TheBrownBottle

There clearly is a desperation from others for PIF to sell and buy one of the established big boys. They’ve already stated why they won’t do this - and it should be fucking obvious really. Man City and Chelsea - despite how much has been pumped in - are worth more than the invested capital pumped in over the last couple of decades. Abramovich made a significant profit; Abu Dhabi would do the same if they sold Man City today. What’s the point of buying Man Utd for £5-6bn if you view it as an investment? There is a real danger there that you make a grand loss. If you buy a Newcastle for £300-odd million (or a Leeds, Villa, Everton etc), pump a £1bn+ in (and you get wise minds to run it - take note, Everton), you can pretty much guarantee you’ve got a £2-3bn football club within a decade. Plus, ALL the glory is yours - Man Utd and Liverpool fucking win things! How much kudos is there in being the owners who win Liverpool their seventh European Cup?

Likewise. It always sounds a bit Smoggie to me, but the mild rhoticism is what makes it so difficult to place.

Erm, no

Christ, don’t show this to the ‘we had a shit January window’ brigade.

The problem Delaney will have is that a state owning a club doesn’t breach the rules - the idea was to tie the state to PIF in order to block the takeover due to piracy. The piracy has gone and the PL no longer give a shit. The thick little wanker is barking up the wrong tree.

I’ve written this one off in my head already, though a narrow defeat and good general performance wouldn’t be the end of the world. Can’t see us getting a point at the moment, but you never know, Man City this year haven’t quite looked like themselves.

I’m still firmly in the ‘the Glaziers are cunts and fucking terrible for football, and leveraged buyouts are the work of Satan irrespective of the club’ camp like

I don’t think we’re yet in a position to have a £65m footballer as an impact sub on a regular basis. If the lad isn’t going to start matches you’d have to wonder why, given our form has taken a noticeable dip this year.

That’s a full day at least I reckon - say three minutes (minimum) per video, that’s six hours worth of telling Mary Hinge and Ben Dover happy birthday

122 of which are blokes taking the piss out of their mates, and the other one is Adam’s mam

They’re the two of the strongest arguments you could make full stop

I chucked it after Bolton at home in 2008. That fat cunt doing that to KK was enough for me - I never anticipated I’d be exiled so long that I’d end up emigrating! I was one of the mad, non-stop singing loons who sacked it off. I know other blokes my age (late 30s / early 40s) who did likewise - we treated every away game like it was a day-long party; all our Wembley trips left us hoarse the day after because we wouldn’t stop shouting and singing. I’m lost as to how anyone could go to a Wembley cup final and sit with their mouth shut for the best part of 90 mins. The atmosphere went noticeably flat after those red bastards scored - it was pathetic from what I could hear. What happened to the defiance of our support? Wembley 98 saw us chanting ‘attack, attack, attack attack attack’ by the end in an attempt to wake the team from the placidity. Could have done with that on Sunday. Most home matches in the 90s and 00s were the same mind - my memory of home atmospheres being brilliant in the 80s is tempered by the fact that I was a pre-teen supporter, and to a bairn everything seems loud.

There is no chance MBS shows up at a NUFC game unless it is crowning the team as English or European champions (or a European Cup final that we lose in fairness).

I can’t remember which football book I read it in, but there was a quote in it which asked ‘how do you discipline a bunch of millionaires?’ I think it’s a perfect question for the modern game - and I doubt that hairdryers work unless there is complete buy-in for a manager who has a long and proven track record (and even then I doubt it’s efficacy).

Yep. The reason given for Souness’s appointment was literally that he wasn’t ‘too nice’. That he’d ‘put a rocket up them’. He was a ‘winner’. It’s boring middle-aged dad patter. It can fuck off.

Nah, the fanzine brigade are the worst of the lot. It’s usually rampant narcissism on show - they tie events in which they’re spectators and actively try to frame their lives around it (with little actual irony applied). The Nick Hornby wannabes - ‘XXX club ruined my life’. People who use a form of entertainment to explain why they’re so fucking miserable all the time. I don’t like watching NUFC lose finals either. But there’s fuck all I can do about it, you can only hope that at some point a manager and team we have at the club manages it. Me twisting my arse about it won’t make any difference - somehow Mick Martin thinks that if our collective attitude is more critical, we’ll be rewarded with more trophies. It’s fucking delusional.

The master of terrible takes. The man just moans for a living. It’s that weird thing where grown adults think that their attitude towards an event can influence the result despite having zero contact with the people involved. Just say we hated the weekend and everyone there had a shit time - how would that impact that result or any future ones? Bizarre egocentrism - it’s the flip side of those who believe that singing or atmosphere makes a difference. It doesn’t make any difference to the result; it makes a difference to the spectacle.

I find stroking them into the box gets the best results, rather than whacking them at no-one in particular

He signed a fortnight ago FFS - can we at least give the lad a month before we write him off? I suspect he meant ‘major’ not ‘domestic’, which some quarters don’t recognise it - mainly because UEFA don’t recognise the Fairs Cup (unlike FIFA)

That’s sort of where my thinking is too. Almiron’s one trick has been picked up and he just looks like the Almiron of old at present. The side needs something fresh to me, but I don’t think Howe is that type of manager

Agreed, I don’t think Pope stops that either

As do I. Not the same thing as being world class, though.

Sadly, it isn’t. The LC runners up don’t get a European slot under any circumstances

Yep. And never forget, we’ve played in the Cup Winners Cup, despite never actually winning a domestic cup as in the entire duration of that competition’s lifetime.

The Man Utd supporters actually from Manchester I’ve met in the past after games have been consistently sound. The spoiled, petulant cunts who brag about the achievements of others tend to be from elsewhere, treating being a fan as a bizarre penis extension.