Rayvin

Rafa is perhaps bound by an NDA in all of this tbf. Would explain the quiet. Having said that, I still feel that if all parties know the outcome, and that it has in effect become clear that he won't be staying, then they would have parted company by now in order to ensure against sabotage/non-toxicity in the working environment, etc.

Don't you think he would have said something by now if he'd decided he was leaving?

Does buying big name players ever really work out for anyone? Quite often I end up thinking that certain players are really good in particular systems that have been built up around them in their 'formative' playing years, and taking them out of those environments often sees a drop in their overall playing quality. I mean I think that particular point is why Man Utd can't buy their way to success again - they have a collection of individual superstar players who lack the supporting talents of their previous 'lesser lights' teammates.

Fair, hadn't thought of it that way. My perception of him is that he's a whining crybaby who blames everyone else. He could be the best manager in the world for all i care and i still wouldn't want him based on that personality. However, your point is interesting and i can see what you're saying.

Maybe. I'm not saying anything other than I think he's benfitted from insane levels of financial backing. Truthfully, maybe that lost him his edge.

I'm saying that I'm not convinced Mourinho is all that amazing, and would be interested to see what various mid-tier PL managers could do with the kinds of budgets he usually has available to him. He clearly -was- a very good manager, possibly the best at one point, but his star is now diminishing. As someone else mentioned, it's unlikely a genuinely top tier club will pick him up - and for me, he complains too much and creates a general lack of harmony wherever he goes. I'm not saying we couldn't win things with him + money - clearly we could. I'm just saying that I suspect better options exist who would spend money far less frivolously, and who would actually develop the club at all levels rather than just one.

Times change though and I'm not sure latter day Mourinho can cut it. Certainly there's no evidence he can cut it on a budget, and he'd just bitch on every week and fail to take responsibility for anything.

We would never get Mourinho under Ashley anyway.

Clearly a big chunk of it is going to be standing more or less where UKIP is. But the rest might be pulled into the Lib Dems..?

Agree with that, I'm not sure what Mourinho offers anymore. His counter attacking, stifling style is arguably done better by Rafa now anyway. And he spends to such high levels that i would argue it's hard to tell how much of his team's success is his, and how much of it is just down to the level of the players he has.

It is hard to see how they come back from this..

Comes to something when essentially our entire fanbase would prefer to lose the owner even if it meant losing the most loved manager in about a decade, compared to keeping both

This is so true

I mean i was thinking support for the free market, de-regulation, small government, etc.

Yeah but when you put it like that, he's a natural leader and focal point for the kinds of people who voted for Brexit as if they knew better than world renowned economists.

So my prediction is that things will go quiet again for a few days, and everyone will fall back to believing that it's all a scam by Ashley, until the next small amount of progress is revealed, at which point we all start talking about how much we should be prepared to spend on Mbappe.

Does this mean it's no longer a diabolical plot by Ashley to get rid of Benitez and boost season ticket renewals?

I mean, let's not pretend that we didn't have a lot of those images all over Fist's Belta Minge thread when they came out at the time Not that I paid any attention

Has he spent £25m just to talk to Ashley yet?

Ok so, I was snooping around Red Cafe earlier to see if there was any undercurrent of support for Solskjaer being replaced by Benitez, and I came across a thread that I thought was possibly worth of some discussion. Here's a link to the thread: http://www.redcafe.net/threads/what-is-the-transfer-value-of-a-manager.448042/ So ok, managers typically cost less and are paid less than players. That's a given. But you get a manager like Benitez, and he's worth far more to the team than any individual player. It's curious that this isn't reflected in contracts and approximate value. Are managers undervalued in general? I know they all do very well out of all of this regardless, so I'm not trying to drum up sympathy, but I thought it was an interesting point. Would you choose any single player in our team over and above Benitez? I wouldn't.

The Sheikhover

I mean the takeover does add the possibility that Rafa is just waiting to see, but again, they've been pretty clear that it won't be done in time for his contract expiry... There is enough empty space in the knowledge available that I'm not totally pessimistic about this yet. Watch Rafa announce in the next 30 mins that he's off

Well aye, but we all knew that was on the cards. I doubt we'll hear anything about it either way until the final week, unless Rafa decides he's had enough. The fact that he hasn't yet decided that, makes me hopeful. You mentioned that the meetings had concluded last week or something right? If Rafa can't work with what's on the table, you'd think he would have announced it.

Rafa easily earns that £4m back for the club, you would hope Ashley is aware of that.

All I'm really saying is that I prefer them to be honest about what they're doing. So everytime someone like JRM or whoever this guy is pops up and 'tells it like it is' from the Tory viewpoint, I internally start preferring them to Johnson, Gove, May, Cameron, Osborne and all the other Tories who want the same thing but hide it in order to get votes.