gjohnson

More than likely to have been mentioned at least, but doubt it would lead to anything

This amuses me far more than it should

Got a massive feeling Messi wouldnt be as good in Premier League. Not based on any evidence. Will do well compared to most of the leagues cloggers, but see it being more like Zola's time at Chelsea...lots of skill and good moments, but not masses and masses of goals

There's no anger intended, but criticism yes....in terms of journalism at least. He's done a very good job in getting readers/subscribers for his articles which is more than likely a part of his remit given that he works at a subscription based publication. Just saying that reflectively most of his articles were nothing more than nicely dressed up click-bait, carefully and subtlety worded so they looked like facts but were in fact just opinions. It's an admirable talent, but totally designed to get the 'thickos' as another user put it to generate money for The Athletic. Being articulate and sympathetic to a cause does not mean you are a good journalist. Not saying he isn't, but checking sources should be the first thing to do. I write a fair few scientific articles, and if i can't show at least one peer reviewed confirmation it's laughed out of the place before even being considered for publication. That doesn't make me a thicko, or spouting gibberish, as some have claimed, that makes me credible in my field

Not thick at all. Looking at the situation with critical eyes Nothing to stop him doing some actual journalism and checking to see if what he's been told is actually based in any kind of factual world. Unless it was just an interview and reported as one, rather than taking a single source as gospel That's fine in most scenarios, but with one source (we are assuming) involved in a highly confidential process, I'm not sure how feasible that is. In that case a decent journalist wouldn't report as fact, and would write as an opinion piece. Probably not feasible to report with checks, but that should have been made clear. You are literally spouting complete and utter gibberish like. I don't know how thick people have to be to see it the way you do, but George has made it abundantly clear every time he's shared his bits of info that "the buyer's believe...", "it's from the buyer's", "the buyer's have been told there are no red flags". All of those things are true, or were true at the time of reporting. As far as I'm aware, as someone who knows George a little bit, he hasn't once said that "THE TAKEOVER WILL BE APPROVED ON DAY XYZ". Saying news should have confirmed and verified sources is hardly gibberish. George may have had a confirmed source, but was never verified. Reading his pieces he only hints at this but does present it as fact even though technically he doesn't. His reports convinced a lot of people that he actually had an insight into what was going on, which over the last few weeks has been revealed as to be not the case. His source is literally Amanda Staveley. How much closer to the deal do you want him to be? Maybe try to check to see if she was telling the truth? Not saying he didn't, but there's no published evidence that he checked on what she was telling him. He's published opinion pieces to look like fact while technically not presenting them as fact. He got a lot of people's hopes up by being good at gaming the news system, which is a sort of admirable quality but isn't up there for his long term credibility

Not thick at all. Looking at the situation with critical eyes Nothing to stop him doing some actual journalism and checking to see if what he's been told is actually based in any kind of factual world. Unless it was just an interview and reported as one, rather than taking a single source as gospel That's fine in most scenarios, but with one source (we are assuming) involved in a highly confidential process, I'm not sure how feasible that is. In that case a decent journalist wouldn't report as fact, and would write as an opinion piece. Probably not feasible to report with checks, but that should have been made clear. You are literally spouting complete and utter gibberish like. I don't know how thick people have to be to see it the way you do, but George has made it abundantly clear every time he's shared his bits of info that "the buyer's believe...", "it's from the buyer's", "the buyer's have been told there are no red flags". All of those things are true, or were true at the time of reporting. As far as I'm aware, as someone who knows George a little bit, he hasn't once said that "THE TAKEOVER WILL BE APPROVED ON DAY XYZ". Saying news should have confirmed and verified sources is hardly gibberish. George may have had a confirmed source, but was never verified. Reading his pieces he only hints at this but does present it as fact even though technically he doesn't. His reports convinced a lot of people that he actually had an insight into what was going on, which over the last few weeks has been revealed as to be not the case.

Not thick at all. Looking at the situation with critical eyes Nothing to stop him doing some actual journalism and checking to see if what he's been told is actually based in any kind of factual world. Unless it was just an interview and reported as one, rather than taking a single source as gospel That's fine in most scenarios, but with one source (we are assuming) involved in a highly confidential process, I'm not sure how feasible that is. In that case a decent journalist wouldn't report as fact, and would write as an opinion piece. Probably not feasible to report with checks, but that should have been made clear.

Makes our efforts look even more feeble. There's at least 4 clubs on there that we should be able to at least match. How can Brighton manage to spend that much? Lets assume it's all TV money as their ground wont generate that much. We get as least as much if not more than them from TV, and a lot more from tickets etc so back to the old chestnut..."Where's the money gone?"

Not thick at all. Looking at the situation with critical eyes Nothing to stop him doing some actual journalism and checking to see if what he's been told is actually based in any kind of factual world. Unless it was just an interview and reported as one, rather than taking a single source as gospel

Wonder if it will push out some of their promising younger British players. Abraham will be 2nd choice at best, Tomori hasn't played much, and even Mount might struggle to hold down a place consistently Got to remember those guys were only playing as Chelsea weren't allowed t buy at the time

Is that £12.7m from little over a grand?! 255 grand by my reading. Wouldn't be crying myself to sleep if i had that kind of return though. Nearly 13million from 250K. 49 fold return, and that doesn't show the ones he lost on. Certainly wouldn't be going to work if i could pull those kind of bets off, even at a 10th of the scale

It’s what it’s all about, what he’s all about. It’s why I get no enjoyment out of football now. So many teams just play to “not get beat” which results in negative, boring one sided football matches, where one of the superior teams just try to break down a 10 man defence. Keegan was never scared of the opposition, and only ever concentrated on how his team were going to win. Such an exciting time it was. I think a big part of that can be put down to how much money is in top level football now. Clubs that come up to the Premier League are so far away in terms of quality of player from many established PL clubs, never mind the top 6, that they have to play that way to stand a chance of stopping up and collecting that TV money. We've been doing it for the past 3 years (bar two spells under Benitez in the latter parts of his two PL seasons here), 2 of which because we've had to. In the 90s that wasn't so much the case I don't think. Correct me if I'm wrong as I didn't live through that era, but during the 90s there was nowhere near as much of a gulf or as much money so teams had more incentive to attack teams and play attacking football. Well, apart from Wimbledon. I'd agree up to a point. There is more pressure on teams to avoid the financial penalties of relegation, and certain teams opt for a very defensive approach, home and away. To be honest, we may have a slightly more warped view as to the extent of the problem, as our own club has adopted an ultra defensive approach over the last four years, which may be down to the quality and nature of the squad as well. What I'd say though is that the quality of top division football has improved a lot, and the general entertainment value has been enhanced. With the influx of foreign players and foreign coaches, the football is more refined and skilful. I'm not one who looks back fondly on the 'good old days'. Quality and refinement has definitely improved no end, but I think it makes watching a match more like a game of chess now, with teams just waiting for the other to make a mistake. Especially when a non-top6 team takes on one of the top 6. It's entertainment in a different way, but not as instantaneous, joyous and fun as it used to be where it was like anything could happen at any point. Barring the odd exception you rarely see teams with the attitude of 'we'll just outscore you'. That was way more enjoyable than watching (as an example) Burnley vs Watford where both have 9-10 behind the ball and just sit waiting for a misplaced pass or a defensive cock-up which seems to be the norm now

Just change name to best striker since Shearer. Leave the numbers out

And they managed to do this with no one in the world actually noticing.

Bellagraph Nova is clearly a scam. A simple search shows no evidence of their existence beyond a year or two ago, yet they claim to have 23000 employees in every major territory and have a 12bn turnover. Yet they don't seem to actually do anything...what is a 360 lifestyle platform? Is it basically Aziz Ansaris company from Parks an Recreation? Unless they happen to be the real life equivalent of Umbrella Corp

that’s an indictment of our club. Anyone see an episode of Ideal where Moz asks Cartoonhead what he's doing in Burnley? "Hope you've had your jabs"

It's probably the most moronic argument to be made, as it basically insinuates that if you're not rock bottom of the football pyramid, you don't have the right to to complain, which clearly contradicts the very essence of sporting competition. I don't think it's moronic, it's just looking at it from a different perspective. I'm sure Rochdale would love to be in our position as much as we'd love to be in Barcelonas.

Officially it was, but basically the entire front 6 were pretty much free to do what they wanted and were more than good enough to carry it off. Only Batty ever stuck to a defined place. Great to watch then, but would be utterly destroyed by tactics and organisation now. Painful as it is to say our last Benitez team would probably have beaten Keegans...by exploiting a single defensive mistake and having next to no possession/passing etc. Not to say Benitez was better than Keegan, just 2 different times where styles were completely different

More than likely. Still difficult to stomach when you see Brighton/Villa/Leeds throwing in 20m bids for players (whether good enough is a separate debate). Its like we got stuck in the mid 2000's where 10m was still a lot and would get you a decent player.

He’s 31 a month after the season starts and never scored more than 7. Which barring Carrolls purple patch before moving to Liverpool and is still better than the rest of our current strike force combined. Totally prepared to be corrected but wasn't it something like Muto 2, Joelinton 2, and Almiron 3? And that's only if you see Almiron as a striker, but i always thought he was more of an attacking midfielder. Wow that's properly grim That aside, he did ok in the post lockdown matches, got a few goals which mattered, but still shouldn't be first choice for any respectable PL side

Eurghh....kill it....kill it with fire Utter abomination

It is relative, but I doubt we'd get any sympathy on a Rochdale forum complaining about how terrible it is to be in the Premier league

Ask them again when they've gone 51 years without a trophy of any recognition, 65 without a meaningful one, and 93 without a league title Ah right, you don't know what relative means. Of course I do. Fully appreciate that not winning everything is a come down, but complaint about not winning something for a season or two on here of all places won't get much sympathy He's not moaning about not winning anything, he's concerned they've wasted hundreds of millions of euros on the wrong players and that they're going backwards as a result. Welcome to us circa 2005...Owen, Luque etc. A better decision in 2004 and we probably wouldn't have had Ashley, Souness, Pardew, McLaren, Carver, 2 relegations, Bruce, and the cheapest transfer policy in the league You must have some sympathy then, fair enough. Only in the sense that you can see the bad decisions that they are making now could lead to a decline that may see them without a title for a few years. Their name and financial clout will see them avoid the terminal decline we saw with Newcastle, going from actual challengers (96), then potential challengers (03), then hangers on happy to be in the league (08 - present). Quite galling to see that at two points making a better choice could have seen us being sitting near the top on a far more regular basis It's all relative though, innit. Yeah, we should know our place. In the same way we should have sympathy for Man United given how big they are. Nah, Man Utd just had a decent spell in the 90s / 2000s. No sympathy from me. So how is that any different to Barcelona? Man Utd could have arguably claimed to be in the top 3 biggest teams before they started their own series of bad choices

No idea, Bruce took him to Sunderland and weve signed quite a few of their ex players recently though. Are we actually linked with him or is it just a suggestion? Speculation. Cheap, and Bruce has worked with him before (and everyone knows his penchant for taking familiar players). Not quite a 2+2=5, but maybe 2+2 = 4.25

Ask them again when they've gone 51 years without a trophy of any recognition, 65 without a meaningful one, and 93 without a league title Ah right, you don't know what relative means. Of course I do. Fully appreciate that not winning everything is a come down, but complaint about not winning something for a season or two on here of all places won't get much sympathy He's not moaning about not winning anything, he's concerned they've wasted hundreds of millions of euros on the wrong players and that they're going backwards as a result. Welcome to us circa 2005...Owen, Luque etc. A better decision in 2004 and we probably wouldn't have had Ashley, Souness, Pardew, McLaren, Carver, 2 relegations, Bruce, and the cheapest transfer policy in the league You must have some sympathy then, fair enough. Only in the sense that you can see the bad decisions that they are making now could lead to a decline that may see them without a title for a few years. Their name and financial clout will see them avoid the terminal decline we saw with Newcastle, going from actual challengers (96), then potential challengers (03), then hangers on happy to be in the league (08 - present). Quite galling to see that at two points making a better choice could have seen us being sitting near the top on a far more regular basis It's all relative though, innit. Yeah, we should know our place. In the same way we should have sympathy for Man United given how big they are. Apparently its all relative