Andy

We don't have new owners yet though. Yeah that’s what the discussion is, is this a Ashley is staying decision or not. The club still has to keep going, offering new contracts isn't relevant to the takeover. It isn't in the interests of Ashley/Charnley to lose players they consider assets, when there's still the potential for this deal to later fall through and them have lost said assets.

The only way to eliminate piracy is to massively increase the value of the subscription. COVID-19 is the perfect excuse to get away from 3pm kick offs and look to broadcast every match on a permanent basis, if I could watch every match over the course of a season, I'd be willing to pay good money for it. Hand-picking games, however, devalues it for me since at least half of the choices are games I couldn't give a toss about.

Piracy won't destroy the game, like. These tv empires losing out on money is probably the best way of getting the game back, if anything, not that I'm condoning it or owt.

His end product is underrated, definitely made to look worse by the taties he's passing to. He's pretty good for getting his head up and looking for a team mate when he's in dangerous areas.

Decent performance. Looked a lot more comfortable in the possession than normal, probably due to the lack of fans causing the players to shit themselves less.

Denied a clear goal kick opportunity.

WTO have that right. PL just have their test, part of which is not having been involved with piracy, which imo this report is miles from proving as far as PIF is concerned. The problem is, from what I gather, the Premier league don't need watertight "proof" to reject it; if they think that the Saudis are responsible (either proactively or by turning a blind eye) or that they're not doing enough, they can reject the takeover on the grounds of reasonable belief. I've read plenty to contradict the above as well mind, and the money that's already been put down may well cause a legal shitstorm, so who knows. (Nobody, it seems) It's clearly up in the air, but at the stage we're now at I don't really understand those who are jumping on people with a more negative perspective, at the moment the takeover is clearly in the balance and could go either way. It's certainly not a cast iron certainty that it will go through and this place will be a mess if it doesn't.

Not sure how I feel about this at the moment. There's both negative and positive spin to take away from this report, and neither perspective is more accurate than the other. If it's a key factor in the premier league's decision I'd say this takeover is very much on a knife-edge at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if they told them to go away and come back in a year when they've done more to crack down on piracy.

One of those players that might improve without the crowds.

We should, by default, be taking anything anyone says with a pinch of salt. All sources on this are reporting second hand information that was probably based on a lot of guesswork to begin with. Even information direct from the buyers and sellers isn't reliable. Turning on people because their information turned out to be off the mark is bollocks, this is such a volatile deal that it's likely the tide is turning constantly and what was accurate one minute may not be accurate the next. If you're getting your knickers in a twist over people's information turning out to be false, it's on you for pinning all your hopes on it to begin with imo.

No it's no conspiracy, but could potentially disrupt their cash flow for a few years and no business likes uncertainty in their figures beyond annual growth. If Newcastle got into the top regions of the league they'd probably suffer a drop at least initially, and this has the potential to disrupt their growth plans for the next few years. Would be interesting to see what kind of hit they took when Leicester won a few years back. Almost a pity it was pretty much a one off (despite this seasons good form). Football reputations and finances generally change pretty quickly barring some exceptions based on massively extended success. We're probably the best example, showing how quick and easy it is to fall behind. From being one of the biggest earners in mid-90's and a couple of years early 2000's we've gone to a club just making up the numbers. A few better decisions over the last 15 years and it could easily have been us sitting in the Tottenham/Arsenal/Liverpool situation. Doubt the idea of their league having the two richest owners in world football competing against each other would be seen as a negative like.

Nah, shows a complete lack of decency in the current situation to say something like that. You know that most likely there are people here struggling financially who could use the money yet you decide to write that instead of just keeping your opinions to yourself. Err, it was ManDoon making the comment not me, I'm saying why some of us can't stand sections of our support. And yeah, keep talking about 'decency' in a thread where everyone's frothing at the gash for their football club to be owned by baby bombers. My heart bleeds. I was only quoting you because you were defending him. The "you" was still directed to ManDoon if that wasnt clear. I have no idea what the rest of your post has to do with the original comment or mine. The rest of the post is implying that no one desperate for the club to be owned by the Saudi's is in any position to tell others what is and isn't decent. Not saying you're one of the former in this case, but those clapping are. I for one can't wait for my club to be owned by mass murdering baby bombers, it's been my number one criteria for years.

Those comments about him not giving a shite if Hatem didn't track back because he was a match winner were very refreshing to read tbh.

Are you really saying you can knock a multi-million pound deal back, based on a reasonable opinion without evidence Well thats exactly what the rules say so yeah Think you need to do a bit more research on law: An opinion is a judgment based on facts, an honest attempt to draw a reasonable conclusion from factual evidence We are talking about the internal rules of a company explaining how they run their business. Their rules clearly give them enough room to decide what ever they want when it's in the grey area. I doubt there's a section in UK law about who gets to play in the Premierleague? Yes, I think there is a struggle in peoples minds between Law and Business. PL could conclude whatever they want but it would need to be watertight, otherwise they will get sued for damages etc, which would cost the PL a fortune. They may have some evidence that hasnt been divulged. It would need to be extremely watertight for them to reject it with what would amount to criminal allegations.

I don't get twitter. What exactly is he referring to here? https://twitter.com/LiamD3991/status/1263120248179433472?s=19 ?s=19 That's the 1 (liam d's teeet) was replying to. He's suggesting that since yesterday, when he said it was still with the PL, something has changed. I want to believe, but I’m just not getting that sense from that tweet at all. Worth pointing out for context that the conversation is taking place on John Richardson's thread saying the deal has got the go ahead. That makes it seem pretty positive to me.

Hmmm... that does seem like strange wording from George... I'm guessing he's trying to get hold of his source as we speak. Sorry. I've been busy with work all day. I managed to read that James Richardson tweet. But I don't understand this Caulkin tweet. Is it something positive or negative? Can anyone explain it to me? It seems to insinuate that the deal may no longer be in the hands of the premier league. Maybe.

There just isn't really that much more to discuss. The bid is in the same place it was a month ago by all accounts.

think this is applies to basically all of us apart form Hugz and Dave, and Dave hasn't been online for about a decade.

The same person who told me Steve McClaren had already agreed to be the next NUFC manager 3 months before he got the job. Stuck £100 on him @ 12/1. Happy days. Wait he agreed to take the job 3 months before he did, yet turned it down for the last 3 games of the season a month and a half before he finally took the job? Aye nae bother A few of us won a lot of money from information we were given about McClaren! Let's see what happens here now. It'll be out in the open by the weekend. Let's be ridiculous and pretend you're telling the truth - why would a source who is close enough to NUFC's current board to know who they wanted as a manager, also be close enough to the internal committee at the premier league who are making this decision?

Yup. Again, the PL are not a court of law, they can't just overturn this in contradiction to a previous court ruling without evidence that they'd be absolutely certain would hold up this time in court, as that's where they would ultimately end up. Rejecting this on the basis of PIF being involved directly in piracy would be a massive and damaging allegation on their behalf, I really can't see them going down that route. The Premier League - in performing their own 'fit and proper person' test - are not in any way constrained by rulings made in French courts. The Premier League is not privy to the evidence that was or was not submitted during the case in Paris. If evidence is submitted to the Premier League that they consider compelling, then they will and are entitled to judge it on its own merits. You're missing my point. My point is that if they were to make this kind of allegation, they'd need to be prepared for it to hold up in a future legal battle - as they'd almost certainly face one. Given that it's already been dismissed in French court, that's a dangerous road for them to cross.

Yup. Again, the PL are not a court of law, they can't just overturn this in contradiction to a previous court ruling without evidence that they'd be absolutely certain would hold up this time in court, as that's where they would ultimately end up. Rejecting this on the basis of PIF being involved directly in piracy would be a massive and damaging allegation on their behalf, I really can't see them going down that route.

You'd imagine that for this to stop the takeover it would have to be legally incriminating enough to hold up in court during what would surely be a massive legal battle. Don't think it's worth worrying about, personally, as I seriously doubt the Premier League have got the will or balls to go that far with it.

I also regularly read the Sunderland and Middlesbrough boards and despite them performing even worse than us over the past Decade they certainly haven't had the huge drop off in posters this one has. There's certainly more to it than team performance. Anyone thinking otherwise is kidding themselves. You got pelters because you were a prick. One minute slagging the fans attending, the next you were going to the match, then back to slagging the fans before 'oh, whoops, got a season ticket'. So little self-awareness it's unreal. You get pelters for that yet 4 years ago someone told me they wanted Adam Johnson to rape my then 3 year old son which most of the usual suspects found hilarious. Such a bizarre place really. What a load of bollocks. It's hardly something I'm going to make up like! About 4 years ago. 99% certain it was on a Sunday night. Link?

Don't think there's a clique on here like, just a lot of people with similar views and interests. Anyway, there's my input on the issue, I'm off to the secret hidden forum to bitch about all the newbies.

Heard from a source that this will happen next week, unless it doesn't happen next week, which is also what I've heard.