Rayvin

Looks like they're gonna get him but it's £3-4m. Superbly played by their chairman. A player worth about £500k, signed for 6 times that. Same old Sunderland.

Have just been reading RTG to see how their race for strikers is going and it is predictably amusing this far With the caveat that they may well get in a striker, the chain of events seems to be as follows: 1 - Stewart Donald spends January giving it the big un about the mighty financial power of Sunderland and how 'most championship clubs would want the budget that SAFC has' 2 - Maja, a totally mediocre striker but also their only outlet all season of note, is sold. 3 - Donald claims they will get two new strikers in no problem. 4 - They arse around with a bid for Will Grigg. Deadline day comes in, Sunderland bid £1.5m, Wigan turn around and demand £3m since 'most championship clubs would want Sunderland's budget'. Sunderland mysteriously go quiet. 5 - At midday, it is announced on SSN that an unnamed PL striker is having a medical with a view to a loan move. Nothing is then heard about this for several hours, until eventually SSN reveal that actually, that never happened. Meaning it was a ruse to make SAFC look less desperate than they actually are. A ruse seemingly bought by no one. So as things stand, they have one senior striker in the squad, and he's beyond terrible. It could all change, but they're absolutely frantic about it. The thread that was started about the PL loan player at lunch time has his 70+ pages in a few hours

Holy Fuck. We signed someone. And we broke our transfer record to do it. Honestly looks like Rafa has totally outplayed Ashley on this - the threats to resign and sack the whole thing off look to have done the trick.

Is this kid actually any good?

At least if he's paying his loan off it might be with a view to fucking off for a reasonable fee.

Aye, the one that he has done nothing to pursue or generate any support behind because he's fudged the wording on it so much. That one.

If he had banged on about it, he could have taken the country with him and moved us for a softer version of Brexit if nothing else. He's added nothing. He's done nothing. Come on man, I was his biggest supporter and even I have to accept that he's been a total waste of space. Worse in fact, he's the very definition of a useful idiot.

This is the inevitable truth of it.

Enough Tory rebels seem to vote against her, that a Labour leader with an actual plan or point of view could capitalise, but it doesn't matter because the country has no leadership at all. This is the worst kind of 'governing by consensus', it's a collective of people who have no idea what they're doing, no overall strategy or goal, and as such they're voting all over the place with no unified outcome in mind. Hence we get contradictions like yesterday. That is why we'll end up with No Deal. May - and this is fucking unbelievable for me - actually has to win this. She has to. I actually want Theresa May to win now, mostly because it gives me an extra 2 years to escape. That's how abhorrent this has become. She's created an absolute nightmare and has somehow managed to get to a point where I actually support her because, and it depresses me more than anything to say this, Corbyn has utterly failed to take a stand on this and create meaningful opposition to it. Just as Renton and ewerk, to be fair to them, have said for years. Even in the past two months he could have changed the course of this by just fucking standing up for 48% of the country. Corbyn will never be PM - not because he's too left wing, but because he's a fucking coward.

From the point of view of maintaining the country, this is an absolute disgrace. No one in Labour should have voted against anything that was going to make May's life easier on political principle anyway, but to take us right to the edge of the abyss with no plan whatsoever, and no information suggesting that there is actually any positive outcome from no deal, is irresponsible to the point of surely being criminal. This is major economic harm we're talking about. When this goes through, honestly, I think there should be a political inquisition. What is also clear, is that Labour's stance on this is making the whole thing even worse. The reason parliament is all over the place is mostly because Corbyn won't wake the fuck up. May can't wake up, she needs to go on with this delusion, but there is nothing compelling Corbyn to do the same. Nothing. He is now another person prepared to throw the country under the bus to win a GE. The thing is, I won't fucking vote for this. Even if my vote was the deciding vote between a Tory government and a Labour one, I wouldn't vote. I am done with supporting this hopeless mess of a political system. None of them give a shit about what is best for the country minus a few principled people across the house - there is no one to rally around to oppose the government because Corbyn refuses to be that man - it's pathetic. Beyond pathetic. It's doubtful now that No Deal will even break the Tories since we seem to have allowed them to manufacture a way to blame everything on the EU - so the only good reason for no deal to happen is now out of the window. Honestly, I'm looking at this and just thinking yeah, maybe I should just fucking leave the country. Maybe I should.

We are never going to get a better striker than Mitro because he won't spend more than £15m on anyone Also don't recall Mitro being the main problem that season...

Honestly man, it's like they think someone is just going to make all of this ok somehow. Probably a remainer. "Why haven't those damn remainers sorted out our food shortages yet, the fuckers. Elitist bastards, sitting over there telling me this is my fault". And eventually, if there is a national acceptance that this was a massive fuck up, the narrative will have to become "these poor leave voters who didn't understand and were hoodwinked by corrupt politicians. It isn't their fault, they need a hug and a cup of tea" because the truth of "we told you for fucking years and you ignored us on the basis of fucking nothing you colossal, uneducated, willfully ignorant pricks" won't be palatable for bringing the country back together.

More evidence of the Tories economic competence: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/28/uk-corporation-tax-cut-to-cost-billions-more-than-thought £6.2 billion now lost in corp tax receipts from the tax cuts imposed. £16bn lost overall each year compared to pre-Tory times. £16bn is just a bit less than the extra that the NHS needs by 2030.

How can we be successful under him though? He flattens everything he lands on both figuratively and literally.

I could have seen the argument for Ashley some years back when it was being touted as a possible sensible option following the 'Arsenal' model, but the way he operates as it stands makes no sense whatsoever. He could spend £20-30m now, with resale value i might add, or risk losing £100m next year. And this is the second time he's gambled like this, and the first time the gamble failed. It's just fucking stupid. Plenty of other teams are making an effort to compete, what possible argument can there be in favour of a football club that doesnt even try.

Just going to add that while it is still a fucking stupid outcome for the country versus remain, i would have happily taken soft Brexit.

Really we should have never triggered A50. If we were serious about doing this properly we should have sat down, looked at what we wanted, held preliminary talks with the EU and then triggered it once we understood what we were doing. If we wanted a "good deal" this was what it involved. Was it May who triggered it or did Cameron do it as he was running away? I guess May. Am aware Corbyn demanded immediate trigger as well. Our political class were totally consumed with domestic approval ratings and entirely ignored what was best for the country. No matter which way anyone voted in the referendum, the Tories have been a disgrace. And now it seems there is a chance May will close parliament to get her deal through? Is that really possible?

Aye, honestly i think we had Rafa at the wrong moment in time. Maybe if we'd gone down and stayed down, Ashley would have fucked off by now. The club is never going anywhere while he's here, and tbh I'm hardly paying attention to football at all now. That's his legacy.

It isnt the xenophobia angle? I can see some people being unwilling to articulate that. More generally, i swear this is now just an ego issue for leavers. It sure as fuck is for CT. It's just so stupid now.

Wasn't the chant something like 'he fucks who he wants'? I think we can criticise them for that. Although I guess it's doubtful that too many of them really believed that the club would take on the number of abhorrent actions that it did, surrounding that situation. Based on their stadium alone, I agree. Based on their 10-15 previous seasons, I think lower championship is about right. They don't seem to share your confidence on their promotion anymore, but I expected them to go up too. Although I expected them to be cruising first, so who knows. It's irrelevant what we do under Ashley, it's a blip in our existence rather than a reflection of the club.

Only if they get back to the PL in 5 years, wasn't it? Safe bet from the owner that, they've more chance of being in L1 in 5 years than the PL.

The baby boomers as a generation, if not individually, ruined the world.

What are your thoughts on SAFC, the widespread chanting in support of a player charged with touching a minor, and the pervading chip they have on their shoulder about generally performing to a level far beneath ours in terms of club stature? Let's see if we can find some common ground.

Edit - nvm, idk why I'm being pedantic about this.

The joke is that they stole it from Mitchell rather than the content? weird fucking joke...?