TRon

Fuck me this is getting tedious.

Villa are playing some sweet stuff at the moment, they looked decent against us in the first half before we punished them for getting too cocky. Still I wish we'd been as clinical against West Ham, but swings and roundabouts.

No people aren't that stupid, but we are run on capitalist principles so everything's for sale basically. It's probably not that different where you are either.

It looks like we are in for another very good season, we'll definitely get Europe but will depend on how Man U and Chelsea do whether we make top 5. Chelsea are improving and Man U have signed a striker in Hojlund who looks like he might turn them around. They'll be just as worried about us though.

The thing is, when we bought him, no one was under any illusions he had any significant skills, we just thought he's a guy who could put the ball in the net. He didn't for us though, but not going to complain, we did well enough with him in the side, and we got a good chunk of our money back.

They also darkened his skin to make him look a bit more evil.

It's not. The other one got a police inquiry for racist undertones.

What's worse is that it will set him back another few months when he does come back, he needed this season to acclimatise to the pace of the game over here. Anyway, we have to put this behind us once his punishment is handed down. Hopefully it's only 12 months, I think we've been punished enough considering as a club we've done nothing wrong.

Best game I've ever seen him play. Hard to believe this is the same player we had with Bruce in charge. I still feel disappointed when I see him starting tbh, but if I didn't know that was Murphy out there I'd have been raving about the performance. I wonder if there's a bit of James Milner about him in that he's got all the tools, just never really had the belief he was as good as he can be until the right coach got to work on him. That goal was still a fluke though.

Just another day in the office for him, when's he ever handled one badly?

I'm hoping it has opened up a huge can of worms in Italian football. If we are going to get shafted because of what went on over there, then serious questions need to be asked. I don't see why NUFC should be bankrolling their mistakes. The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that we'll see dirty details emerge from what was happening when Sandro was actually in Italy.

Yep. Then we can terminate him.

Worst case scenario and he lands a 3 year ban, we still can't terminate his contract without writing off the £55m transfer fee. The whole situation seems ludicrous. How does a club end up paying all the costs if a player ends up doing something illegal?

Yep. I find the "I'm not that bothered" statements a bit irritating, he's a key member of our squad, and yes, he's played against all the best teams, and this certainly isn't going to help him get acclimatised. It's not like we can go out and get a replacement easily either since we've invested a lot of our funds on him.

I think so.

Well I have no problem with Merson working with Sky Sports other than he's shit. Getting away from his lack of credibility as a tv pundit though, there is a difference between alcohol addiction and gambling addiction (in this particular case) as it's illegal. Being an alcoholic isn't.

I didn't say anything about him working for Sky Sports.

Being an alcoholic isn't illegal though. Sports betting in your own league is, and that's why he'll get the book thrown at him.

So was mine

The point was, it might be an "illness" but what he's done is illegal. Otherwise we could just get him help and leave it at that.

I just don't like Paul Merson tbh.

I think that's tongue in cheek mind.

That's all we need, Paul Merson chucking his hat in the ring. "Ooh! It's an illness!" Ok fine, don't prosecute him then, get him some treatment instead.

I sincerely hope you're right. We've done nothing wrong here, if there's any chance we can get some compensation then we must pursue it.