Raconteur

I know it doesn't mean much, but Fraser in - Ritchie out seems good (Ashley style) business. If Ritchie is the makeweight for Wilson and Fraser is coming in anyway, that's quite a boost for the first team...

Nah, I didn’t/don’t like Mitrovic either

Sorry, but you'll never convince me as to Morelos' worth - not like we're going to find out anyway. I only mentioned Edouard because that's the price of a good striker from Scotland, whereas the quoted price for a shite one is less than half. I don't make up the numbers (the papers do!) Both of them are more than Ashley is willing to pay... Hang on a second Morelos has 46 goals and Édouard 40 , admittedly in less games surely they are much of a muchness though haven’t seen either play much - Morelos has looked lively and good whenever I’ve seen him Well, to that I’d say that Morelos is to Eduoard as was Kevin Phillips 99-00 to Shearer and Yorke (same year). Last I’ll say - no one’s going to convince anyone of anything here...

Sorry, but you'll never convince me as to Morelos' worth - not like we're going to find out anyway. I only mentioned Edouard because that's the price of a good striker from Scotland, whereas the quoted price for a shite one is less than half. I don't make up the numbers (the papers do!) Both of them are more than Ashley is willing to pay...

Er, I didn't suggest Joelinton adds anything? I said that adding something (Morelos) who adds nothing (ie is shite) is worse than persisting with our current striking group

Seems to me that Keegan had Terry Mac to put out the cones and organise team functions, Bobby had Carver...

The sad thing is if we want him we could get him. Chelsea have decided to move him on, particularly as he is in the final year of his contract now, and they will be using Werner, Abraham and Giroud, while Havertz can also play up top. Going to be interesting to see who we end up with, if anyone. There are a decent number of options out there in the likes of Callum Wilson, Josh King, Alfredo Morelos, Michy Batshuayi, and even Ollie Watkins. It will be terrible if we end up blowing it. Please stop pushing this rumour - it makes me vomit in my mouth every time I read it... Unrealisitc signing? Or you think he's bad? Absolutely awful signing. Not good enough, and frankly broken in the head. Would certainly prefer the money collect interest in Ashley’s account and persist with Joelinton.

John Carver has joined the Scotland national team’s back room staff as an assistant to Steve Clarke. No one else in the world interested...?

The sad thing is if we want him we could get him. Chelsea have decided to move him on, particularly as he is in the final year of his contract now, and they will be using Werner, Abraham and Giroud, while Havertz can also play up top. Going to be interesting to see who we end up with, if anyone. There are a decent number of options out there in the likes of Callum Wilson, Josh King, Alfredo Morelos, Michy Batshuayi, and even Ollie Watkins. It will be terrible if we end up blowing it. Please stop pushing this rumour - it makes me vomit in my mouth every time I read it...

Fantastic. Now we just need to find a serious buyer who will pay Mike £330m in this age of the pandemic that isn't backed by an arab country. Abu Dhabi excepted of course, they are bringing Messi to Manchester and have revitalised the city to their credit. I don’t think that’s as unrealistic as some assume. Roma just got sold, and it looks like Tottenham might be in the process of being sold. In fact, disaster capitalism says this is a good time to buy - and Ashley has shown himself as a believer, given his purchases of failing retail franchises...

Tough call - the young fella on the right is the one who doesn't wear socks

That boat has sailed, with Gayle injured for 3-4 months (of the 11 remaining on his contract). So it's even worse than you posit

Is Hendrick actually playing on the left? And... didn't he leave Burnley because they played him on the left?

Being involved in day-to-day running is not the object of the test. It's all about control which is defined as: “Control” means the power of a Person to exercise, or to be able to exercise or acquire, direct or indirect control over the policies, affairs and/or management of a Club, whether that power is constituted by rights or contracts (either separately or in combination) and having regard to the considerations of fact or law involved, and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, Control shall be deemed to include: (a) the power (whether directly or indirectly and whether by the ownership of share capital, by the possession of voting power, by contract or otherwise including without limitation by way of membership of any Concert Party) to appoint and/or remove all or such of the members of the board of directors of the Club as are able to cast a majority of the votes capable of being cast by the members of that board; and/or (b) the holding and/or possession of the beneficial interest in, and/or the ability to exercise the voting rights applicable to, Shares in the Club (whether directly, indirectly (by means of holding such interests in one or more other persons) or by contract including without limitation by way of membership of any Concert Party) which confer in aggregate on the older(s) thereof 30 per cent or more of the total voting rights exercisable at general meetings of the Club. For the purposes of the above, any rights or powers of a Nominee for any Person or of an Associate of any Person or of a Connected Person to any Person shall be attributed to that Person PIF would have to prove objectively that their governance is entirely separate and outside the influence of MBS/KSA (which is in effect the same thing). I think that is a very hard argument to prove. Why would no Saudi law firm take up the PL in their attempts to combat BeOutQ? How can any Saudi body of wealth (let alone one legally benefiting the state) be independent in the light of MBS' previous actions? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017-19_Saudi_Arabian_purge) So when PIF present a verdict from the Saudi court saying PIF is independent, it really carries zero weight. I'm guessing here, but in my view it is likely the PL made the PIF-MBS connections very quickly (it should take less than a minute if you go on their website- www.pif.gov.sa/en/Pages/Boradmembers.aspx) and the consortium then spent time trying to find various alternate ways around the inevitable, ultimately unsuccessfully. And FWIW, in the example you gave yes Charles would be considered a Director for the purposes of the test unless his ownership was through a sufficiently independent trust structure to convince the PL he would not be able to place influence over the club. It's not uncommon for monarchs to be considered beneficial owners of assets and be subject to financial crime monitoring as anyone else could be- in fact they are usually required to be subject to enhanced measures vs the man in the street. "Control" is absolutely what it came down to. The bolded comment is something that a lot of people say "yeah, but" in response, but can't actually deny. So maybe it "should" have been rejected, but it was never getting approved.

For only £4m as well. He had a release clause specifically for Chinese clubs. Can’t credit this - one of only two Aussies holding their own in the PL and he fucks off to the backwaters for cashola. Bad news for the national team

Didn’t our resident Liverpool fan say he’d rather Origi left so Brewster could step up as the understudy? If we’re playing with loans and frees, we could do a lot worse...

Don’t know what you lot are complaining about - didn’t we just sign Mark Gillespie? Surely Bruce wouldn’t have chosen to sign him if he wasn’t capable of making the step up...

Chest, head, right, left volley - all the target man skills. Good thing Lascelles put it on his chest though, and he didn't have to move a foot to either side. Our "impact sub" option

Is the thinking that between Morelos and Carroll we might be able to field one striker? Think I'd prefer Wellbeck

.com reporting it will be finalised on Sunday

He’s a kid with good potential, and he’ll develop exactly as well as his coaching and environment allows. So, not expecting much more...

Am I the only one who thinks Bruce would be delighted to sell those fancy continental centre halves for whatever he can, in order to flesh out his frugal dealings and cement Bruceball as our style?

I think the only dream left for those who want to dream is Staveley wins her billion-and-a-half lawsuit and fills the hole herself.

Well, that makes my comment completely retarded