Colos Short and Curlies

It's not being aggrieved that's an issue - of course they will be winners and losers in any scenario. It's more a legal position (of course I don't know what the actual terms regarding season finishes are, and there may not actually be any legal recourse available) and it is guaranteed that Villa and Bournemouth would take the league to court if the season was cancelled and they were relegated, similarly Leeds / West Brom if they weren't promoted

You could probably put together an argument for Norwich, but 4 points cover 5 places above them. With 10% of the season to go you can't just say to Villa and Bournemouth sorry but you are down without the league getting tied up in legal cases for months. Leeds, West Brom etc will massively kick off form the other side if the season is voided but legally it would be easier to defend. Cancelling the regular season then having small round robin competitions with the top 6 (one game vs each team, home or away luck of the draw), the bottom 6 (same rules) to determine Europe and relegation and then the same for the top 6 in the Championship etc to determine promotions. That's 5 games, which you could fit in over 3 weeks with midweek games

Whatever happens with the season it is quite funny that what has been an amazing league season for Liverpool is going to be remembered for a lot of other things and being champions is almost going to be a footnote

There's going to be some interesting consequences should the like be voided or determined to be complete before 38 games have been played. Forget about the Champions, in the scale of things that's meaningless but the clubs in the bottom 3 now / top 2 in the next league down experience a massive cash difference to staying up or going down. Legal cases abound. The Euro's being cancelled could be the saviour for the leagues if it allows for games to continue into June/July. I'd be cancelling the FA Cup now

If you go on the 2 week rule for symptoms to show then you go back to Leicesters games in March (Norwich, Birmingham, Villa) then the knock on of games Norwich have played (Spurs, Sheff Utd) and Birmingham have played (Reading) then you need to at least suspend this weeks games involving any of these 6 teams to lay it safe. Spurs have of course played since playing Norwich in Europe. Lets say the games go ahead, in the space of 2 weeks you've got nigh on 15 teams (150+ players) that have a link in the accepted isolation time frame to one club. It just makes sense to take an easy decision of halting games for a period of time. Of course no football is a pain, but its not exactly a life changing measure

One other thing with Ashley is that he has no idea on when to sell players. He sees an increasing value being a permanent fixture and never sees a cash out point - see Cabaye, Y and Tiote, C as examples. Unless a stupid bid comes in for ASM or Miggy (£60m plus) then they will be here next year and they will either leave at the end of their contract, when we get relegated or get pushed out of the team and end up on loan in Greece Disagree. He sold Carroll and Cabaye at the highest point arguably perez too. Demba Ba forced his hand with the clause in his contract. Carroll was a stupid offer (as in my £60m example for ASM), Cabaye was more attractive in the summer when more clubs were after him. Perez was also a contract clause, without it he would still be here. Without it the contract likely wouldn't have been signed and he would have left for next to nowt. Not assessing the reasoning behind the clause, (and I think we are agreeing in our posts) just saying that without the clause we keep Perez in the summer and lose him for a lot less than £30m this year or next after his form dips

Why should Liverpool play anyone for the title at all, let alone start again from even footing For shits and giggles, no other reason.

One other thing with Ashley is that he has no idea on when to sell players. He sees an increasing value being a permanent fixture and never sees a cash out point - see Cabaye, Y and Tiote, C as examples. Unless a stupid bid comes in for ASM or Miggy (£60m plus) then they will be here next year and they will either leave at the end of their contract, when we get relegated or get pushed out of the team and end up on loan in Greece Disagree. He sold Carroll and Cabaye at the highest point arguably perez too. Demba Ba forced his hand with the clause in his contract. Carroll was a stupid offer (as in my £60m example for ASM), Cabaye was more attractive in the summer when more clubs were after him. Perez was also a contract clause, without it he would still be here.

One other thing with Ashley is that he has no idea on when to sell players. He sees an increasing value being a permanent fixture and never sees a cash out point - see Cabaye, Y and Tiote, C as examples. Unless a stupid bid comes in for ASM or Miggy (£60m plus) then they will be here next year and they will either leave at the end of their contract, when we get relegated or get pushed out of the team and end up on loan in Greece

Protecting the Euros, and looking for a clever way to prevent Liverpool winning the league

Cancel the season now for a minimum of 4 weeks. Once things settle a bit have the top 6/8 play a mini tournament to determine the champions and European places. For the relegation/promotion slots the top 6 in the Championship and the bottom 6 in the Premier League have mini tournaments to determine ups and downs (repeated across the pyramid) Put some excitement into things

Is Ashley the overriding problem? Of course he is, however.. Would Steve Bruce deliver better results, performance and longer term improvement under a different owner? I'd say not Would another manager be capable of delivering better than Steve Bruce under Ashley's ownership and remit? I'd say that there are managers out there who can deliver decent football and league finishes under the restrictions Ashley places on the club. Yes there will be no long term stability or plan but Bruce is under performing on what our back 5 (or 6) plus ASM and Almiron provide. Therefore Bruce is the immediate issue

Time to concentrate on the cup. Yay

Criminally under capped for England but no shame in being behind Ince, Gazza, Redknapp and Platt.reckon he would have connected with the cross that Gazza just couldn't against Germany mind He'd be England's best midfielder if he was playing now, looking back on the mid 90s options we had some talent there ad a country.

Not Cabaye, Lee or Speed? I can't really comment on Lee, I never saw him. I didn't really pay much attention to Speed. Young me saw him as boring next to Solano, Dyer and Robert. ((Actually Solano might be a good shout for a template too)) Cabaye was brilliant, but I loved the way Emre seemed to have ball carrying, passing and a cracking strike on him aswell. If you want to be entertained/become depressed (about now) grab some decent highlights from the Keegan years to watch Lee. He was absolutely brilliant.

Not Cabaye, Lee or Speed?

Would've been great! And for £65M aswell!!!?? it would be like all the modern stadiums. a souless meccano style bowl. it was rightly stopped. St James Park forever. Take down the student flats and build them elsewhere to get round listed building regualtions. build over east stand and gallowgate to complete the current ground. As long as MA is the owner there is no need to expand, if we get taken over by some mega rich bloke/country then we'll be building a new stadium in time rather than expanding SJP. The time to have a fully complete SJP has passed unfortunately

See the scenes at the end of the Derby/Man U match last night. Handshakes and hugs all round.

Rather lose to them now then embarrassed at Wembley. Would quite like City to do the cup treble, marginalise Liverpool season somewhat. Unless of course the coronavirus leads to Premier league season being cancelled, which would of course be glorious in this season

Worst Football Club owner of the decade. Hmm, I mean Owen Oyston raped a lass. But those jeans

I'll say it again. The defence are Rafa's players, the attacking players bar Miggy are Bruce's. So how is our attacking play shackled by the ghost of Rafa?

This could of course be the Chronicle's reporting but so many inconsistencies/inaccuracies in such a short sentance "Jonjo has trained, Manquillo is back and all of a sudden we have 20 or so outfield players out there. You can only pick 11 and the other 10 will be disappointed. Most of the players understand that without a squad you won't survive. I expect half-a-dozen players won't be happy."

Whilst those free kicks were good, they pale into insignificance against his volleys vs Spurs

Not sure Bernard would agree with that, 100% rocket launcher from his experience

At football or somersaults?