming. The really good news for him is that there's a way for him to stop it happening.

Everybody wants their moment in the fucking spotlight. Around the takeover we had people from Sky, BT, talkSport and the like asking the lads on the podcast if we wanted to go on their shows, provide content for their channels and shit. I've no doubt the same call went out to Pearson, Wraith and the rest of them. I couldn't be less interested, but when I saw who got those spots I worried I'd made a mistake. At least I could have maybe killed off a few thousand from their audience and made them think twice about asking gobshite know-nowts.

I think it was Craig on here who said he thought he might be working for the club. I scoffed at the idea tbh (this was very soon after the takeover) but if he’s not directly employed he’s definitely getting ridiculous amounts of access to the club. It seems to encapsulate a lot of why I give less and less of a fuck about professional football. I.e. an absolute fucking bull’s knacker getting the sort of access most followers of the club could only dream of. He’s easily as embarrassing as that Sunderland weirdo with the wooly hat

Looking forward to some Still Ill based chants. A load of MLFs going to the match with daffodils in their back pockets. And being racist too.

PAGING @wykikitoon Motorist behaving badly itt. We need a ruling.

KLD giving the fans what they want ?

It's not going to get easier for them next year, with them almost certainly losing Clarke which they are over-reliant on. On the other hand, they're experienced at this level so unlikely to get relegated. Just as well most of them don't want to be in the premiership anyway I guess.

Seven points off the playoffs and they've effectively written off the remainder of the season by leaving his assistant in charge. The players must have really hated Beale, otherwise the decision looks even more stupid.

Well I don't think anyone saw this coming....

Which mentally challenged person needs that 3rd column?

I think our best move would be to just leave him on gardening leave until 2026. Fuck Ratcliffe, Fuck Ashworth and Fuck their fucking awful fans

Thats it. I think he’s similar to Ashley in that he’s been very successful outside of football and is determined to come into the club and do it ‘his way’. Hopefully with similarly disastrous results.

Aye. Comparing him to players surplus to requirements at the best team in the world then arguing he should just be allowed to walk away as well. As has already been mentioned it might’ve been different if they hadn’t already tried to completely rip us off previously And on a player who isn’t exactly 10/10 and had about 5 months left on his contract. Fuck them and fuck Ashworth too

suddenly…

There's fans can't even get in the ground yet the club seems to bend over backwards, (or so it seems) to let the likes of Pearson walk around the training ground talking to players? Wasn't he and a few others invited over to Saudi on one the training camps as well? I won't be the only one seeing shit like this and thinking 'you're doing yourselves no favours here'.

All right, Chris Huhne

In the words of Alan Partridge: LIAQUAT FOOTBALL!

They haven't made quite as public a show as that though. I'm pleased Grant Shapps was on board for the test though, the fucking helmet. Seems fitting.

AUBERGINE!!!!!

After last night’s results and the Beale debacle they are 7 points off the playoffs and you can get 40/1 for them to get promoted.

My chiropractor is South Korean, (he's very good if anyone wants his details), he won't be happy after all he's had to listen to, on my thoughts about the bacon eating cabbageheed!

Lots of talk from Caulkin of anger from within the club at Man United's behaviour and the way Ashworth has handled himself. I hope they come in to negotiations with a similar "We're Man United, guys" attitude.

So basically their job is more important to them than their principles. Which I have no problem with. As long as you’re prepared to admit that all the time. Whereas most of this lot make out that’s not the case. And it’s not like Delaney is falling over himself to point out he should’ve been a vocal critic of Putin before but couldn’t be in his articles. Although fair play of him to admit it on Twitter. But we know the actual problem with the PIF with these lot is really about how it impacts their own beloved football clubs.

The sunderland weirdo with the wooly hat is at least one generation older mind, and perhaps the club have rightly or wrongly perceived that Pearson has an attractive marketing appeal to a certain demographic (youth and strange old blokes ) and therefore given him the ridiculous access he seems to have.

Top punnery.

Every time I see Atkins on the telly she seems so far out of her depth. This was the case when she had more junior roles, but somehow she's been promoted to Health Secretary. There can't be anyone watching this that thinks she's impressive. Fair play to Sally Nugent though, who appears to have had a boob job.

More heartbreak for Taylor Swift.

I wonder if there's a consideration to play 5 at the back from the outset in this match. We've looked solid when doing so and haven't really seemed to lose much in attack either. Also, it has the added benefit of providing us with an option on the bench in midfield if we drop Miley to the bench. Debruv Tripps Schar Botman Burn Tino Longstaff Bruno Miggy Gordon Barnes Subs bench: Bench -- Bench -- Shrub -- Bench -- Bench -- Donation -- Shrub I dunno. It feels like something needs to change because we've leaked goals against absolute shite teams for the past month. Now up against a quality side we're likely to get pumped if we do the same expecting a different result. (Please note that I do not actually believe I am the manager of Newcastle United. This is the mere opinion of a colossal idiot.) If we implement MY gameplan then we are bound to win 9-0. And all 9 goals are scored by the squad's blind and best leftback, the moonlighting English country music star, Garth Brale, as he whips the ball into the net with the loose strands of his topknot that he's fashioned into a cat-of-nine-tails. Whip-crack went his whippy tail!