Chris_R

There's a lot of incredibly entitled people on here, saying the PL are "being unreasonable" or that the "delays are unacceptable". Give over. I'm as frustrated as anyone, but it has fuck all to do with us as fans and we have zero right to hear anything from the PL, and they're absolutely within their rights to take as long as they want to come to a decision without telling us anything. People even talking about pressurising the PL to make a decision ffs, what decision do you think that'll be then? "Oh, you're not happy with us continuing to try to resolve this and you want to know today? OK then: No". Have a word with yourselves.

I don't think football matches at SJP has delayed this like. They're just not done with the negotiations with the Saudis yet over piracy. As soon as that's either concluded to the PL's satisfaction, or the Saudis say "No, we're not doing that", then we'll have a resolution. Until then, it'll drag on.

This is very true. It makes perfect sense for the PL to take a few months to stamp out piracy in a whole region instead of just outright rejecting a takeover, which was the only other option for them really. This way, if the Saudis clamp down on piracy and then the takeover goes through, everyone comes out of this as winners: - The PL stamp out piracy so are seen to be doing good things in the O&Ds test - The Saudis get their takeover - BeIN see their rights being protected which will sit well with other rights holders too

Until it passes, it's possible for it to fail. To protect my emotional wellbeing, I will continue to assume it will collapse until it actually passes. I look forward to being wrong.

I don't think it will be extremes for most. I reckon the long wait has dampened everyone's expectations. A quick shrug of the shoulders and walk away for the majority I reckon now. I'm still "out" in my head, and have been since Rafa left. I can never totally forget Newcastle exist, they'll always be "my" club and can never be replaced by another club, but I'm utterly done with investing energy, money, or emotions into this version of Newcastle United. Football, sadly, has become something I barely even look at now. Who cares what other teams are doing when I don't even have one of my own? I can't remember the last time I watched MOTD or even gave a shit about transfer targets or anything because its all so pointless. If this goes through, I'm back in. I'll be fully onboard. I'll be like a kid again and I look forward to fully embracing football again. It'll be like Christmas, I'll have so much to catch up on because I've held football at arms' length for about a decade. If it doesn't go through, and I've allowed myself throughout to take the stance of assuming it will NOT be going through to avoid investing emotionally in something, then I'll be able to just shrug and walk away. Though I reckon losing a chance of having football back in my life again will still really hurt because I'll not know how long I'll have to be without it for until the next chance comes around, if ever.

At this rate I'll be surprised if it's done before the next one reaches 1000 pages.

Haven't watched a match in ages because I'm so disillusioned. Tuned in to this one and it's only reinforced how utterly pointless following this club is in its present guise. So much hinges on this takeover.

They keep making a thing of ASM losing the ball, but what's he supposed to do when he gets it 5 yards outside his own box, looks up and realises he's the most advanced player?

9-1-0 when defending, transitioning to 9-0-1 for 3 seconds at a time when we get the ball.

188 passes to 15. Fuck me.

This is fucking diabolical like. Don't think I've ever seen such a one-sided match as this.

Said weeks back that we could well be in the appeal stage. Nothing that's happened since has changed my mind, quite the reverse.

Well she'll have to be talking because she's probably run out of stamps.

"Imminent" has now passed, and we're nicely into "Early next week" territory now.

To be fair, if Manquillo and Caroll have signed new contracts then those discussions will have been going on for some time. No way they just woke up this morning and decided to get them on longer deals. For that reason I don't think it has anything to do with there being bad news on the PL's decision because by the time any such deals were signed that news would be out anyway. Which it isn't, so they're not linked.

Really? They could come out of this having agreed massive investment in another one of their member clubs while also seriously denting broadcast piracy. That would be an absolutely massive win. This. This is why - finally - I'm leaning towards the tests passing. (I still refuse to get excited, invested, or actually start to allow myself to believe they'll pass )

Doesn't matter how good Bruce's hidden talents are, if this takeover goes through he's nowhere near good enough for where we want to go. You'd not see his name getting linked with top clubs, so if that's what we want to be then he needs to go.

Thanks for the details.

#canned

Like a new signing.

I'm happy for us to spend 90 minutes knocking it back to Dubravka so he can repeatedly throw it into his own net then.

Think we can consider saying that sometime on Thursday afternoon. Until then, protocol dictates we refer to it as "imminent".

Apart from the Keys abuse, which is all well and good, everything's gone very quiet now. I don't know what to make of this.

It'll be a few hours before he finishes though.

Such great youth setups though...