Abacus

George Graham. Who was actually quite good.

Steve will have clogged up the fax machine with his fat buttery fingers anyway, so no more transfers. Haydn though, I think is underrated. As a purely defensive midfielder sitting in front of defence, he's not bad. The problem is that he has to play alongside Shelvey, who also falls back because he has no athleticism, but he can't tackle either. So him and Haydn occupy the same position, cutting off any link with our front players. It's why St Max drops back into our own half and has to run past half a team instead of just beating one, which you'd back him to do most times. It's also why Haydn goes charging forward out of his depth like a headless chicken - because Shelvey is always drifting around there doing nothing - he's not the link player we need but given the right role, he'd be good. It's a bit like Longstaff again - play to his strengths with a decent coach instead of just throwing players onto the pitch.

How come? That's really not intending that to be an aggressive question, by the way. I know a bit about finance, and due diligence, but when it comes to buying football clubs all logic flies out of the window to me. Couldn't value NUFC or any football club if you paid me, and I've read all our last filed accounts for 4 years. Like, just for fun. Football clubs are the ultimate casino purchase, with so many assumptions that you might as well spin a wheel.

Terrible news, an irrepressible presence on the touchline and a great foil for KK. He'll be a legend here, in fact he already is for me. There's not many folks you don't even know who make such an impression on you. Aww, really wishing the best for him and his family.

I think what happens at the end of September is that it's decided whether the CAT case has the jurisdiction to decide whether the PL has blocked the takeover unfairly purely due to breaking anti-competition law, or else that it's not in their domain to judge it. If they do have that power, then this becomes an external process that the PL can't control, and that's quite a big thing and not just for us, but for others too. I guess that's why people hope the PL might fold at that point. But who knows, really. It's not my area of knowledge.

I hope that the people using it don't know what "mongs" means. It's usually a shortening of mongoloids, often used as an insulting term for people with Downs syndrome. It is in no way acceptable to be used, and still less as an insult. Time for me to leave this place.

Agreed. A more simple question might be; Richard, do you think that giving certain clubs a permanent financial advantage will mean the league will always remain as competitive? If so, despite all logic, then on what basis should those select clubs be chosen? And why are Spurs even there 😂?

The thing about Arsenal is, they always try and walk it in.

I would say that is a significant kick to the premier league's knackers.

Somewhere, miles away, Steve Bruce's ears suddenly prick up. "Finally, he's talking my language"

Whilst that hasn't really helped explanation wise, I do appreciate the effort and enthusiasm behind it. Rice Krispies also do have a lot to answer for, in general, but I expect that's for another day.

Flip's sake, you got me there.

This is quite a wild Tuesday night.

Well, it's clearly only a flesh wound.

I do wonder what documents might not have been filed on time. If I'm on either side and was intent on kicking the can down the road, what I'd have done is dump loads of documents at the last minute and asked loads of extra questions for evidence from the other side, right at 1 minute before the extended deadline. We so far only have a couple of journalists who have said it was failures on both sides, neither of which I much trust due to their behaviour, but hey it could well be the case that they're right, even for such a confidential process. Not saying this was any part of a plan at all either, just thinking that to me that arbitration always seemed like it would likely only go one way, because of the way it was set up. Oh well, it'll keep us all busy till our next pre season loss anyway.

I'm not saying there is any sort of plan to this by the way. But if you're in the consortium and likely being badgered daily for updates, then you need to express your disappointment when there is yet another delay. I also think that the anti competition claim could be much more worrying for the PL, assuming there are any legs in it.

Since this is the optimism thread... If you were the PL, would you rather sort this out behind closed doors, ignoring calls for transparency, in a process where you get to choose the deciding judge, which your opponent has already tried and failed to remove. Or in an open competition claim, which you have already tried to throw out on the grounds that you'd much rather do it your own way. It's all I've got.

I can't argue with any of that, nor would I want to. Owen cost £17m back in 2005, so given the inflation in player prices, I've no idea what that would be today. I'm betting more than £40m - still, I remember being shocked when we paid Bristol City £1.75 for Andy Cole. What I do think is that whilst neither player is responsible for their transfer fee, Owen brought a bad attitude back that Joelinton hasn't. He's no good at this role, but he's also working under Steve Bruce rather than Keegan for one thing. Stats aside, Owen should have been a senior player who took responsibility. Instead, he was the worst possible example. Ability wise, I'd agree it's no comparison, but I'd quite happily flush Owen's head down the school bogs more than Joelinton's.

The only thing is, I don't hate Joelinton like I did Michael Owen. I have it in my head that Owen's stinking attitude was part of the reason we got relegated, due to the pure poison of his personality. So I think that should be factored in to his true cost, rather than the headline transfer fee alone.

Manager of this team, S Bruce (£4m). At least Pardew and Kinnear were on a free.

I just got this too 😂

It's interesting that he is considering a coaching role. He must realise his playing days are over - they probably were a long time ago to be fair. I might be doing him a massive disservice, but he doesn't strike me as coaching material. At least partly because his skillset as the big target man is so out of fashion, and probably will be more so over the years as I'm guessing heading will be increasingly phased out from youth level upwards for health reasons. Of course, you don't have to coach the things you were personally naturally good at. In fact in some ways doing that can be a disadvantage, as you're not able to understand why someone can't do what you can. Anyhow, that brief article was by Henry Winter, so I'm guessing it was right. According to it, he'd wanted an extra year, but no dice. Best of luck to him, you do wonder if he could do a job in the championship (or dare I say it League One) off the bench for 4 or 5 goals a season.

Brief article in the Times today saying he has in fact been released, and will be looking for a new club, but is also open to a coaching role. You wonder how his career might have gone if it hadn't been for his injuries.

Whilst there's literally no comparison between Benitez and the oaf, I'm not sure the spending comparison really works. £100m yes, but how many of those players did Fatboy Fat actually choose? I know he claimed they were all his choices, but... Joelinton for one thing was clearly already on the way, so it seems he just told a big stupid lie about that to pretend he was in charge. After all, he's 'head coach', not manager, though his ego can't seem to accept that. In the same vein, I'm equally not giving him any credit for St Max or Wilson, so I'm not defending the walloper either. Of course no manager gets it right every time on transfers, and Benitez wasn't immune from making the odd mistake obviously. I recognise he was hamstrung by the club, but even so I'd also be quite pleased to start with a clean slate and with somebody new, assuming Ashley does finally go. I wish him all the best at Everton, as long as he doesn't raid our few decent players. I wondered if he might go back for Perez, who was a big favourite of his but wasn't pulling up any trees for Leicester last season. Better yet, perhaps Agent Benitez could do us a favour and blow £100m on Jonjo Shelley, Dwight Gayle and Andy Carroll.

Didn't Grealish come out and say he wanted to take a penalty, and it was Southgate who decided on the order? In which case, no criticism at all to Saka who was prepared to put his hand up and take one. But there's only one person who was responsible for putting a 19 year old in for the final deciding penalty, which could either win you the whole thing, or mean you're knocked out and likely have to be reminded of that for the rest of your life. No pressure either way, for sure.