Tiresias

Your first sentence is the whole point though, if the consortium do not believe MBS should be subjected to test then the PL should just reject it. Instead they refused to make a decision and left them with no option but to pull out. The PL then on the day the deal expired allegedly made a belated offer of arbitration. This is before we even get into the realms of leaks and outside influences. Members of the NUST on a podcast basically accused Bill Bush of briefing certain members of the media. There are people on here who believe conspiracy theories make us look stupid and paranoid, that’s their opinion and to be honest I can no longer be arsed to argue the toss. However, I will never believe the s*** Masters and co have come out with in relation to this takeover, and I 100% agree with Staveley where she accuses them of being disingenuous. I do agree with most of this. Premier league should have flat out said not in current form come back later if you want to fix it rather than th eneless wait. I do think Staverley was well intentioned and mostly honest, a little bit of me though wonders if they did play dumb about it to get fans riled up in hope that pressure would change master's mind. Still, it all leaves a sour taste in my mouth. However I do want to go back to my point, that the consipracy everything against us narrative just helps ashley curry undeserved sympathy. Until someone buys us, and frankly we would have probably been bought by now if he wasn't such a famous cunt to deal with, our misery is on him.

I agree they should have outright block it, but they seem to have said, we cant pass you until MBS is named as a director then we will do the test on him, and then the consortium couldnt do that. I do think they dragged it out way too long, I agree, noone comes out of this looking good, but its not a conspiracy, the premier league just is that obtuse, and of course we're the ones stiffed by it all. And of course this is cos we are the first tested under expanded fit and proper person rules, the doors are shut to new big takeovers now they've got enough of them i guess.

rage at him all you want, I think premier league has been slow and obtuse on this but largely agree with him. THe conspiracy against us is bollocks, we're just the first suckers to get hurt by a premier league bothering to actually block a takeover, which is typical of us.

While I have no doubt it could have been handled better by the premier league it should never be forgotten that there is one man who is responsible for us being in the state of begging the league for us to be taken over by a warmongering asshole. In all this what aggravates me is Ashley gets to play the victim card and now we will deal with WELL HE TRIED TO SELL forever

Brucey will be delighted to already have an excuse ready for our terrible start of season

My Everton mate says Tom Davies is total crap like

Do Greek trials always go so quick? Not saying dodgy but dunno might it not be fair to give some time to both sides to get evidence? I can completely believe he is bang to rights but dunno probably never know what really happened.

I thought the piracy thing might at teh end of the day be negotiated out with SA offering concessions etc. That they want MBS to do a fit and proper test, and he won't feels difficult to get round. It's dead.

Neymar can be very good but he is a flat track bully, at this level does not offer enough when you're in an arm wrestle with a proper high class team with a lot at stake

Was always going to happen, very few great finals these days, lots of cagey play and cynical fouls

I think if mercury is in retrograde and then crows fly east from moscow at midnight thursday it will go through

Is anyones else's youtube audio way out of sync? Commentators are about 20 seconds behind the action

Reubens could afford us but it would be a lot of money to piss away to get anywhere.Owning a football club is very very expensive which is why sovereign states getting involved is what ends up being needed to 'challenge at the top' reliably I would still love a takeover with more modest aims, just even an honest ambition, sensible running of the club and not being a joke

Honestly, after all the bullshit sticking their noses into our takeover I want the Qatari's to be embarrassed tonight I want PSG to win as think it'll stir PIF to come back. Don't get that logic at all I'd love to have some of the hope some have

Two attacking teams with not that great defences? this is absolutely going to be 0-0 to penalties after this hype isn't it

No she did have other funders behind her and i think she was trying to get it for not much more than £200m with extras added on later or something which would take it closer to ashley's asking price but ashley flat out said no. I doubt PCP can afford to buy it even with reubens involved

Again this is probably where Mike Ashley's difficult to deal with reputation he is proud of is probably driving buyers away

Lacking a bit of self respect signing on after the shit Bruce threw at him, assume other moves fell through. 2 Years hardly a big vote of confidence tho

Also at this point they couldn't take us over in time to get any signings over the line and very good chance we'll be careening towards relegation

You would have thought but we also need a lot of money going in on top of the money to buy the club, all teh facilities need an overhaul, most teh squad isn't good enough to push top half of the table so by and large a lot of players would need to be bought. I also suspect £300m is considered a lot for what is a clear shambles. I wonder if they are hovering in hope Arsenal come up for sale.

It's dead. I guess a compromise is pif splitting off a convincingly independent enough slice of itself into a smaller find not associated with mbs. Doubt they'd be bothered to do that and also probably would basically be clearly phoney

Ksa aren't going to pay off or national debt because they own a football club

Afraid to say if some other investor does come in, probably too late now for this transfer window, and indeed therefore rescuing what looks to be a dire season with very little squad improvement. Most potential investors will probably want to wait and see if we're in premier league 2021-2022 season so can't see any real interest until january at earliest, and if we are headed down none at all.

Caulkin clearly got a little carried away with the confidence of Staverley and since she was plausible (and no-one has suggested they were just bullshitting, while they were wrongly confident it does seem they thought they would sail through) and it is a little mark against him. I do feel after it was clearly dragging on this was underplayed by a lot. Honestly I think it's fairly safe to assume a takeover isn't happening if it's not happened a month after first plausibly announced. Caulkin is the best writer writing about us, and still probably the best source of info but he's not perfect, noone is. Back when papers could afford a lot of journalists you would have probably a lot more research done. Now it's just one bloke talking to people.

Do you think they had a really good business do, they all got a bit drunk and then realised the next morning SHIT WE FORGOT THE PHOTO OP WITH OBAMA