Rayvin

The mackems will think Christmas has come early What a shambles that is. Rafa to Bruce. Wonder if it's because "he's a geordie"...

I genuinely think he believes that the state is out to get him. I daresay there are certain activist groups who are but I'd be very surprised if the Tory government was actively pursuing him... Having said that, if he flees to the US he'll probably never be able to come back for fear of serving that sentence, so part of me hopes it happens.

The only way Labour get me back on side for this is if they literally come out and say that they will 100% give us a referendum with remain as an option. No more deals, negotiations, whatever, just a fucking referendum. If they can announce that loudly and clearly, I will vote for them. If we had another vote, and people were able to look at the ACTUAL options (i.e. No Deal, May's Deal, Remain) and they still voted for even No Deal, I would accept it. The unconscionable, undemocratic and totally fucking stupid position we're now in with the country being split hasn't come about because Remainers can't accept the result of a referendum, it's come about because the Tories have been free to interpret the outcome of an almost 50:50 vote as a mandate to get the most extreme version of the outcome possible, for which they are prepared to actually break apart the fucking country. The position we find ourselves was never credibly discussed before the original vote, and is the reason why this desperately needs another referendum. If the country votes to annihilate itself next time out, I firmly believe most Remainers will just accept it sadly. But we are the only ones in the country at the moment who can actually see what has just happened for what it is, and we are not fucking wrong to be trying to stop it. The vote has been fucking hijacked by people who are at this point, effectively right wing extremists - all to save the fucking Tory party. Labour's total refusal to show some backbone on this issue has been an absolute disgrace, and I say this as someone who was firmly wedded to the Corbyn project. It's sickening. It's a betrayal.

It is definitely dead, mostly because Labour fucked it up. Those talks with May made it very clear that a Labour Brexit was still a hard Brexit. No point compromising with lunatics. Labour are the ones who need to move, not Remainers.

It's incredible. He's going to prison for something he 100% did, and nothing to do with his politics. He has only himself to blame.

The remain vote cannot split next time. If there is anything left of the establishment powers of the centre ground, it needs to make sure that doesn't happen. As an aside, I note that Tommy Robinson has just pleaded for political asylum in the US. An interesting development. Maybe he'll be the new ambassador under a Johnson government

Labour won't do anything effective to back remain until November 1st at the earliest.

Possible they aren't aware of the city particularly tbf. I mean I do think people who haven't been up here tend to group us in with throwaway, dumpster fire cities like Sunderland and Chernobyl.

How does that statement indicate the deal is off? Are we just reading the worst into the final tweet?

So if we sell Longstaff on top of Perez we'll have made about £80m this summer, which has been "promised" for the kitty, plus the £50m pledged initially anyway. Should be an absolute windfall for the incoming manager. £130m to spend. And that's before we consider revenues raised from Gayle (£12m), Hayden (£10m?), Shelvey? (£10-15m)... And yet, despite this, we'll somehow manage to start the season having spend about £8m on some defender no one has ever heard of, and probably two loaned strikers. If Ashley used that money to pay off his fucking loan though, I'd take it.

Yeah I find that slightly concerning. He totally deserves to go to prison for this, but it's going to be a short sentence which will allow him to prattle on about how hard done by he is, and how he's being censored by the state. They should find some way of putting him away for a decade or something.

Not even a text message is it? Sounds like the guy actually filmed the thing. Should have been really cut and dry, frankly. But yes, the kid isn't a working class/black/immigrant kid so obviously the standards for punishment should be different.

Yeah I mean, that's the consequence of Brexit in two ways IMO. Firstly a direct one given that Remainers just won't back them now because of their policy, but also in the sense that they've fucked around on this for so long that even if they pivoted back to Remain, they still wouldn't win some people back because of their sheer incompetence in getting to this point.

How could I forget.

Does stuff like that still happen? When was the last time a PL team had to play an outfield player in goal in a league game I wonder.

Well I didn't think the poor lad should only get a series of posts that he can't make any sense out of Not that he'll ever return to read any of it.

Tbh I was wavering back and forth between trying to be helpful and also being really bitter about it

Weren't Barcelona looking at Martinez not long ago, or was that just tabloid nonsense? Never rated him very highly but the first season of him being here might be ok, since Rafa's defensive discipline will still permeate through the squad. Year 2 is where the wheels will come off.

We all wanted him to stay, which should tell you enough. Unfortunately our club is run by morons so it wasn't possible. Truthfully I don't know what the circumstances of your league are, Rafa has always been good at going up against teams that are perceived to be 'better' and getting results out of them - if Dalian are a Chinese footballing superpower then I'm not so certain he's a good fit for you, but frankly it's really hard to say given the highly variable standard of your league. He was well loved and engaged with our city and fanbase. He's extremely competent.

I think it speaks volumes that the only time they're able to throw that out there is for the women's world cup Wasted some good banter on something most people don't give a fuck about because they're unlikely to get the chance in the men's version.

Agree with this. If they're really and genuinely selling the club, you would think deals like this would have to be signed off by the buyers at this stage, or indeed simply not happening at all. Ashley can clearly do whatever he wants while it remains his club of course, but if I was BZG all this transfer activity would have raised my eyebrows. Not a good sign IMO.

Because all they want is to win the argument. I seriously think it's nothing more than the desire to win that's pushing us towards this now. I reckon that even if you announced to the Brexiteers that immigration would increase following Brexit, they'd still want it done.

Have been to DaLian, it's ok. Unsure about the Hong Kong of the North label but its been a few years, I guess. Having lived in China before I can say confidently that i would not now choose to live in China. But I guess £12m a year might swing it.

Not true for contracts I've had. All kinds of rules and requirements can apply post-employment. Typically it boils down to just shutting up about the business you left.

It's a fair point I suppose, I just don't think he has the balls for shutting down Parliament. There'd be a legitimate argument for his assassination if he did.