TheBrownBottle

Yes and double-yes, though I’m going to combine both and suggest removing names from shirts and replacing them with numbers 1-11. I don’t like that a player ‘owns’ a shirt. Ego-stroking shite.

It wouldn’t be the lower leagues, that’s for certain. Isn’t that right, Bob?

Just leaving this here - not just because of the surrealist element of NUFC still being England’s second biggest club by turnover … https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/1996/isj2-073/bambery.htm

Yeah, the sponsor-less shirts made them feel like what they kind of view themselves as; a Catalan national club side in all but name. They’re just another big club these days.

1) FFP revised to allow investor input to cover losses proportional to turnover - with an inverse proportionality applied e.g. a club with £100m income might be allowed 60% losses on top covered by an investor; a club with £200m might be allowed 25% covered, etc, until you get to say £500m at which losses have to be kept to 5%. Something along those lines. This would allow the smaller clubs to receive greater potential investment to catch up, while stopping mega rich clubs being further ahead via sugar daddies 2) re-absorb English football’s top division into the rest of the football league, and enforce a more egalitarian sharing of TV revenues throughout the pyramid. This would also mean renaming the ‘Premier League’ as ‘Division One’. Which is what it fucking is. 3) the FA Cup changed as follows: FA Cup Final to be played on the final weekend of the season, at 3pm, with six-hour build-up on the BBC including the club’s breakfast at the team hotels, aerial shots of the team coaches heading to Wembley, and all pundits being contractually obliged to say it’s the biggest game of the English football calendar. Semi finals to be played at any ground but Wembley. All rounds to have replays, including the final (I’ll stop short at having replays until there is a winner). FA Cup 3rd round draw to take place on a Monday teatime. All footage of Radford’s equaliser to be destroyed in the archives, and YouTube clips to be blocked. Oh, and get that fucking sponsorship off the name of the cup, you soulless bastards. 4) restoration of the Cup Winners’ Cup 5) abolition of the ‘Champions League’, to be replaced with the old European Cup, full knockouts for champions only. I don’t care if this means that the champions of Bulgaria or Latvia can get through to a QF, and what that does to TV revenue. The ‘Champions League’ format is a right load of toss 6) Europa League and Conference league remain as is, just with better sides now in them 7) abolition of VAR. Goal line technology is the only potential technology, provided it is cheap enough to be available at Sunday league level 8) international friendlies scrapped, and qualifiers too. WC every two years, Euros/AFCON/Copa America etc every two years. All nations qualify, two group stages then straight knockouts. If we must have international football, let’s not break up actual domestic seasons to do it 9) I quite like ‘blue cards / sin bins’, though for dissent / time wasting only 10) explore option of replacing League Cups in England & Scotland with a British League Cup (pending UEFA acceptance), using one of England’s allocated European spots for qualification (so that Scotland doesn’t miss out)

Yes, along with Fagioli and Zaniolo. Completely take your point, but the FIGC isn’t likely to not pick its better players based on rumours, and Italian football doesn’t exactly have a glorious history of being across this stuff. The FIGC could have been completely aware of everything and still selected those three players.

Likewise. I’m never trusting of being told someone is fantastic with little data or information to support why that person is so fantastic. Interested to note that you’re unimpressed by his data analysis appointments (and I imagine you’d have been very much casting your eyes across that). Didn’t you mention previously that Liverpool’s team was Harvard PhD types, and ours … weren’t?

Yep, it’s the Busby Babes’ success and then Munich which is the genesis of it. Sympathy turned to support. Before that, Man Utd were just another club which pulled big crowds (though not the biggest)

He’s still a magnificent footballer in my mind’s eye - and no-one will ever convince me otherwise

They comfortably had the highest average attendances throughout almost the entire period. Not being the most successful doesn’t mean they weren’t the biggest.

More aimed at those talking about his success than Ashworth himself tbf

Do you honestly think that those involved in scouting players just look at the player’s ability? Character comes into it. Clubs were able to find out in the ‘70s what a player’s vices were.

Nothing revisionist about it. Most still thought of Man Utd being England’s biggest club even when Liverpool were winning literally everything. It’s not all about winning trophies.

Gavin Peacock was my favourite player when I really started to ‘get’ football (I was taken as a kid, remember seeing Gazza play, but I don’t think you really start to understand the game until you’re around 10 years old)

Yep, something we’ve never done in my lifetime - and I’m 41.

Without a brand new 70k stadium with corporate busting out the walls I can’t see how we even catch Spurs based on what we currently have. Their turnover is pretty much double ours - the commercial deals don’t exist to allow us to catch up

If he can’t apparently take any responsibility for the cock-ups, not sure why he should be given any credit for the successes.

Likewise. Couldn’t give a shite about it - I care about us and want to see us win trophies. That’s all that matters. It is just when I see NUFC supporters going on about becoming bigger than Man Utd, as if it’s inevitable, it just comes across as delusional.

He did, that’s true. We’re no closer to that than when he said it. I don’t think winning the Premier League or European Cup is impossible. But overhauling Man Utd to become England’s biggest club? Not happening.

Spurs would always be the best chance of overhauling a club. Man Utd aren’t the ‘weakest club’ - they arguably have the weakest side currently. Man Utd will be a ‘top six’ club as long as it’s a ‘top six’. If it was a ‘top three’ they’d be in that too. Man Utd’s turnover dwarves Spurs’ turnover. To catch up we’d have to be as successful as Man City, and somehow make the same dodgy sponsorship deals that they’re being charged with. Newcastle United will never be a bigger club than Man Utd in my lifetime. But I’d love to see us be more successful than them for a period - that doesn’t seem impossible.

Yep. Chelsea are England’s most successful club in 21st Century. How many would honestly say that Chelsea are a bigger club than Man Utd?

It would be implausible even with an ability to spend shitloads more. It’s Man Utd, they’ve been England’s biggest club for pretty much the entire post-war period. Newcastle chucking money at a few players and winning some trophies isn’t going to change that. Man City dominate English football at the moment, but they’re not a bigger club than Man Utd, despite Man Utd being hobbled by wasteful incompetence for more than a decade.

Not sure any of it is untrue, mind.

Darren Eales talked about us looking to become a top six club which competes for trophies. That doesn’t sound like leaving Man Utd behind to me.

There’s no evidence that he was going to be able to do that - Craig (Nee)Hope has suggested that he’s frustrated with his being unable to do so. It being Man Utd probably is reason enough, in fairness