christ

All bar one Literally just me and Ando now with any credibility.

Honestly, they’d be better off with the Rich Energy charlatan.

Hence my hesitancy to go full ‘ITK’. I expected the owners to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but if that was the case I reckon we’d have heard by now.

There were quite a few reasons I was told but the way it was explained to me was that the new market value rules threw quite a big spanner in the works. Shirt sponsorship was on the agenda until then. It changed the mathematics quite dramatically, especially because of the long term contract with Fun88. Funnily enough I also asked about legal action at the time and the response I got was that the owners are quite keen to build up some goodwill within the league and build our influence that way. I don’t think we’ll see us back in court again any time soon. I was also told that Ashley had done such a piss poor job on the commercial side the club reckon there’s a load of potential there. It’ll go down like a fart in a phone box on here because of the Fun88 stuff, but it was actually a really positive conversation.

I’m not saying you do. However there are an awful lot of people on here getting themselves all worked up about something which is totally inconsequential and every corner of NUFC internet is going to be unbearable when they get the news they don’t want in the coming days/weeks. A couple of months ago I was told by someone who is close to the club (albeit not in a commercial capacity) and who I have no reason to disbelieve that Fun88 was staying next year because - and I’m paraphrasing - they’ve looked at the lay of the land and right now it doesn’t make financial sense. I’ve largely kept it under my hat because I wasn’t sure whether the info was good, but I’ve seen zero to suggest we’re about to change shirt sponsorship. Put as much stock in that as you want.

You might have missed this mate, but we’re owned by Saudi Arabia. A ‘good and pleasant’ brand isn’t going to make much of a difference. I don’t understand the desire to do damage to the club’s finances just to change sponsor when it’s going to happen very, very soon regardless. Relax. It’s just a poxy logo.

It does - and it’s almost certainly the rationale behind keeping Fun88 - but there’s a cadre of fans who seem who have invested an awful lot of their being into being able to walk around with a different company’s name plastered across their gut. Sponsorship should be at the very bottom of any list of concerns. The only measure is a financial one, and I trust those in charge to make the decision that makes the most sense.

Witsel?

But they’ve been mentioned? They’ve been leaked. There was a big carry on about the colour of our away kit. That was only about a fortnight ago. The reason there hasn’t been any subsequent discussion about the kits and sponsorship is that virtually all of the drama and speculation has been cooked up by the bored minds on here.

Drowning in info here.

They need to release the kit asap because I’m sick to the back teeth of people discussing this fucking shirt sponsor

The official history as I understand it is that football was introduced to the area by British workers of indeterminate origin (allegedly from the south coast and North East), but it wasn’t until about 15 years later that Athletic started wearing red and white stripes and that was because it was the only shirts they could get their hands on. Every club has a Bilbao link they like to amp up. I file most of them as apocryphal bollocks alongside “Brian Clough was almost our manager” and “we nearly signed a young Maradona”.

It’ll be able to be paid off, but why would you at this juncture if you’re NUFC? Not likely to be able to raise a massive sum in the ultra short term because of these rules around market rate sponsorship, and the government are likely to legislate on gambling shirt sponsorship soon. In all likelihood it’ll make greater financial sense to spend 12 months focusing on growing the other commercial revenue streams into the club and improving our league position. It’s not entirely inconceivable we’ll have a clean break with Fun88, and we’ll have a much stronger hand at arguing our fair market value should be much greater than it would be now.

Thank fuck I’ve accrued a load of flexi.

I wouldn’t brag about your encyclopaedic knowledge of individual NUFC fans. It makes you sound like a bit of an oddball.

Same. They’re not good enough now for where we want to be but they’ve been fantastic servants for the most part, usually during pretty dark days for the club. I always got the impression that this group of players genuinely gave a fuck, which isn’t something I can say about some others.

I’m incredibly laid back about this summer. I totally trust the club to get it right. The business we did and the way we went about January was impeccable IMO. It’s obviously fun to speculate on how much we’ll spend, but there’s a long road ahead. If we’re able to box clever now it gives us much greater scope in 12/24 months time when you’d hope NUFC is going to be a much more attractive project for players who will demand big money. The last thing I want is to piss away this golden opportunity and end up like Everton - handing over enormous sums for name players with little regard for whether they want to be here or are actually any good.

This forum

Is there a chance Anderson could feature?

We really shouldn’t give a fuck what a perennially pissed second rate Guardian ‘journalist’ writes tbf.

Do you think it’s likely you’ll be able to spend much if at all this summer? I know you had to move pretty cannily during January (paying Alli in instalments and only after he’s played a certain number of games), but there’s only so much of that you can do. I wouldn’t mind Lampard if the media weren’t so determined to give him the soapiest of tit wanks for being a pretty mediocre manager thus far. He arguably underperformed with a financially doped Derby he loaded with Chelsea loanees (and made a cunt of himself by crying about Bielsa in the process), eventually got found out in a big way at Chelsea (and made a cunt of himself by repeatedly throwing his players under the bus), and at Everton he seems to have turned you into an absolute basketcase on the pitch yet gets lauded for it.

He’s made himself look a proper twat there.

You could get decent money for Woodman and Darlow. Not so much Gillespie. If we’re as concerned with generating cash as is suggested it’s a no brainier.

Maybe just me but I don’t have a problem with that Matt Law tweet. Seems fair. It sounds like clapping managers is the done thing among certain journalists but knowing very little about what goes on after the dictaphones are turned off I thought it was fucking deranged behaviour when I first saw the clip tbh. Things can ultimately get a bit weird when journalists get close to clubs and personalities (Duncan Castles, our Lukey and his obsession with Bruce etc). It’s not that unreasonable that some people in the profession might not like it.

All speculation on my part, but my feeling is the club want to shift the deadwood first. We won’t see many current first teamers leave unless they personally really want to go and at the moment I don’t see that being an issue.