Mattoon

I agree with both sides of the argument here to be honest. The PL have made a bit of a hash of this, they've allowed BeIn to have more power than they should, there should be a window of opportunity for any grievances from outside and then put up or shut up, then the PL deal with the issues given to them and allow the potential new owners to rectify it/answer to it. They don't have to answer to the feelings of every fan, they should however be able to give some indication as to how far along they are or what delays we might expect without giving away any sensitive information. I think there's a healthy middle ground that hasn't been met, it doesn't help that we have a mute for an owner, if Ashley has been told anything we'd be the last to know. I'm still fairly confident, if they thought they could fail PIF on the issues raised, it would have already been failed.

What's the odds of Dubravka being one of the 5 subs once we're about 4-0 down?

I concur... Darlow!??!

Well that was horrific...

It feels like every journo under the sun is suddenly tweeting positive things based purely on the piracy stuff that came out yesterday. I'm not convinced, still, that any of them have any information. Yeah I'm sort of leaning that way a bit. Feels like they've made the same connection fans have to the piracy news, not necessarily heard anything. But I'd love to be wrong What other connection could there be though? This may be quite negative, but what if they have intially failed the tests? And this tougher stance on piracy and buying up shares in BT etc. Is a sort of look at us cleaning up our act. Prem looks better for denying it in light of quite obvious issues, Saudi go away and do all the necessary changes for a smoother process for prem etc. Like I say, pretty wild and negative outlook but too many times have we seen every reporter jump on any any bit of news and the deal was as good as signed months ago. "Go away, tidy up your act, we'll let you buy Man United next year". That type of thing? We may as well fold if that happens

As an aside, cancelling your direct debit doesn't get your money back that you've already paid out and should be refunded. Absolutely, he's taken money for a service that hasn't been supplied, there has to be a legal obligation to refund.

I still agree fullheartedly with what I said, it doesn't excuse what Ashley has done, but it's par for the course. If those fans put their season ticket/loyalty points ahead of financial security then they're as much to blame for their plight.

Clearly holding out for the right sized brown envelope

Element of risk and the fact that we're gaining nothing by the process taking longer. I think it's daft to go on the way some are going on though, how do you become bored of something you are completely disconnected from and have zero control over? First time I've been in to check on this for a week, I'll come back when it happens, can't be bothered with the overall negative vibe. It's clearly going to happen, there's no grounds to stop it, we're in the middle of an epidemic, it takes as long as it takes. Trying to impose some asinine time limit on it is futile and does nothing for your stress levels, take a step back and do something else with your time, too many obsessives in here.

You mean around 100 people on Twitter? Most of them coming across as illiterate Maybe it’s just Twitter. When he speaks on the radio he’s always come across sensible and balanced. His various articles regarding Bruce this season have been stubbornly ignorant though and play up to the 'over-expectant Geordies' myth. I used to like Edwards, he's not a bad reporter usually, but the whole Bruce debacle was something else, he was being deliberately obtuse to cause arguments and defend his friend. He got what he deserved with that.

Oh I don’t pity him, I just feel any derogatory remarks about him should be kept to what he’s actually the most useless at. As for keeping Bruce as a manager even for a few games post takeover/current season restarting, it would be like a lottery winner keeping his clapped out old rusty Ford That keeps breaking down all the time when he could buy any car in the world or at least afford something that fucking works! I’d get shot of the cunt yesterday! Everything about him epitomises his lazy attitude towards management tbf. The sooner we're shot of this charlatan the better. They're clearly dangling a carrot (bacon sarnie) to get him to the end of the season still in the league and he'll be gone as soon as we're safe and looking on to next season. Thankfully he will be the last of the washed up, has been, dinosaur chancers to darken our dugout.

Picking on someone for their physical appearance is juvenile, but I can't pity someone who is a victim of their own life choices, though I personally don't agree with bullying.

Stand by with the gifs

On a different post he claims to be Matt Monaghan who writes for Sport360 so ignore it.

Didn't have a problem with Shola, not his fault he stunk up the club for 10 years, he always seemed like a decent enough character, but then he nailed his flag to Ashley's mast so he can do one.

Nice HTT ??

He's come in after Rafa had them drilled like a bunch of squadies and allowed them to relax which has brought some relief into the team, it's certainly given the team a good spirit in the short term but without the tactics, the formations, the direction all its doing is undoing 3 years hard work. Bruce hasn't affected anything on the field of play, he hasn't done anything to accredit those points to him, he's steadied a ship by being the players "mate" hardly an acclamation to premier league management skill.

What's the point, that's Bruce done okay then in your opinion? 45 points after 29 games? 50 points? 60 points? Rafa sorted out the defence for sure, but things can go wrong. Team spirit can go shit. Bruce tried something different early on, realised it was the wrong decision and went back to what Rafa had drilled into the team. That was the right decision no? Bruce has done fuck all attacking wise, there's no attacking plan. But team spirit is very important. We've never looked like a team, that will go on a 5-6 game losing streak. We are boring as fuck to watch at home, but joint best defence with 12 goals conceded, 3 defeats, and 1.5 points per game is a solid enough base. I don't hate him. He's not good enough to progress us, he will be gone for next season, and we'll get a new better manager in. That's the correct decision. Ideally Bruce will go on to get another PL job where he can fuck up big time like he has all his career, and that will be the end of the Bruce sympathy bandwagon. At least he won't have time to wreak the damage here. How many points did he need to get, for you to say he did an "okay job"? I'd give the credit to the Rafa coaching the previous 3 years. I don't think he did an okay job, he was just there. So we put a guy in off the street, we're on 35 points atm? Team spirit still the same? People won't just look at a number. They'll take everything into account. Style of play, performance, tactics, team selection, post match analysis and of course, compliance with an already toxic club management. I'd say that in Bruce's case the points on the board are in spite of a shambolic performance in every aspect of his job. How many points did we need on the board, for you to say he's done an okay job? It's not a difficult question to answer. There is no number. I'll be big enough to say that i'll never accept what he does because I think that everything we get is in spite of him and not because of him. If you are prepared to give him credit for the number of points on the board then that's fair enough. Personally, I'm not. There's no number :lol: We win the league. "Fuck that fat cunt, he deserves no credit for winning the league. He's fucking shite." What the fuck are you about? Win the league You've literally said no matter, no matter how points Bruce got, you'd never say he's done an OKAY job. It's an insane comment. Think about it logically FFS. Such an asinine and disingenuous question, if he had more points then we would be playing better football and he would get the credit he would deserve. As it stands the points on the table are contrary to the displays on the pitch, ergo he deserves no credit. To the fact he's more than likely kept us up, he's played his part in facilitating the takeover by doing the minimum expected of him, does that deserve credit? Not really, in any normal club, with the financial outlay supposedly afforded to him, he's massively underperformed and he would be gone. Hell, in any normal club, he wouldn't have got the position to start with. I don't hate Bruce, I hate the idiots that gave him the job, but he hasn't affected anything that would deserve him credit. Massively underperformed? 13th in the league. 35 points. That's massively underperformed? :lol: Honestly man this fucking board. All I've said is he's done an okay job this season. Not a good job. Not a great job. AN OKAY JOB. Oh well if you are up for a sensible debate, here's my twopenneth. I actually think Bruce has been disastrous. You are being misled by the total points malarkey. His tactical ability is zero, in his own words "I don't do tactics". I don't wish to cover old ground as it's been covered numerous times on here but I can honestly say in my opinion his football team have been extremely lucky. I have seen possibly three ok performances, however the West Ham away game was just mental. So no, he has not done an ok job. Pretty shit actually. Disastrous is when McLaren got sacked. 24 points from 29 games. That is disastrous. We are 11 points better off than that. We're 14 points ahead of Norwich. We're comfortably ahead of the relegation zone. We've had 9 clean sheets this season. We've beaten Spurs, Man Utd, Chelsea, drew with City. The definition of disastrous is: "highly unsuccessful". 35 points, and quarter finals of the FA Cup is not HIGHLY UNSUCCESSFUL. Not difficult to understand. The difficulty in understanding is apportioning credit to Bruce, what has he actually done? We've been horrific almost every game, no cohesion, no tactics, backs against the wall. Points/results look decent on paper, no one is discounting that, the means in which they were attained are unsustainable and either lucky or down to the individual brilliance of some of our players at any given time. We are where we are by chance rather than design. The design is the managers job and to that he has failed. How many points, did he need to get, for you to think he's not "failed"? Again, if we had more points we would have to be playing some decent football, it's all relative. If we had less points but we were playing good football he would get credit, it's not about the points, it's the whole package.

What's the point, that's Bruce done okay then in your opinion? 45 points after 29 games? 50 points? 60 points? Rafa sorted out the defence for sure, but things can go wrong. Team spirit can go shit. Bruce tried something different early on, realised it was the wrong decision and went back to what Rafa had drilled into the team. That was the right decision no? Bruce has done fuck all attacking wise, there's no attacking plan. But team spirit is very important. We've never looked like a team, that will go on a 5-6 game losing streak. We are boring as fuck to watch at home, but joint best defence with 12 goals conceded, 3 defeats, and 1.5 points per game is a solid enough base. I don't hate him. He's not good enough to progress us, he will be gone for next season, and we'll get a new better manager in. That's the correct decision. Ideally Bruce will go on to get another PL job where he can fuck up big time like he has all his career, and that will be the end of the Bruce sympathy bandwagon. At least he won't have time to wreak the damage here. How many points did he need to get, for you to say he did an "okay job"? I'd give the credit to the Rafa coaching the previous 3 years. I don't think he did an okay job, he was just there. So we put a guy in off the street, we're on 35 points atm? Team spirit still the same? People won't just look at a number. They'll take everything into account. Style of play, performance, tactics, team selection, post match analysis and of course, compliance with an already toxic club management. I'd say that in Bruce's case the points on the board are in spite of a shambolic performance in every aspect of his job. How many points did we need on the board, for you to say he's done an okay job? It's not a difficult question to answer. There is no number. I'll be big enough to say that i'll never accept what he does because I think that everything we get is in spite of him and not because of him. If you are prepared to give him credit for the number of points on the board then that's fair enough. Personally, I'm not. There's no number :lol: We win the league. "Fuck that fat cunt, he deserves no credit for winning the league. He's fucking shite." What the fuck are you about? Win the league You've literally said no matter, no matter how points Bruce got, you'd never say he's done an OKAY job. It's an insane comment. Think about it logically FFS. Such an asinine and disingenuous question, if he had more points then we would be playing better football and he would get the credit he would deserve. As it stands the points on the table are contrary to the displays on the pitch, ergo he deserves no credit. To the fact he's more than likely kept us up, he's played his part in facilitating the takeover by doing the minimum expected of him, does that deserve credit? Not really, in any normal club, with the financial outlay supposedly afforded to him, he's massively underperformed and he would be gone. Hell, in any normal club, he wouldn't have got the position to start with. I don't hate Bruce, I hate the idiots that gave him the job, but he hasn't affected anything that would deserve him credit. Massively underperformed? 13th in the league. 35 points. That's massively underperformed? :lol: Honestly man this fucking board. All I've said is he's done an okay job this season. Not a good job. Not a great job. AN OKAY JOB. Oh well if you are up for a sensible debate, here's my twopenneth. I actually think Bruce has been disastrous. You are being misled by the total points malarkey. His tactical ability is zero, in his own words "I don't do tactics". I don't wish to cover old ground as it's been covered numerous times on here but I can honestly say in my opinion his football team have been extremely lucky. I have seen possibly three ok performances, however the West Ham away game was just mental. So no, he has not done an ok job. Pretty shit actually. Disastrous is when McLaren got sacked. 24 points from 29 games. That is disastrous. We are 11 points better off than that. We're 14 points ahead of Norwich. We're comfortably ahead of the relegation zone. We've had 9 clean sheets this season. We've beaten Spurs, Man Utd, Chelsea, drew with City. The definition of disastrous is: "highly unsuccessful". 35 points, and quarter finals of the FA Cup is not HIGHLY UNSUCCESSFUL. Not difficult to understand. The difficulty in understanding is apportioning credit to Bruce, what has he actually done? We've been horrific almost every game, no cohesion, no tactics, backs against the wall. Points/results look decent on paper, no one is discounting that, the means in which they were attained are unsustainable and either lucky or down to the individual brilliance of some of our players at any given time. We are where we are by chance rather than design. The design is the managers job and to that he has failed.

What's the point, that's Bruce done okay then in your opinion? 45 points after 29 games? 50 points? 60 points? Rafa sorted out the defence for sure, but things can go wrong. Team spirit can go shit. Bruce tried something different early on, realised it was the wrong decision and went back to what Rafa had drilled into the team. That was the right decision no? Bruce has done fuck all attacking wise, there's no attacking plan. But team spirit is very important. We've never looked like a team, that will go on a 5-6 game losing streak. We are boring as fuck to watch at home, but joint best defence with 12 goals conceded, 3 defeats, and 1.5 points per game is a solid enough base. I don't hate him. He's not good enough to progress us, he will be gone for next season, and we'll get a new better manager in. That's the correct decision. Ideally Bruce will go on to get another PL job where he can fuck up big time like he has all his career, and that will be the end of the Bruce sympathy bandwagon. At least he won't have time to wreak the damage here. How many points did he need to get, for you to say he did an "okay job"? I'd give the credit to the Rafa coaching the previous 3 years. I don't think he did an okay job, he was just there. So we put a guy in off the street, we're on 35 points atm? Team spirit still the same? People won't just look at a number. They'll take everything into account. Style of play, performance, tactics, team selection, post match analysis and of course, compliance with an already toxic club management. I'd say that in Bruce's case the points on the board are in spite of a shambolic performance in every aspect of his job. How many points did we need on the board, for you to say he's done an okay job? It's not a difficult question to answer. There is no number. I'll be big enough to say that i'll never accept what he does because I think that everything we get is in spite of him and not because of him. If you are prepared to give him credit for the number of points on the board then that's fair enough. Personally, I'm not. There's no number :lol: We win the league. "Fuck that fat cunt, he deserves no credit for winning the league. He's fucking shite." What the fuck are you about? Win the league You've literally said no matter, no matter how points Bruce got, you'd never say he's done an OKAY job. It's an insane comment. Think about it logically FFS. Such an asinine and disingenuous question, if he had more points then we would be playing better football and he would get the credit he would deserve. As it stands the points on the table are contrary to the displays on the pitch, ergo he deserves no credit. To the fact he's more than likely kept us up, he's played his part in facilitating the takeover by doing the minimum expected of him, does that deserve credit? Not really, in any normal club, with the financial outlay supposedly afforded to him, he's massively underperformed and he would be gone. Hell, in any normal club, he wouldn't have got the position to start with. I don't hate Bruce, I hate the idiots that gave him the job, but he hasn't affected anything that would deserve him credit.

Caulkin last said in regards to Luke's post that nothing had changed and he was still positive, Caulkin won't talk again until there's something official. With regards to Ashley's leaks, he's already intimated that he's annoyed he can't declare the deal done, this is likely to put pressure on the buyers side to put a completion statement out surely?

I'm guessing that would depend on what was written into the official bid/contracts. At the bare minimum that would be the case.

You don't hoy a £17m deposit on something that isn't legally binding here fat boy, I trust you to do the right thing, especially after the last takeover attempt. Ashley can't pull the plug at this point, not unless there is a legally binding timeframe for completion. There's definitely been a few bumps in the road with regards to external issues raised, human rights issues and piracy issues, but the former doesn't come into question during these tests and the latter sounds like a past issue that is being rectified. It's only natural based on previous failed attempts to be worried the longer it goes on, but rational thought says these are unprecedented times and certain things take a little longer than they would usually. There is a slim chance that this doesn't go through, of course, nothing is for certain, however what would need to transpire at this point is very doubtful, the buyers are all in at this point.

Out of all the separate things mentioned in this thread this is the crux of it all, 13 years wasted, 13 years of supporting nothing, if minimal effort, maximum profit, disdain and apathy. Just an absolute waste.

Most (all) of these ITK Twitter basement dwellers tend to just smash their keyboards with their face and the resulting word soup is just put out in hope that they'll be right and claim "you heard it here first folks!". Funny to read them but you shouldn't hang on anything they say.