Rayvin

Aye, it's all about the relegation scrap really. I do wish Chelsea were down there too - if only they'd brought Lampard in sooner.

Same. Funny how much difference in makes in life to have something to be happy about on the football side of things.

I agree on that bit, it was the political donations I take more of an issue with. Anyway, this isn't the thread for it really.

Yeah I don't have an issue with that being flagged tbh. Ashley was so shit that it's been really easy to just enjoy having owners who genuinely seem to care, but being aware of their failings is important too. And for all we've heard the Saudi stuff to death by now, this is relevant too.

Your English is genuinely fine for 95% of the things you post mate, don't worry too much about it

Wigan circling the drain by the sounds of it? Not really kept abreast of that but their fans seem to be getting increasingly frantic. Points deductions for next season now in place, failing to pay player wages and seemingly no willingness by their board to put money in to resolve any of it.

I forgot Villa-Boas was even in existence Apparently took up rally car racing...

"The hat is tainted with bloodmoney!! Sportswashing marras. FTM and Fuck Bruno with his tyrannical, murderous hat!"

I reckon Potter tbh. And he'd be a decent call for them since they need a full rebuild.

It's not really mentioned much on this either but tbf I'm not sure this is the speech for it. This seems to be more about getting the UK back to some sort of productive economic position, the social impacts of which aren't touched so much in the piece. You would hope that would be part of it but they're shying away from tax rises so it's hard to tell.

Fair - I hope a lot of this becomes clearer as we move forward, it's tedious having to sift out key details from opinion pieces.

What is it Maguire is meant to do well

And the fourth is that all this must happen within effective national fiscal rules – and not by allowing debt to balloon. That's how I'm interpreting this sentence.

The Guardian is terrible for patronising the North East IMO. Whenever there's any article about anything up here it comes across in that sort of forced 'oh they'll feel really special that we're paying attention to them' sort of way. It's one of the reasons NUFC becoming strong again is so important in some ways - now they have to talk about us on equal terms because we've insisted upon it, it would make them unserious professionals not to do so. I'm not a fan of LT as I actually think her entire role in the Guardian is a personification of that patronising position. She's a weaker journalist who writes pieces of very little substance beyond stating the obvious - but she's from 'up here' and they give her a bit of space to write about us and Sunderland, so that's all ok. We should be grateful. It's the reason I picked up a subscription to the Athletic tbh, at least you feel like the people writing about us in there care about proper analysis of the club.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/24/rachel-reeves-economic-thinking-social-democracy#comments Rachel Reeves apparently going for Bidenomics - Neoliberal leanings, and an Osbornian take on austerity. Admittedly I'm struggling a little to place her positions on this exactly but that's my reading of it based on the cues in the article. She looks like the centrist's centrist to me - worked for a bank, PPE degree, wants to do Tory economic policy but more competently. Even with the polls narrowing there's little doubt in my mind that Labour are going to win, so it'll be interesting to see how all of this plays out.

Yep, so growth is going to be modest and sustainable. That's always been how it looked tbh so no great surprise. It does mean though that this is less about sportswashing and more about genuine development of an asset - which, again, it always looked more like being. I actually think this could end up looking like a very well backed but ultimately fairly run of the mill takeover - and that the success we gain from it will ultimately be reflective of what this club was always capable of at the upper end of realistic.

Yes. And good luck with it mate.

Burn will never get picked but he deserves to be.

Fair enough.

You're talking policy positions mind, I can clearly remember people on here harping on about sixth form politics and how you need to win power and so on as a general strategic consideration - not really calling people out on policy. This is what it looks like to abandon principle and go all in on power, that's all I'm saying. I despair at it, but it's the play that many people called for post-Corbyn.

It's power at any cost, which tbf is what many of you have asked for. So he's doing exactly what I'd understood Labour had to do. Nothing is sacred but power itself. The direction of travel is very clear now so let's see where we end up.

Lots of ours in the comments pointing out that no one cared about 'fair market value' when Ashley was whoring the club around dressed up in sports direct junk. Surely that should actually work both ways though, Ashley should have had to pay fair price too.

They've gone past 3 pages on it already. They don't care about us at all though as almost all of them in there are at pains to point out. https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/more-saudi-sportswashing.1608143/

I honestly believe that 90% of the fan based drama on this stuff comes from the displaced big 6 clubs - raised on a steady diet of trophies and success, they're simply struggling to find football as enjoyable as an also-ran. That's the deal for most other club though, so they're going to have to get used to it.

Have to say mind, there really does seem to be a huge amount of fuss about City all of a sudden. Have these financial irregularities only shown up this year, or is it just that since they're about the win the CL, they've transformed from being an entity whose existence is built around trolling Man Utd, into an entity who are somehow threatening Liverpool's legacy as the greatest team in the world?