Kenny Dalglish Won't Be Delivering the Module: English Premiership 2011-12

xp 'These people' are the ones who run the competition you play in i.e. the other half of your business that you think you own totally. It's not at all unreasonable for the league to impose restrictions on its members, it happened forever (after a fashion) with the minimum wage etc., so as to keep itself in operation.

Your oligarchs are of course free to ignore the league part of its investment and play only friendlies, but they never seem to do that.

serious, a 100,000 seater where the cheapest 30,000 tickets are a tenner - you'd be sorted.

I'm not saying build the big stadium first or buy a World XI first, but that playing a long sustainable game of climbing 4 league places a season while slowly renovating an old stadium then rebuilding a stand etc etc isn't a very attractive proposition to someone who's maybe Roman level rich and doesn't like long games (I'm sure he was convinced he'd have Barca level dominance by now tbh) and involves spending a lot of money on things you don't even want (e.g. buying Championship level players you know you're going to have to unload to buy Europa qualifiers you're going to have to unload to buy top fourers then World XIs while repairing bits of stadium you know you're going to have to knock down).

I fully agree with Tim and others about the greater good of the game and I don't see too many of these rich nutters with a plan beyond throwing away money and sacking managers. I think there's room for general all-round steady stewardship without killing off any hope of a new Big Club but I accept that that's maybe worth killing off if it prevents dozens of clubs going out of business.

How long ago did Sheikhy M-Dawg buy City? Three years ago? How many seasons did it take Roman to win a title/CL?

Roman won the league in two years iirc, but then he bought a top four club.

eh well then let them fuck off, tbh? these bubbles of money from outside the game should either be diverted into longer term benefits or eschewed, all they contribute to in the short term are increases in the cost to the fan.

Profits capped too, imo, while we're at it.

Sheikh Mansour took over in 2008 after City finished 9th.

said finish saw sven sacked, stadium was in situ

Martin "Mr Creosote" Samuel needs to die of 7 simultaneous heart attacks the next time he eats a mint.

killing off any hope of a new Big Club

I see no reason to assume that, once FFP is in place, there will be stasis in terms of "big" clubs, by which I suppose you mean Champions League qualifying clubs. It seems more likely to me that these things would revolve slowly, and that would bring its own excitement.

A cap on profit-taking, for sure, and some greater redistribution of rewards between the Champions League and Europa League (ideally a remodelled version of at least the latter) would help a lot, too.

Mark Perryman has led fans' reaction to the England appointment. I knew he was some kind of lefty, but was still surprised to receive this just now:

--
After the Party: reflections on life since the CPGB
ed. Andy Croft

Eight former members of the Communist Party of Great Britain reflect on the twenty years since its demise. Combining personal and political history, analysis and autobiography, anecdote and argument, the contributors consider the consequences of the CP’s dissolution for British political and intellectual life.

Contributors: Dave Cope, Andy Croft, Alistair Findlay, Stuart Hill, Kate Hudson, Andy Permain, Mark Perryman and Lorna Reith.
--

i'd see no reason for there not to be more/quicker rotation of the 'big club' status, tbh, or at least the positions in the table that are held to be the signifier.

the consequences of the CP’s dissolution for British political and intellectual life.

i lolled

btw i suspect a major concern over FFP will be UEFA's willingness to enforce it and clamp down on clubs using loopholes to bend the rules

yeah iirc perryman is a noted weirdo and like so many of the "fans representatives" you get is just the first gobshite that put his hand up and became #1 on the lazy media speed dial

latest wolves rumour is the eagerly awaited return of young ferg btw

plus billy to hull which just seems utterly lol given what they sanctioned barmby for

the Allams are gonna be hilarious pantomime villains for a while, was gonna raise it on the non-Prem thread

young Ferg surely can't be more mediocre as a manager than he was as a player, plus we can borrow his dad's cast-offs oh wait

Yeah FFP means that Chelsea'd have to spend like Everton, like Newcastle, like Villa, like Spurs - just because you had 1 year's extra money doesn't make you a major difference. It means that if you are smart, you can break in against a team who could afford one or two more players than you as opposed to having to fight a team that spent £300m more than you last summer.

newcastle were really, really good in that 1st half

COME ON

legit banger from Luka from 25+ yards, 1-0 Spurs

fantastic

he scores so few but they are all beautiful

need some miyaichi in this grotty as fuck bolton xi

Anyone got a stream for that spurs game?

the Bolton game, man, don't be so self-effacing

https://twitter.com/#!/Bloodzeed/

ha xp

Crikey @ Cissé's goal earlier

Tiote looks badly hurt. Commentator's calling Mikel on it for once.

toon easy reo coker from a throw in

Very nasty airborne leading elbow from Mikel in revenge for an over-the-ball a few minutes earlier. Tiote out cold by the looks, fell heavily on his tailbone.

pdc = tbm

david wheater looks like an illustration of an angry moon from a book of scary children's stories

FUCKS SAKE SPURS

beautiful!

3-1!!

3-1 Spurs - VDV then Adebayor

totally inaccurate story of the second half ftr

sigh

phew

4-1, Ade again

not sure why I've reverted to explaining ppl's cryptic microposts btw

smash em lads, it's all about that lovely goal difference

today is all about phils brown and nult duetting coquettishly on the bbc liveblog

seriously good counterattacking tbf

newcastle?

10 mins' stoppage time at Stamford Bridge. Newcastle just headed one off the line.

Still 0-1 btw. Bad news for City, goodish for Tottenham?

Looking all Chelsea, unfortunately. Might be a long 10 for Newcastle.

Cisse! 2-0. What a strike...