Jackie Broon

There was a point mid way through the half where we started to take control again, but then rather than keeping the pressure on them we started passing it backwards and sideways between the defense, they pushed out and and it handed the momentum back to them which we never really regained. It was a great win, but on another day they would have taken the chances that presented to them. Then again, on another day we would have been 4 or 5 up by that point.

That’s something we're still not great at though, we almost always play ourselfves into trouble when we try to play it safe.

I've been expecting Villa to get found out by other managers for a while, I thought it would happen last season but no other team seems able to exploit their high line like we do.

I don't think Bruno sees himself as a 6, I think they both see themselves ideally as 8s.

Credit to Howe for changing it, but how long have people been saying Bruno should be played in the No.8?

A conditional land deal could definitely be done privately then.

They could have an agreement with the Freemen subject to planning permission being granted, that could be done privately without the land registry record needing to be updated. Depending on the council's scheme of delegation, which I can't be bothered to look up, it's likely that a decision over selling council owned land would need to be made publicly. I know the Freemen own Castle Leazes but I think Leazes Park is owned by the council? They could potentially have agreement with council officers that they will recommend the sale or lease of the land to the club, but it's likely that the final decision would be need to be made by a council committee in public.

Whether he knows fuck all or not it's almost certainly going to be a new stadium on Leazes Park / Castle Leazes that the club go for.

It follows the accounting period set by the club, for us that ends on the 30th of June.

Hall did.

I definitely am. I respectfully didn't celebrate though.

I actually had the last touch on the ball before he put the ball over the wall into our net when he played for Wigan. I was in with the home fans at Wigan, the ball flew straight to me from a foul, I threw the ball back Taylor spotted it up for the free kick and scored the only goal to win 1-0

There was no battle with the council last time, the council would have approved it. This issue was that the government were going to take the decision out of the council's hands.

And for what? Even though they have around 1000 staff that's saving them about 3 days wages of one of their players.

I don't think it's as straightforward as 7th in squad cost should expect to finish 7th. There's always going to be one or two of the 6 that underperform and we have the advantage of not being in Europe. Whilst our squad cost may be 7th, there is a big gap to 8th, we're not far off Liverpool and Spurs and there are currently 6 teams all with squad costs of at least £145m less than us above us in the table. Also, unless our form really turns around, we're not finishing 7th this season.

Not really in the context of the kind of money we'd need to raise to make a difference to PSR.

Any of that would be subject to a Fair Market Value assessment.

The recent case was an arbitration using the PL's arbitration process. The other court case was a dispute over the arbitration process brought under the Arbitration Act. Anyway, as my post above, manorpark is talking in definite terms about something he doesn't know enough about to know shouldn't be discussed in definite terms. Btw, I'm probably guilty of a big slice of Dunning Kruger effect in discussing this too.

No, we don't own the land it's on.

In fact in the PL era the only mangers to have won the league with previous English football managerial experience before their appointment are Dalglish and Ranieri (and Mourinho if you count his second spell at Chelsea).

That remains untested legally. Whilst there is an arbitration agreement in the PL and FA rules, part of our case in the CAT tribunal was that it shouldn't be applied to that claim (in addition to saying SJH hadn't actually signed up to it). So that isn't as cut and dried as you suggest, just like chances of winning a anti-competition case against PSR rules wouldn't be a "certain legal win".

There is no such thing as a certain legal win in a case like that, it would be complex and unpredictable. There is a public interest test and potentially a court could find that there is public interest in the anti-competitive elements of the PL's rules. The response of the Man City tribunal to the letters which you say have proven a cartel was the legal equivalent of 'meh'.

Even with their revenues, without the exemptions the PL allowed them they would have failed PSR last season. Exemptions similar to ones they didn't allow for Everton. Which is even more straight up cronyism

I don't think our owners felt that and I don't think they will settle for anything less than European qualification through the league or winning a cup this season.

Same again, one step forward and two back, no faith that Eddie can turn this season around now.