Chris_R

When the players run out to Local Hero it just makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Can't think of anything better for the team to run onto the pitch to.

That's good enough to avoid relegation most seasons. We should be happy with that and not get ideas above our station.

And half the posts here are just laughing about how much they post about us.

He's about to get £8m in exchange for not going to work. I somehow doubt he's shitting himself.

Surely if £8 million is more than his remaining contact value, we just make him go peel potatoes or whatever until he's a free agent?

He does that by being 17th in the PL though. That was his modus operandi with us, when we got relegated he pushed to get us back up again because he needed the brand exposure and TV money. He's not a (total) idiot. He'll likely get Derby to the PL and try to keep them there. Of course I hope he tries and fails, and that it's a massive disaster. But he has the resources to do it if he wants and it would make sense. Much as I hate Ashley, this could be good for Derby and a massive improvement on what they're used to. The same outcome for 2 teams can be good for one and bad for the other, there's no contradiction there.

Ashley wants a team who will bumble around in 17th in the PL. For Derby, that's a dream. For us, that was a nightmare. If he does for them what he did for us, they'd rightly be happy.

I mean, they're not wrong.

Loving the saltiness of the other clubs. Them and their fans have always had it in for us and tried to keep us down, well fuck them. I'm gonna stop referring to the 'big 6' from now on, there's just the 'small 19'.

You think they're that upset that this will cause them to learn to write?

Only problem with Conte is that he doesn't play with wingers. Can we see ASM as a wingback?

Yeah Gerrard has proven nothing. Souness won plenty with Rangers, ffs. Gerrard could be the best manager in the world for all we know, but Scottish success is meaningless.

Yeah I noticed that. Very deliberate cropping!

What would be really hilarious is if now this has all gone through, the CAT case got thrown out. The fewm from the PL HQ would be hilarous.

Almost everyone wants progress, but admittedly at different rates. Many admit for example that they drink alcohol, and are happy that women are getting to drive now. I've had political debates over there where I bemoaned Brexit, where one of the guys said "At least you got to decide", though I doubt he'd have said that if he wasn't in a safe environment where nobody could overhear him! Generally, the young are more desiring of change and at a quicker rate than the older people who have already seen a massive change from their youth when they were basically a nomadic people with a desert lifestyle. For those older people, they've already lived through change far beyond anything we can comprehend and are understandably struggling with the concept of too much more. One of the guys I know best out there is an older man, maybe 55-60. He does admit progress is needed and indeed wanted but is scared of losing his cultural identity and I do understand that. He's shown me much of that culture, I've been to his house for traditional Arabic coffee and I had a meal with him there, he's taken me into the desert and to their markets, I've been to local restaurants with him. He's right that his culture is unique, and fascinating, and it therefore is important. He doesn't want to be "westernised", but he does realise that progress is necessary. But progress is not necessarily westernisation, and nor should it be. He's a staunch Muslim, and any change must fit in with his religion. Some of the younger guys are well up for change though. Although the country is officially "dry", homebrew is rife and if you're in Dhahran then getting a car over to Bahrain to get smashed on a weekend is something that loads of people do, including many locals. I've seen so much progress over the years I've been going there. When I first went, there wasn't even any cinema in the country. Now it's there. Women can now drive. You can get tourist visas now which until about 2 years ago was impossible. Alcohol will be available in certain areas very soon. It IS moving forward, and remarkably quickly considering, but you simply cannot rip up a country's identity overnight, you have to bring the people along with you and that's taking time. People need time to adapt. Clearly, shit like beheading criminals and chopping up journalists is beyond disgusting. I cannot and will not ever make excuses for some of the things there. But America executes criminals too, the Saudis are not unique in this. Religion also plays a massive part in the local people's lives with the call to prayer playing out from dawn to dusk and work stopping when it does. Restaurants close, shutters come down on shops. It's strange when you first see it but you adapt. I personally think all religion is utter nonsense but again, there's fundamentalist Christian countries (Again, America!) where things are just as crazy so I won't single out Islam for criticism on that front. I don't know any women there. I'm basically not allowed to interact with any local ones, so I've only got male perspectives as far as locals go, but they genuinely think that many of their customs are not to degrade or subjugate women, but for their protection. They believe men cannot be trusted not to assault or abuse women, so they cover them up. To us it's a fucked-up view, but then there's cases like Sarah Everard. Indeed every week, loads of women are abused and raped in this country. Clearly we shouldn't put everyone in a Burka, and I see education of men as the solution rather than that, but it's hard to say with a straight face that the Saudis are completely crazy about men being untrustworthy around women. As I say though, I am yet to get a local woman's perspective on that, and doubt I ever will. I also know lots of expats over there. They are generally just there for the money, think the country is a shithole and spend their days getting hammered on homebrew in the compounds which are almost entirely westernised. The compounds I've stayed on even have bars selling alcohol, brewed by the expats in their houses. Most of the expats seem like borderline alcoholics which is hilarious given it's a dry country, but there's sod-all else to do because they have to start work at 6, are finished by 2, and once back in their compound there's literally nothing to do except eat, watch TV, or get pissed. Most of them don't speak a word of Arabic, even if they've been there 30 years, and just work, shop, and then go straight back home. To be honest I think I've seen more of the country than many of them have.

Actually, I'll indulge you. I have serious reservations about Saudi Arabia as a country / regime. I have also worked in Saudi Arabia for many months, travelling there on 8 occasions. I've worked in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dhahran. I've taken their money and have local people there I class as friends, whose houses I've been to and families I have met. I'll likely be back again soon, probably next year. If I'm going to do that in my professional life, it would be massively hypocritical of me to sack off the football club I've supported all my life over this new ownership. My overriding feeling now is one of relief. I have hated my football club and what it has become for a decade at least, and that has left me with no football to enjoy or to watch, and no team to support. To have the opportunity to have that back again because we now have an owner who promises to at least try to improve is a massive relief. I can still enjoy that side of things whilst continuing to have deep reservations about how the Saudi state operates.

I like that the old owner is gone.

Joined up 8 minutes ago, 9 posts, 8 of which are spamming a video into every thread around. Wearside IP address, perchance? Or a bitter "Big 6" fan? Which is it?

There's at least 2 threads that you haven't posted that in yet.

... we were excited to be getting Ossie Ardiles as manager

Isn't it more about maintaining editorial independence, though? If the club start contributing to the cost, there may (rightly or wrongly) be murmurings about whether they have any say in the content of the flags.

He achieved good results, of course. But he had a fantastic team with which to do it. And on the flip side, his teams play shit football, and he's incapable of effectively using substitutes to change a game. In fact, from what I saw he's almost incapable of using substitutes at all.

Southgate is not a great manager, and his teams play shit football. He's a good bloke, seems a genuinely decent person, but he's not the man for this job at all.

Fucking boss keeps asking me to do "work". Not impressed.

So, are we filthy rich yet? Oh, YES WE FUCKING ARE!!