Scotty66

All seemed to start from that Robinho transfer. After that they made you think a signing like that would happen every final day of every window. Nothing will beat the Stoke fans and the dildo flopping around at Norwich though

That's it Michu, what a season that was Was he playing alongside Graham at that time?

Didn't he have an absolutely mental goal scoring season in the PL with Swansea or am I thinking of someone else?

Like someone else has said in the comments, isn't their a 50k wage cap in China now?!

Tbf that stuff he tweeted in April last year had already been made public by the journos. Fingers crossed his new info has credibility, I mean it does match with the Saudi jet flying in today, but, I would treat his info with caution, especially after he made a recent tweet 3 days ago saying it was a fake over. But the dream continues.

I love how in that video Bruce sees him barking out orders and has the "fuck fuck I need to look busy" persona

We've seen Wilson like to run wide a few times this season but no where near the amount that he was doing it today. So many passes played down the wing for him to chase down. How many times have we seen it be played long direct from CB to him? Without question a change was made today and its quite obvious from who it came from.

Saudi Royal ministry of finance jet flew into London today...

Sly dig at rafa again, "players have been used to sitting deep for a long time in the past" Someone needs to tell him to sit up and let me finish the question. It's so fucking rude.

Ashley wants to expand his brands in KSA though, I think this time he would be a lot more willing to knock the price down if it meant he could get his foot in the door over there.

It would have made things a lot "smoother" but it's not dead. It could be that now KSA have the ball well and truly in their court and are saying - get the takeover done, and then we'll allow Bein to broadcast. That's just pure speculation atm but it's a theory that Jacobs has and imo would be a perfect move. If that is the case we can expect Bein to want this moved along quickly. If not then there basically paying the PL to broadcast in KSA, and not actually doing it... But wouldn’t this stance prove the PL’s case that PIF have government involvement? The Saudi’s can’t say the government would have no control over the club in one breath and then claim allowing the takeover will support a government decision to allow the broadcast of a banned provider. How would anyone in PIF influence governmental decisions if they aren’t linked? And vice versa. It's s a good question, however we know that the media minister is also on the PIF board, this has seemed to not be a problem and could explain the offer to get the deal done and then allow broadcasting. I think the PL's main concern was who was responsible for the piracy, if they blame the government then they also blame PIF, but why if PIF are seperate? This is why needs to be proved, just because a government minister is on the board doesn't necessarily mean he's involved. (Presumably this is what Shaheed fatima has been hired for) Also Bein opposed the takeover publicly, I doubt the government were happy about this so then have every right to demand that it gets rectified before they then allow the broadcasting. Im absolutely no expert in this and I may be speaking complete bs, it's just the way I'm seeing things at the minute. One thing I do know is it's very very complicated, but it's still not dead.

It would have made things a lot "smoother" but it's not dead. It could be that now KSA have the ball well and truly in their court and are saying - get the takeover done, and then we'll allow Bein to broadcast. That's just pure speculation atm but it's a theory that Jacobs has and imo would be a perfect move. If that is the case we can expect Bein to want this moved along quickly. If not then there basically paying the PL to broadcast in KSA, and not actually doing it...

If the PL have blocked the bid due to piracy then it’s perfectly reasonable to block it unless an agreement is reached between the Gulf states, otherwise BeIN will sue the fuck out of the PL imo And also we have to remember that the PL themselves have desperately tried to bring legal cases against KSA directly. Seperate from Bein (albeit probably at their behest). The PL, rightly, have a problem with the KSA regime. They're hardly going to be falling over themselves to let these 'thiefs' have a stake in their prime product. 1/20th of it. So 5% of their core product is owned by the very people that have been nicking it. It's not a stretch to see why it was never straight forward despite protestations from the buyers about their supreme confidence etc. From the perspective of someone who really wants this deal done, I can only hope the PL have made some grave legal error in the application of their own Owners Test. This is kind of what I meant, the closest thing in the O+D test is if someone has been convicted of a crime (or theft). Nobody from the consortium has. It absolutely causes an issue for the PL with the piracy but the key thing is its not under the rules of their own test. They can't change the rules just because Bein don't like what's happened. I guess this is where our legal team come in. I think you're right. We'll have to either prove they've misapplied the test or have enough evidence of Bein influence/potential corruption that the PL fear this getting into the public domain. You'd imagine their legal counsel will be equally as robust. And on those two points I think we can all agree in here that through our own eyes we've seen the PL play things away from their own rule book. That's simply not allowed and it's their own fault for not making the OD tests robust enough. Also I believe this has a lot more to it - Bein have already paid for the new contract which apparently includes the KSA region. They need to broadcast there. Get the takeover done and you can do it is quite a checkmate position for the Saudi's.

If the PL have blocked the bid due to piracy then it’s perfectly reasonable to block it unless an agreement is reached between the Gulf states, otherwise BeIN will sue the fuck out of the PL imo And also we have to remember that the PL themselves have desperately tried to bring legal cases against KSA directly. Seperate from Bein (albeit probably at their behest). The PL, rightly, have a problem with the KSA regime. They're hardly going to be falling over themselves to let these 'thiefs' have a stake in their prime product. 1/20th of it. So 5% of their core product is owned by the very people that have been nicking it. It's not a stretch to see why it was never straight forward despite protestations from the buyers about their supreme confidence etc. From the perspective of someone who really wants this deal done, I can only hope the PL have made some grave legal error in the application of their own Owners Test. This is kind of what I meant, the closest thing in the O+D test is if someone has been convicted of a crime (or theft). Nobody from the consortium has. It absolutely causes an issue for the PL with the piracy but the key thing is its not under the rules of their own test. They can't change the rules just because Bein don't like what's happened. I guess this is where our legal team come in.

It's quite amazing how much influence Bein have over a takeover of our club. I know it's a piracy issue but ffs, we have a buyer and a seller.

Or speed up the takeover and we’ll restore beIN back in Saudi Arabia A very legitimate demand imo, and not unreasonable considering what's happened.

Not the news that we wanted but not bad news either. It was never going to be shouted about if Bein were allowed back in, but the fact that they are open to discussions means this could all happen under the radar.

I live in Norwich and have a lot of Norwich supporting mates. They all said when we signed Lewis that he wasn't worth the price tag and we over paid. Said he was more of a full back than a LB as he was suspect at defending. Also at times they played one of their RB's at LB as it gave them more strength in defence than when Lewis played there.

Like someone said in the comments, that's why we loved Rafa

Saivet The Thierry Henry of football manager. If only he had a half of the potential that the fm researcher could see.

Imo he's doing it to let fans know that he's still involved. I agree it's quite unprofessional, not something that I ever thought he or anyone likewise in his position would do, but at the end of the day it's his own profile. Things like "the bread took a long time to prove" that surely means the consortium are the bread (its nearly always cut into 80/10/10),and that it took him a long time to prove PIF were seperate from the Saudi government? The Spanish record on Saturday the day Rafa leaves China, he's the consortiums number 1 choice. Little things like that, clues to what's going on. That's how I'm reading them anyway. Crazy I know

Not necessarily that it will be over, but it will almost certainly rule out a deal being done without the need for arbitration. If they are still blocked, then its off to arbitration. We should win that and apparently have very strong evidence (which I can completely believe), the only downside to that is if we and the PL can't agree on the 3rd arbitrator, then it'll be someone from the FA. No prizes who you think they will side with. If that fails, the NCSL will have their legal battle. At this point we'll probably be in the Championship, the season will most definitely be over at least. So God knows what will happen then. But that's the apparent road map of how it will play out from now on in.

Not really, the tests in the EFL are basically the same anyway. Just no idea how they would feel about it but you would think they would side with the PL. I just can't see PIF wanting to buy us in the Championship, there's every chance they buy us and we still go down though, which would be a proper sugar daddy football manager style situation