Chris_R

Are we really going down that road? We're not much better, especially not for almost the entirety of the last seven decades, which is the functioning memory of almost our entire active fan base. "Bald men" and "comb" spring to mind.

I'm going to Dhahran in a couple of weeks, I'll let you know.

Haha looks like we're taking the PL to the cleaners behind the scenes over this, with him at the helm. Nice

If nothing else, just to stop people talking about bloody crisps.

Fair. But Leicester won the league, look at them now. Several teams have snuck into the top 4 every now and again (Villa could do it this year), and the 'big' clubs are quick to point and go "look, it can be done!" but nobody ever sustains it because you have to keep getting those transfers right time and time again, and that's almost impossible. Look at the favoured 6 who can spunk £50-£80m on someone who flops and then just shrug and try again. Without the finances to match the favoured 6, our odds of sustained success are not high.

Sure, things have been in place for a long time. But the goalposts have been moved a few times in the last couple of years, and it's hard not to think it's directly because of our situation.

I wasn't being entirely serious, but it does make you think it's pointless us playing by the rules, especially when they keep changing the rules solely to stop us competing. If our organic progress is going to be limited such that it'll take 10+ years to become a regular European club, it makes a fine and a 3 year European ban or whatever the maximum is they can throw at us seem rather small in comparison. If taking the punishment and coming out the other side still leaves us ahead, we'd be silly not to consider it. Especially when the whole thing is otherwise set up to stop specifically just us from gaining any ground.

So they've set the precedent in writing and you get 3 for breaching PSR rules, and a further 2 if you break it by a lot? I say we crack open the chequebook. I'm sure we can buy at least another 6 points worth of players and come out ahead.

I can laugh say his tenure now, and many of the things he said and did, but his time in charge really encapsulated how far we'd fallen and summed up what a circus we'd become. That said, dementia is awful and in later years I've wished him no ill will. He did seem to care, came here and did his best despite time having moved on since he was good enough for what we needed. RIP Joe.

That's very precise, but at least it's less than 2 hours away.

Not mathematically out of it yet, are they? Can still theoretically match Norwich in 6th and could overtake them on GD if they win 5 and Norwich lose 5. All over bar the shouting though, obviously.

All shit and no fart.

Absolutely desperate for this lad to score. Played nearly 50 games for us and still never found the net. I know that overall contributions are more important, but I really think a goal will help his confidence a massive amount and that'll translate to him being a bit more relaxed on the pitch.

We've seen what they've done with golf, they threw over $1bn at that alone without blinking. Add in F1, boxing and countless other sports, and it's pretty clear to me that they'd go absolutely wild with us if they were allowed to.

So glad we brought Dummett on to shore things up.

If they need to pay £42m to release him now, and he's found to be secretly working for them now, then I'd suggest they need to pay us £42m.

This aged well.

You may be right. But there was so much press noise at the time that it was hard to think this wasn't coming from somewhere, a leak from someone trying to force something. Speculation of course, but that's how it certainly felt. And I'm happy to speculate, this is an internet discussion forum after all, none of us are dealing entirely with only 100% confirmed facts.

Disgusting. What was this person playing at? Don't they know they're supposed to leave them under their seats like everyone else?

If that's the plan from the outset, fair enough. If you genuinely have been happy to wait for his gardening leave to expire from day 1, crack on. However all the indications from news reports are that you're wanting us to fold like a pack of cards and let him leave early for a pittance, because of the 'allure' of him going to Man U. If that's the case I'd rather tell you to get fucked and let him rot in his garden. Especially after how you allegedly behaved over Lingard.

Yet

Stuart Pearce once broke his leg and genuinely wanted to keep playing, even though he knew it was broken. But he was unhinged. In a good way. And of course Man City's GK Bert Trautman famously played half an FA Cup final with a fucking broken neck. You can't make some blanket claim that injuries will always be easy to pick up and that you cannot carry on.

This. He might not be our greatest ever player, but he's captained the club since he was what, 23/4? And in that time he's been a perfect professional and done a cracking job as captain both on and off the pitch.

Hindsight? It looked pretty fucking stupid at the time.