Chris_R

PMd you my bank details. Ta.

Giant tifo of this would be perfect. Happy to chuck in a fiver if you can do it.

Us going down and them going up truly is their last hope. In their minds, our takeover then unravels, the Saudis walk, and we're equals again. They must cling to this no matter how tiny the possibility of it coming to fruition, because the alternative is to admit that they'll be in our shadow for decades and we'll be out of reach. Every match they lose and especially every match we win will utterly break them. If we stop up, I imagine they'll utterly implode as a fanbase.

Trippier and ASM were outstanding and spent 90 minutes vying for the MOTM award, then along came Bruno and stole it from them in the dying moments.

Same here to be fair. I'd also let him finish inside you.

I'm about a 3 or a 4. It's looking like we should be ok, but we're not out of it.

Do. Not. Sit. For. 30. Minutes.

Honestly I love his midfield work, but I'd fine Joelinton £1k for every time he took a step in the opposition penalty area.

It's a sliding scale, of course, but all those teams should be doing better than they are, absolutely. I agree nobody has a "right" to be in the PL, not at all. That's the whole reason we have promotion and relegation. But the fans of those teams, and Sunderland and Derby, have an absolute right to expect to be doing better than they are. They are underachieving. When we were relegated, we didn't think "Well that's it, we're now a Championship club, we deserve no better". Sure, we accepted it for what it was, we deserved to go down, but we knew we were historically a PL club that should be looking to get back there. History and club size DO matter. And by that metric, Sunderland, Derby, Forest and Wednesday should be in or around the PL. Portsmouth should probably be very close too. Wigan less so, one flukey FA cup win looks great for them but their history overall and club size don't put them in the same bracket as the others but they should still want and expect to be more than they are. Success comes from finances. Sure, billionaires skew this, but historically club size (ie fan base size) has been a massive determinant in success because that's where your money comes from to buy good players. And success breeds success - Players want to play for clubs who have won things recently (not the clubs above, I'm talking generally here) because they think that will increase their chances of winning something again. Nobody deserves or has a right to anything, but certain clubs are clearly bigger than others. Hate Sunderland all you want, but they do belong in or around the PL in terms of history and club size and to suggest otherwise is a bit silly.

2 league titles in the 70s and a ECL semi final for Derby. More than we've done in a lot longer than that... Sunderland have a 49k stadium (9th biggest in England, ours is 8th) and a passionate fan base, and could easily be getting that pretty full most weeks if they were doing OK in the PL. They've also won both the league and the cup more recently than we have. Pride Park is 16th biggest stadium, fwiw. It's just petty to argue they don't belong in the PL, or at least in the very upper echelons of the Championship vying for promotion every year because they clearly do in terms of history, achievements, and size of club. In short, both are presently well below where they "belong". (+1 place to everyone's stadium size if you discount Wembley, which we probably should)

Derby, and especially Sunderland, are PL teams. For them, "Punching well below their weight" might still be a lot better than they're doing now, and most of their fan base would quite rightly be happy with that. Again, I hate Ashley and he's a fucking parasite and an abhorrent, vindictive, thin-skinned man child who took away my enjoyment of football and made me want my own team to lose. But he's also a billionaire. Rich beyond our wildest imaginations and rich beyond the imaginations of almost all the owners outside the PL. He'll speculate to accumulate, he did with us. He'll splurge money in the Championship to get to the PL, because he knows once he's there he can just trouser £100m/year and advertise his tat shops freely across the globe. To suggest he cannot do this is just incorrect. He wants, no NEEDS to make money, and the money is in the PL.

Personally I wouldn't eat them, no. I wouldn't eat any animal I'd kept as a pet though so even bearded dragons I'd say were off the table for me. I understand other cultures eat other animals though. I've traveled extensively and eaten some strange things whilst doing so. If someone else was tucking into a dog burger opposite me, I'd be massively hypocritical to call them out on it whilst eating my bacon sandwich given that pigs are reckoned the equal to dogs intelligence-wise.

If we weren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

This. Ashley absolutely has the resources to easily have Sunderland in the Championship pushing for the PL each year, maybe in the PL regularly. The man's a billionaire after all. And Sunderland are big enough to take our place as his "Aim for 17th with minimal investment every year in the PL whilst advertising SD for free", and he'd rightly be lauded by them if that's what he did. Ashley isn't bad for every club. Just his ambition of "17th and no higher" in the PL was bad for us based on our recent history. If he did the same elsewhere, it'd be great for loads of clubs, including Sunderland and Derby. Really need him to take over a media darling like Spurs or West Ham or someone and drag them down to relegation fights every year. Not that he'd spend that amount buying them, that ship has sailed, but football has changed over the last decade and a half to the point where he could never afford to buy a club of our size again. Don't get me wrong, he's a fucking parasitic worm and I hate him for what he did to Newcastle. But with us he broke his modus operandi and purchased a viable going concern and then turned it into a bargain bin part of his tat emporium. For many distressed and failing clubs, that's a step up they can only dream of taking and to an extent (and only a small extent) I understand outside reaction to him from those who support those smaller clubs. Personally I'd rather have Sunderland owned by someone with absolutely no resources at all.

People are allowed to be wrong, and to later correct their opinions.

Ironically, "Just do it" was inspired by the last words of condemned murderer Gary Gilmour when facing the firing squad, and ad advertising exec decided it would be a good slogan for Nike. (Gilmore actually said "Let's do it", but the advertising exec decided "Just do it" sounded better)

Anyone suggesting Joelinton gets even 1 minute of time up front has clearly never seen him take a shot at goal. Just no.

He's the thinnest skinned man alive. But we've known this for over a decade. Total child.

To be fair he made a difference to us. Took over a club that regularly played in Europe and turned us into perennial relegation candidates. That's quite a difference. Did it all without even spending any money, too.

Seemingly not, but so what if it is? I'd mock low attendances rather than high ones. 38k in that league is a good attendance, no matter the context or anything. Hopefully we never find out. Sure, we've historically almost always had higher attendances than them whatever the league we were both in but it's not a given. Until a few months ago, many of us (myself included) were quite happy to sack the club off entirely, never go again, and were baffled that others were still rocking up and handing Fat Mike their hard earned each week. If Ashley had stayed and took us down to L1 for 4 years, I'm not sure I can be absolutely certain that we'd get over 38k, even if it was because of organised protests against his tenure. As I say though, hopefully we never find out.

I'll mock them for a lot, but not for getting 38,000 in L1, whatever the reason.

Yeah like others I have a lot of time for Hayden.

You'd think Sky are paying Keane way more than Sunderland can offer him?

If true, that's an impressive level of arrogance/stupidity/psychopathy.