TheBrownBottle

Christ, how many players are we selling to fund that lot

Aye, 5-0 was the scoreline I was thinking too.

We’ve packed him off on gardening leave - we’ve stopped him from working. Perhaps he could argue that this is detrimental to his career? In terms of transfers - in all honesty I’ve always been curious to see what would happen if a player took a club to court for that very thing. Transfer fees were always a weird derogation of employment law.

I thought UK Corporate Governance practice limited notice periods to one year maximum for executives (this is from memory like - it happened to a director of a firm I used to work for) - and I would have thought Ashworth could take the club to tribunal if he thought he could show that the notice period is unreasonable. I’m struggling to see a judge agreeing that an 18 month notice period for a senior administrator is reasonable.

In all honesty I wouldn’t be too sure of that - punitive clauses in contracts are not enforceable in England, regardless of them being inserted into a contract or not, and he might be able to claim against us stopping him from working.

Arbitrators can’t, courts can. But exactly as you’ve said it would likely cause delays to get a court involved.

Yes, of course Man Utd would have been. The fact that the silly cunt who did nowt at Nice is now trying to rebuild Glazer FC on the cheap and thinks that administrators are the route back says it all. Watching him crash and burn is going to be hugely satisfying.

Adjudicators don’t normally look kindly upon parties who refuse arbitration tbf - I agree the club may view delays as being of benefit to us and detrimental to Man Ure. But the whole ‘demand £20m or tell them to get fucked’ has now gone for a Burton.

Arbitration doesn’t usually favour clubs demanding big fees with little previous evidence of big fees. I’m willing to bet if the arbitration panel rules before any agreement we don’t get much more than we paid Brighton. Certainly the club holding out for a ten figure sum is likely down the shitter - that strategy only works if Ashworth doesn’t take the steps he is doing now In all honesty, Ashworth is coming across as the biggest cunt of all here

The publicly produced UEFA & PL regs and our published accounts and likely forecast for the season are pretty good starters for ten if you don't want to believe the meeja tbf. And that would suggest we're not on a great wicket.

It changes people’s perspective if you disallow the First Division goals Shearer scored before 1992. And penalties last time I checked count. Shearer is the fourth highest scoring player in top flight history. Cole is joint thirty-seventh. They’re not close

I remember that - you’re right, it was the year before that Milan beat that Barca side

Playing well is not the same as ‘playing a blinder’ tbf. Palace played well, but it wasn’t an amazing display of skill

Yep, they absolutely took them to pieces that night. And then that Barcelona side were taken apart 4-0 in the final by Milan!

Definitely - Hall was one of the only bright spots vs Palace. I know Howe is limited atm due to injuries, but we’re not going to get away with playing Murphy at RB etc too many times

You know there is a goal coming in any 1 on 1 situation. He makes me nervous, and you can see how deep our back line drops with him in nets

Yep, and with the current available midfield they aren’t offered much protection either I hope Hall and Livramento start at the weekend

Yeah, the away performances are a concern this season. Very passive - I’m hoping with fit squad next year that it stops

Oof … wasn’t great today, but not sure that the lad should be the target of ire tbh. Some far more experienced heads played worse today for me

Just a bad day at the office IMO. A collective failure - hopefully there’ll be a correction at the weekend, and doubly hopefully we won’t see Burn LB Murphy RB Krafth CB

A ground where we’ve won one league game in over half a century isn’t a place where I think ‘walkover’ tbh

Don’t get me wrong, that was always going to be tough. But the basics weren’t there tonight - being second string doesn’t mean that they have an excuse for not being able to string two consecutive passes together. Palace didn’t need to play well - we were passive and technically levels below where we should be. I thought Bruno, Isak and Gordon were collectively poor too - it wasn’t just the Murphys and Longstaffs in the team.

Including Man Utd away?

Poor that, unfortunately. One of those ones where the manager and players just got it badly wrong from the first minute to the last. Hate these passive away performances this season. Onwards and upwards

True, and they’re really exposed when the talented ones are collectively poor too. I thought Gordon in particular wasn’t any better than some of his less talented teammates.