Abacus

I tell you what I find interesting about that disclosure re the premier league's position in their accounts. The fact that they made it at all. If you're confident the chances are remote, you don't need to say anything about it. Wasn't it about that time they were asking for financial details of the extent of Newcastle's claim? Because if you know what you're on the hook for, you're supposed to disclose that too.

If he has really done all of that deliberately, then I for one would like De Marco to be the next manager of NUFC. Imagine how he'd signal his pre match team selections through the spectrum of artistic photographs, or perhaps interpretive dance. What a press conference that would be. As opposed to Steve Bruce telling us what he once thought whilst he was on the toilet.

Perhaps Bruce has planted this story with his brother, to see if it comes out. The great detective is still trying to find the mole.

The other thing I remember about that Doncaster game was finding out about Carroll's broken hand on the coach on the way down there, and that all the coaches were diverted to pile into Ripon until the police would let them head down the motorway to get to the actual stadium. It was a midweek game, and so some random midweek afternoon, a few sleepy country pubs in that town got absolutely flooded with fans. I remember there was one local old fellow sat on a stool by the bar, when suddenly he was surrounded by people singing and downing pints at a rate of knots. The funniest part was when the landlord burst out of the toilets like there had been a murder, yelling "Right - everybody stop! Who's done it? I'm calling the police!" "Who's done what?" came the cry "Who's done it? Own up! Who's nicked the bogs?" And sure enough, a whole urinal trough had gone missing since we'd got there There was a pause. And despite the fact there was still only that confused old local man sat on his stool who was not wearing a Newcastle top, someone piped up with "How dare you, you're only blaming us because we're from Newcastle" I still have no idea how someone stole a toilet in plain sight. Or why.

He had phenomenal talent in the air, some of his headers were out of this world. Obviously injuries took a huge toll, but I do wonder if we'll see a player like him again. The big man centre forward has gone out of vogue (but would clearly appeal to someone living in the past, like Bruce). But in general, with all this talk of heading the ball leading to brain injuries and being discouraged at youth training level, you can't see that style of player coming through again. Wish him all the best, though. He clearly wanted to play for us and did his best. I'll always remember the championship promotion season, where we won 1-0 away at Doncaster with him scoring, when he'd got a plaster on his arm after a punch up 😂

All I could find in English was a hilarious report from a news site called "Newsbeezer", which I'm assuming just takes reports and then throws them through Google translate. Here it is; Who will be Fenerbahce’s new coach? How old is Rafael Benitez June 5, 2021 Sports It has been alleged that the yellow-and-dark blue team, which ended last season disappointed and failed to end their yearning for the championship, faced Spanish coach Rafael Benitez. According to the news in A Spor, Fenerbahce will bring Rafael Benitez to Istanbul on June 16. While the news did not reveal any information about the deal and contract, it said the 61-year-old veteran teacher would be coming to Istanbul for Fenerbahçe in the coming days. HE WORKED GIANTS Rafael Benitez was born on April 16, 1960 in Madrid, Spain. Benitez, who sustained an injury shortly after starting football in Real Madrid’s infrastructure and was unable to recover, left football at the age of 26 and focused on coaching. Rafa, who started his career in Real Madrid infrastructure; He coached giant clubs like Liverpool, Inter, Chelsea, Valencia, Real Madrid. MUG COLLECTORS The Spanish coach, who celebrated his greatest success by reaching the Champions League Cup with Liverpool, also won the Europa League with Valencia and Chelsea. Benitez, who won 2 league titles with Valencia; He also won cup titles with Liverpool, Napoli and Inter. WHICH TEAMS DID RAFAEL BENITEZ TRAINED? Rafael Benitez’s teams and season information during his coaching career are as follows; 1993-1995 Real Madrid B 1995-1996 Valladolid 1996 Osasuna 1997-1999 Extremadura 2000-2001 Tenerife 2001-2004 Valencia 2004-2010 Liverpool 2010-2011 Inter 2012-2013 Chelsea 2013-2015 Naples 2015-2016 Real Madrid 2016-2019 Newcastle United 2019- Dalian Yifang (In June 2020 the website newsbeezer.com was on the 48,584th place in the ranking of the most reliable and popular sources, that's according to Wiki) MUG COLLECTORS 😂

The purpose of the business is listed as related to property based on the SIC code. I conclude they intend to sell a static caravan. List of activities classified inside the UK SIC Code 68100 Apartment buildings buying and selling Building sales and purchase Dwellings buying and selling Land buying and selling Real estate buying and selling Real estate owner Static caravan sales

I suppose it has been pointed out to him that the great manager Steve Bruce also isn't wanted by anyone else. Or, indeed, anyone at all.

It'll be like Brucester's Millions, man. Get on the bench, Harry Kane, I'm playing Dwight Gayle.

Haha, I've googled the wrong Simon Bird haven't I? I've googled the actor from the Inbetweeners. I've had a shocker 😂

A quick Google suggests Simon Bird is a Crystal Palace fan. I'm certain there's about to be a vacancy somewhere for such a great manager with such a sad face at his current job 🙁

I don't think they can force the PL to change their decision on the takeover, so yes that's surely a possibility. The action asks them to reconsider it, which they could pretend to do, and still say no, or just delay. That said, then you've got arbitration afterwards. And if you've publicly lost a case about acting uncompetitively, and the arbitration panel has to publish their reasons (due to the previous legal case about possible bias), I'd say you'd think hard. You see, this is why I'm not a lawyer.

Fingers crossed then, my friend. That's all we all want

It's a delaying tactic, and an attempt to find out more information in my opinion too. That doesn't suggest confidence on the PL's part, to me. Perhaps I'm in the wrong thread. I don't think we actually disagree too much, except about how you might value a football club. What were Man City worth when they were in League 1, for instance? Well, something is only worth as much as you're prepared to pay, and why you're prepared to pay it.

Well, I agree with all that. As I say, there's no conventional way to value a football club anyway. So, we don't know how the lawsuit has determined the extent of their claimed loss, or on what basis. What I find interesting, is that this is the thing the PL seem most keen to find out. To me, it's as if they're trying to figure out what's at stake.

Why would the PL know that? What is the value of a club? This isn't a normal business, where it's the discounted future cash flows it will generate. Nor can you just say that it's the cost of the bricks and mortar, because that's not all you're buying. It's basically what someone is prepared to pay, there's not much logic to what that is in a lot of cases - such as owning a trophy asset, like a PL club. My reading of the PL asking for that document or documents, is that they're just asking exactly how much they are being sued for.

Might be wrong, but it reads to me like the document the PL really wanted to get access to related to the value of the club, and hence how much they would stand to lose if they lost the competition case. If that's right, then despite the extension, the judge basically said that this isn't relevant to the actual rights or wrongs of your defence. To my mind, it's an odd question for the PL to ask if you're confident of your case in the first place. I.e., how much will I have to pay? Of course, I may well be misunderstanding all that, since I had a beer at lunchtime.

I guess so. There's no guarantee a win would make the PL change their decision on the ODD test, true. On the other hand, it would be a fairly public way of slapping down the PL and saying rum fiddlings were afoot. Then the club start arbitration after that, and the logic for that decision has to be made public now as well, due to that previous legal challenge. So, if it succeeds, it surely tilts the arbitration decision our way. Also, I think if De Marco doesn't know this trick already, he should throw a ball at Richard Masters in court. When he catches it with his right hand, he should say "aha! I thought you said you were left handed!" And vice versa if he catches it in his left hand. It's won so many court cases.

I think we may well be agreeing 😂 I wasn't expecting that. Fair play to you and your descendents, I doff my cap.

Well if that's true, why don't people behave in this one too? Maybe because the possible end of the Ashley era has made everyone ker-azy. But it's a very specific fantasy, crucial to a lot of people, so I think it's worth it's own thread. Oh well, opinions. On another note, I think football in general is heading for a massive correction. It was clearly only ever a massive Ponzi scheme based on the fantasy of ever increasing TV revenues. Unless you have a Chelsea or Man City type owner, who aren't in it for the money in the first place.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rafa-benitez-reveals-detail-mike-17307918 Sorry for sharing a Chronicle article, although there's some great detail in there about someone in the top team not knowing how to microwave his lunch and Rafa having to help him (my bet is Charnley). Anyhow, whether true or not, it seems like St Max wasn't his choice. To me, he does seem too much of a libero to fit in with the kind of meticulous planning Rafa goes for. How do you coach him, or a Ben Arfa, for that matter? But who knows, and I'll stop derailing the thread now.

If I set up an 'unrealistic optimistic transfers' thread, intended to be about how Messi would fit in with our current team, how he might improve certain players etc or indeed accommodate Shelvey as well, that might be a laugh. Or how we might drop him for Hendricks every now and again. If people then started piling in, saying "We'll never sign Messi, I'm just being realistic, just don't send me back to the real transfers thread with other people like me", I'd think they'd have missed the point. Anyhoo, back on track. IF we had money to spend, who would you trust it to for transfers? I know there's a lot of people that would have Rafa back in a heartbeat. I'm not sure I would. I don't think he'd have bought St Max for one thing. Not actually sure who's idea that transfer was, because someone did something right for once, and I'm confused about who gets the credit.

Well he's right then, that's a definite tail off in form.

Again, based on nothing but guesswork and idle hope.

FWIW, my own opinion is that both Big Picture and the ESL were blatant attempts to pull up the drawbridge on any competition. I think we all see it that way, so nothing controversial there, and obviously the whole collapse was delightful. But now, rumours that some of these self appointed 'big' clubs are unofficially up for sale, which have two alternative optimistic points of view. The first is that their long term growth projections were based on constantly expanding TV money; now they've been blocked, can't see a way to keep the whole bubble inflating, and want out, because their values would crash. Optimistically, that could cause a much bigger correction across the PL. And / or, as complete speculation, do they fear a bigger competitor (or more than one) is already in the wings and are trying to bail out before they get in?