TheBrownBottle

Agreed, it might well do - they were hastily drafted. But they could also redraft again. At some point, you’d hope, this ends. The PL has been absolutely stupid in not compromising. I also don’t think this ends until the Man City case does - which could be some time. Man City’s actions are more than a bit dodgy, mind. But there’s a lot of premature excitement re this - nothing has changed in months, and this isn’t an update. We knew all of this.

Tbh we are still in the ‘wait and see’ territory. The majority of PL clubs want rules in place - a handful of those rules running aground doesn’t mean that the PL won’t engage lawyers to try to nail the wording. They’re not just going to back down and walk away. I’ve no interest in the excitable views of the football press, who report based on what they want to happen rather than knowledge of what is happening. Martin Samuel for example is a long-standing critic of the rules (with good reason of course). It’s all agenda-driven. When the PL rule book is changed, that’s when it’s over.

It might be worth remembering how it was being blocked - via the threat of putting MBS through a FPPT, which he would undoubtedly fail (as most dictators would). The paying off of BEIN dropped their issues, and there is little doubt that PIF would have made guarantees to the PL to play by the rules.

Literally nothing has changed from what we knew. Some of the APT rules were judged to be against UK law - and the PL was going to redraft the offending articles. Their redrafts may also fall foul of it. The PL cocked up with their hastily rewritten rules. That doesn’t mean the end of the rules. I’d be surprised if we have any benefit gained between 21-24. The ones who should be troubled are those who had director debts not accumulating interest.

A referee having a shite game getting back chat / sworn at / farted on / pushed by your own players. Yeah, it doesn’t help - but it can be very, very satisfying. Also, loads of red cards in a game.

Mebbes they used it for dog racing, like the old Wembley

Did you go to the Delle Alpi in 2002 WM? I don't get the impression that Turin can build decent grounds - that one was built for the 1990 WC and was already an absolute shit tip when we played there in the CL against Juve only a dozen years later. The state of the bogs was a wonder of the ages - you could've swam in there. Though I always did like a running track in European grounds - it always made it 'feel' like you were at a European match!

I think that is what the average Arsenal punter has been hoping for ages.

STs are now sub-optimal ways of selling tickets for the big clubs. Why let a superfan Joe Bloggs who has been there for decades get all 19 home matches a season for 500 quid, when you could sell 19 tickets for individual games to tourists for perhaps as much as 100 quid a pop? While I think that there will always be STs at football, the clubs who can do it will look to reduce those numbers as quickly as they can. If we become genuinely successful, this is likely our future too.

They're above us, so if they're shit, not sure what we are?

I almost hope we don’t win for your kids’ sake - they’ll end up being traumatised by their dad’s celebrations!

100% - so it would be of benefit this summer if it happens. The removal of 'acceptable losses' with PSR is going to sting us.

I hate pundits who use the term 'common sense' as a workaround to not understanding the Laws of the Game. 'By letter of the law it might be a foul, but the referee should apply common sense'. No they fucking well shouldn't.

Europe is a location, and it is the European Cup - it should be played in Europe.

Honestly, can't they just fuck right off with this shite? It's the European Cup Final ffs. Don't CONCACAF have a continental cup of their own? Just fuck the fuck off. Other than the whole Moscow, Kiev and (part of) Istanbul being in Europe you mean - and them being a couple of hours away by plane from western Europe rather than nearly half a day away?

Looks like it could be one more season of working out if we're within 105m of acceptable losses again, rather than the proportion of squad cost vs turnover. Proper Roy of the Rovers stuff.

Haha I didn’t count the Chelsea semi! I was there too. That Euro96 match must’ve been a pisser for a Scotland fan - and if you’d went to the game a few years later, you’d have seen a Scotland win (Don Hutchison, the Englishman who scored for Scotland against England, also the Geordie who scored for Sunderland against Newcastle. A man not to be trusted )

"Live round the corner ... you only live around the corner" (to the tune of 'Guantanemera') is surely the standard response to 'United' fans at Wembley?

I heard Keith is going again - and was glad to hear it! I'd heard about his ban after Hull away yonks ago. And of course, she also had scraggy raggy hair Can't wait for the 16th mate - and I'll be one of the daft cunts singing at a telly in a bar in Sydney at stupid AM with other like-minded daft bastards!

In the 21st Century, sure. But we got to watch Blackburn win the league; even the Mackems regaled in the 'Bank of England' patter. It is almost as old as football.

I haven't been in years - and for those who don't know, I live in Sydney, so that probably seems like a reasonable excuse. But it isn't really - I boycotted after KK was pushed out (I was a ST holder who would average c. 10 away games per season - yes, there were bigger 'superfans' than me, but that took a serious chunk of my income and time). I would've lost 'the bug' either way after boycotting for so long. Then I fucked off abroad because - in part without the 'structure' of matchdays - I wanted a different life. I point this out because during my years as a 'regular' (c.1989 - 2008) the atmosphere was never perfect - in fact, it was often shite. Thanks mostly I think to Wor Flags, I think the atmosphere has actually improved over the last few years - I can promise any young'un, it really wasn't that good in the past a lot of the time. @Heron and his pals get plenty of kudos on here - absolutely correctly - but you know what, they probably still don't get enough credit! I can still remember the first time I started a chant - it was one of the biggest adrenaline rushes of my life. You feel like a conductor or something. After that, my ridiculously loud voice could be heard starting 'DRRRRRIIIIIINK DRINK WHEREVER YOU MAY BE' or 'Geordie Alouette' etc - or even sometimes one-off originals. And I fucking loved it. Some of you poor bastards likely had your eardrums knackered by my voice at away games, or on a Keith Barrett coach. For that, I don't apologise . It is also why I love reading @NUFC91's posts in this thread - they basically reflect my views as a younger bloke re atmosphere. But if you think that we've lost something recently - we haven't. That's been gone for decades now. The point of this self-aggrandizing post is that I've been both - the lunatic spending every penny on watching NUFC, singing every song non-stop - and also the older, miserable bastard who through distance doesn't go anymore. If you've got a Wembley ticket, make as much noise as you can - this is the entire point of all those shite afternoons in the arse end of nowhere, or watching shite NUFC teams lose at home vs weak opposition. I've been to Wembley four times, and we lost every bastard time. My Charity Shield programme in 1996 has got Warren Barton's signature on it - which, bless him, sums it up. I'd have been even more fucked-off if we'd sat there like day-tripping mutes. So don't sit on your hands - you'll regret it if you do. Cheers

Every fucking club 'bought' their trophies. As if Arsenal's status, revenue and geographical location didn't buy theirs. From the moment Blackburn Olympic won the FA Cup by paying players, all trophies were 'bought'. It is as true in the 2020s as it was in the 1880s - and any cunt denying that is a fucking idiot

That definitely helps (though there was a Man City-supporting lad in my class in high school in the west end of Newcastle - and we're talking 95-98. Looking back, he must've a masochist). Their old fanbase still exists for lads my age and both younger and older - lads and lasses who remember being absolutely shite and suffering in the shadow of their neighbours (who as a 40-odd year old NUFC supporter I still utterly fucking detest). Most of them have retained that cynical edge - they still sort of expect the worst despite being the luckiest sods on the planet over the last 15 years . There are knackers amongst them - like any support - but the Manc lads I've met over the years who support them retained that deeply cynical edge about their club which is embedded into my soul re NUFC. They won the lottery, and they know it - fair fucks to them! I don't have a 'soft spot' for them, exactly - I don't have one for any sizeable club other than us - but I don't give a shite about them, which I cannot say about Man Utd nor the cockney members of the Sky Six.

I still find Man City a hard club to dislike, even with all their trophies (probably because it clearly fucks off their less pleasant red neighbours). Always felt like a naturally 'big club' with a working class support base who'd been shat on for decades by incompetent owners. I want us to win, obviously - but whenever these have won trophies it has been met by a shrug by me - which is as close as I'll ever get to be congratulatory to another club winning things.