Dr Jinx

Life is surreal right now. Im starting to worry I fell asleep while watching Contagion back at the start of March and this has all been a dream.

It's not the SD board, it is the auditors "Furious shareholders are expected to oust the entire board of Sports Direct auditor RSM at the embattled firm’s annual meeting this morning as discontent within the firm pours out into public view. Five shareholders, who claim the backing of about two-thirds of investors, have tabled a motion to remove the current management, as first reported by The Telegraph." Ahh.. shame, am really hoping they take a complete tumble now that we’re almost free of their clutches. That article basically has nothing to do with Sports Direct other than them hiring them. Quite a misleading piece on the surface. Here’s a question actually, so our club shop is run from Shirebrook, well they handle the distribution etc and take all the profits. Is this agreement posted in the companies house? I’d be interested to see if he manages to keep any sort of agreement in place.

Apparently there’s a meeting happening today for Sports Direct where there’s a motion to remove the whole board. There’s a story in the Telegraph but it’s behind a paywall. It wouldn’t surprise me if he keeps hold of his shares just long enough for things to pick up a bit and then just gets out of there.

Anyone think he’ll stay in football after this?

It is win-win for him. He’s done ok. We’re not relegated. It was only going to get worse for him season on season if Ashley was still owner. This way he can peddle the line, “we’ll see what happens, they might want to bring their own people in” Leaves with his reputation enhanced* , gets a pay off and then ends up at Sunderland in 2/3 years from now when they get into the Championship. Everyone is happy.

I assume there are ways around it. Like paying over the odds for a player and having the payments staggered. So the outlay over a season falls within those parameters but it’s basically on the limit every season for multiple deals?

I think it was in reference to some quotes attributed to him saying that the lads were enjoying training more under the new “gaffer”

The pitch is currently at most 3 metres from the front row, where are you going to fit in these extra thousands? Well I’m talking more about a stadium rebuild than a modification. There’s only one way that can happen which is building up. I think it will eventually have to happen, moving the ground somewhere else doesn’t seem to be an option anymore and besides, the location is perfect there. We would have to ground share though or just rent the use of somewhere similar to what Spurs did. Geographically it doesn’t leave many options though..

Seeming as money would be no object when considering what they might do. Why not take the Camp Nou approach and dig into the ground leaving the pitch much lower? It would solve all sorts of planning issues and you could pretty much bring it up to the level it’s at while still packing in thousands more below. Barca’s ground is only 48 meters high from street level, SJP is 98 according to google. The new Wembley is well below ground too iirc.

Saudi for some Saudis and definitely for Yemen = very bad. Not so much for the rest of the world. Mike Ashley for Newcastle supporters = very bad. Not so much for the rest of the country. It’s not the same but there are parallels. I don’t agree at all some of the things Saudi do but it doesn’t affect me directly so I don’t really care all that much which is exactly the same thing as the rest of the country here being oblivious to what Mike Ashley has done to the club/city for 13 years. They didn’t care and why should they have.

It does sound like they sat around drinking expensive brandy on a yacht thinking up all sorts of business deals that could come about between the football club and the racecourse, the latter being why the Reubens are involved. There’s definitely a plan in place.

I think the notion that it’s going to take 5 or 6 seasons to attract top players is absurd. We all know they are a bunch of whores when it comes to loyalty. If we’re happy to spend the wages, we could attract most players I’m fairly sure. In the past we’ve been able to bring in very decent players even when we’ve been total dogshit overall. Also, I’m mindful that we are taking for granted that Rafa is the first choice of the new owners. Sure he might be Staveleys preference but it will be the chairman making the big decisions? He could have someone else in mind. Let’s be prepared to be slightly disappointed with regards this particular situation.

The idea of playing 90 odd games in a month seems far too ambitious. The thing is that there’s a whole bunch of meaningless mid table games (such as ours) Why not arrange a mini league for the European places and a mini league for the drop? Means less games, less risk and far more achievable. The alternative is cancelling the season and starting the following season at a later point. Touch on Liverpool but that’s life.

Honestly, we all know the answer to that. The word is full of hypocrites and those who control the media control the narrative. We don’t really need to get into ethical debates over this. Its a far bigger issue than football.

The media in general won’t tackle the bigger issue (governments readily happy to take their money for bombs and jets) so we’re going to have to get used to being a focus of their faux outrage. I don’t personally agree with how they do things over there but it doesn’t effect me. There’s terrible things happening all over the world. It’s not my responsibility or burden. Let them write what they feel they need to. Things will eventually go back to normal and they’ll run out of steam.

Are we having a wobble today? Have no fear. It’s happening. It’s in motion. The only entity that can screw this up now is the Premier League.

It’s basically just a bunch of bitch journalists who are all salty because they knew nothing of this the whole time. It took some astute fanatic on Twitter to uncover the companies house stuff which ultimately was the story in itself. I would even say Caulkin was kept in the dark over this one, mostly. He kept his powder dry which gave the aura that he knew all along but I have my doubts. Whoever leaked the story to the WSJ could well have fucked this whole thing up, thank god clear heads prevailed and the pandemic situation also twisted Ashleys arm.

Didn’t he say the coronavirus was a whole panic over nothing about 2 months ago?

It’ll be done and then the Crown Prince will rock up and be like

The grandad collar shirt ran for 2 seasons. Was the perfect design.

I’d be excited to see what they choose to do with the shirt (and sponsor) for next season. As far as am aware, nothing was signed with Puma yet so anyone else could come in and design something quickly.

Essentially yes. It’s total guesswork as to how the deal is constructed but it’s well into its process now. Once the PL have done their checks which indeed does seem a formality, they can make the required payment and it will all be done. What we don’t know is if it’s a clean break, or will Ashley still have some sort of contract on the club shop. There’s bound to be some hidden nasty we haven’t seen yet.

Yes Rafa in a heartbeat but I don’t think it will play out like that. He’s got 2 years left on his Chinese contract if I remember correctly. We can hope though. I honestly don’t know enough about Allegri to have confidence he’d be good in the PL. Conte I like but why would he leave his current role? Poch did great last year but something wasn’t right at Spurs this season, that would be a concern that he lost the dressing room after having a season like the year before.

So to summarise what’s happened over the last few days. They came to an agreement on the price. The Reubens lent Amanda Staveley the money for the deposit. The deposit went to St James Holdings. We assume the deeds to the club are held within this. The agreement essentially sees St James Holdings being turned over to PCP on provision that the balance is paid by an agreed date. The joint venture company made amendments to show that they (Reubens, Staveley have 50% each) All these companies set up have appointed directors in the last few days. Either accountants of other people who have worked with the Reubens. Mike Ashley hasn’t really done anything. There’s been no activity on his side of things other than to shorten the accounting period of his companies. There’s no movement on all the other companies that Lee Charnley is director of, yet. We’re told the owner/directors test has started. Seems like it’s all still a few weeks away from being finalised?

I think Fun88 would not sit well with the whole Muslim and gambling thing. They will be gone well before Steve Bruce is.