thomas

The bustling metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. Sister city to Newcastle.

I know he's good, but can he play on both wings?! delighted he's back btw. We'll still need everyone else firing on all cylinders to get something out of this I feel.

He may just pull a Doug Ellis and run the club out of spite for 40 years.

I'd like to know more about the terms of ashley paying off the debt -- the "poison pill", any early payment penalties, what rate we borrowed at etc -- before I would equate the hypothetical 100m of debt with a hypothetical flat 100m of the clubs future cost. I have a suspicion they're not equal.

Right, because the best way to get backing from the fans is to employ their hero and then piss him off so badly he walks out. Perfect plan by Mike and the mafia there. Thank god we have you to see through it Tooj, or else it might have worked.

What was Jimenez's great crime beyond not being named Kevin Keegan? I must have missed it. Wise and Llambias I can understand getting some abuse but in all the chaos of the last month+ I don't recall seeing Jimenez's name pop up.

How much do you think PES brings in Konami a year? or Fifa for EA? £200m / £30 per game = 6.6 million units to be shipped over the course of a year across the world. (Fifa 08 shipped 1 million units in the UK in eight weeks) They could sell 40 billion units and it wouldn't change the fact that beta testing a game and the negotiations of purchasing a football club are carried out with vastly differing levels of candor, privacy and implied decorum, with vastly differing impacts resulting from leaks. So you don't think that the value of the PES/Fifa Asset to Konami/EA isn't worth a couple of hundred million? If you agree that they are then why should leaks be any less serious - also bear in mind that leaks re the accounts relate to past performance, leaks to the design/features of a game relate to future events which a competitor would love to counter-act. I think I just realized the problem here. We're talking about different kinds of betas. What you're talking about is a private beta - internal testing of pre-alpha builds. No or extremely little public release. NDA, non-compete and other enforcing legalities there. Almost all of hte people involved are testers who work closely with devs and who probably have access to trade secrets or competitive information that other companies would like. In that respect we would agree that the restrictions surrounding beta testing would be as tight as club purchasing. What I'm talking about and what I took ikri to mean and you to be defending, was a public beta - external test of a nearly RTM build to identify bugs on platforms that were unavailable for testing internally. NDAs are still required. However at this stage, there is nothing getting into the hands of competitors (and it will -- leaks will happen here, screenshots and videos, etc) that will matter.

How much do you think PES brings in Konami a year? or Fifa for EA? £200m / £30 per game = 6.6 million units to be shipped over the course of a year across the world. (Fifa 08 shipped 1 million units in the UK in eight weeks) They could sell 40 billion units and it wouldn't change the fact that beta testing a game and the negotiations of purchasing a football club are carried out with vastly differing levels of candor, privacy and implied decorum, with vastly differing impacts resulting from leaks.

I would expect NDA's governing the purchasing of an asset valued at a couple hundred million pounds would be a little more binding than those of a video game.

I don't, I really, really don't, understand why you can't separate peoples criticism of the last days of the Shepherd era from the whole.

I haven't found any quotes saying that anyone's turned down anything yet. The telegraph just seemed to say they had but didn't back it with anything. Can you link me or enlighten me?

More parties interested than expected due to a few late comers who asked for an extension. :celb: No basis for that theory really but just as likely as no one bidding at all. Might as well be positive.

I think both backup positions for fullback were a worry, tbh. I don't know if either was that much more than the other. Though am I totally incorrect in thinking Taylor played at RB regularly for the U21's? Or was he just often the right side of a back 3? I could never tell what their formation really was when I got the odd chance to watch them. There's Geremi too, I guess

http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/5993/whamfantasticalbumcoverwl6.jpg edit: damnit all, nobby_solanos image wasn't loading. beaten to the reference but mine's better

Every few weeks it's HEY!!! I'M STILL AROUND!!! LOOK UP HERE!!! ... HELLO!?!?!? SOMEONE HIRE ME!!!

ah that would have been brilliant to see wor dutland custard superman it in from 30-odd yards superman it in :lol:

More cringeworthy than a writeup of nursing home orgies. Didn't like one sentence of what I was reading.

Not sure where this positivity is coming from. The Shola of yesterday showed no difference to the Shola I remember from the last two years. Slow, loping, poor control, off balance, surprisingly weak, the list goes on. Still a step up from Smith but didn't impress me one bit.

I'll settle for him being a lynchpin then.

two words: ame. obi. Ameobi did good actually. Was Zoggy who should've put it away. looked like he had tripped over his own feet trying to pass it, thought he could have shot it. Still, it's an improvement.

two words: ame. obi.

OHHHHH SHIT EVERTON AMEOBI ON! WHAT NOW!? WHAT NOW?!

Just turned it off. Maybe I'll be surprised when I watch the rest of it on replay. Can't think of watching this tripe live.

for fucks sake

thank fuck