AyeDubbleYoo

What evidence?

I think if the takeover had taken another season I wouldn't be a fan now. I had already binned all my shirts etc and started wanting us to lose. That was about the club though, where this situation is just as much about the sport.

Erm, I think 1. 12 hours ago Downie said he wants to come and it's nearly done.

Why do we believe this and not the tweets that say we're almost done with a deal?

I don't know why that distinction is so important, but I don't have any proof. Surely they would at least do something like double our wage bill and double our transfer budget. That would cost them almost nothing relative to the size and wealth of PIF. They could do that just so Yasir could have a couple more days out at cup finals.

Not sure if it's unpopular but it's completely wrong. Why would they deliberately make things hard for us when they could make them easy?

Worse really, they lost anyone that gives them attacking threat.

We kind of have overcome it, we’ve gone from shite relegation fodder to CL qualifiers and dramatically improved the quality of our team in almost every position. Problem is the players to take you from top 4-6 to top 1-3 need to be absolutely brilliant, as well as giving massive pay rises to the players you already made into elite footballers. That just needs loads of available money. We could be pushing the boundaries like Chelsea are I guess, and improving revenue more quickly. But even revenue has shown great improvement in quite a short time. Since Mitchell came in it’s obviously been a mess, but I still expect a competent structure to be put together with his replacement.

Room for improvement you’re saying?

Think if they were determined to keep him it would be off by now.

I mean, I’ll get over Cole eventually I suppose.

So 47 up to 55 for cat 2? Ouch. At least it rules out dabbling with any other categories. I think my usual cheeky Leazes corner might be a bit harder to get into as everyone is priced out of the better areas.

Boldwards.

Was going to say, it sounds great so let's hope it's true If they really had preparatory meetings to plan this scenario then I don't see us rushing to a sale. But obviously who knows.

Certainly the most balanced thing I've read, not I necessarily believe he really knows.

Someone said we already offered a new deal I think, but I can't really keep up.

Why thread?

It won’t matter in 3 months TBH, hopefully 3 weeks.

I don't think I'd be confident to say that. Liverpool are always going to be more attractive and pay more than us, if money and a league title is his aim.

Guess the generous interpretation is that he's made it impossible for the club and they need to take the money from the only club that wants to stump up. Personally I would rather refuse to sell him to anyone in the PL, but I guess they might decide they can't miss out on the cash. At least tie it to signing a direct replacement or something, I guess.

Wrong thread?

He didn't take any pens for Brentford either did he? So that's another 5 goals or so.

Well maybe not mega but very expensive.

And why will it be hard for him to get a house? He can get the best house in the north of England for a couple of months wages.