Rayvin

Leaving the NUFC stuff to the side for now, since it'll inevitably come up later, I totally get Short's position on this. At some point you have to cut your losses - he's thrown fucking loads of money at Sunderland over the years and they just keep sinking. He has a high interest loan of what, £80m or something, falling due in 2019... it sounds like he's propping them up to the tune of £500k/week anyway... They are fucked. He isn't going to save them. He'd be fucking mad to do so.

The case appears to be that we can't confirm that it came from Russia. Not yet at least. All I'm saying is that maybe we should have approached this with a considered, and evidence supported assessment. And potentially have said what the truth is. That it is highly likely that Russia was behind it, but that we don't actually fucking know. What we said instead, was:

I had to search for it on the Daily Mail, but at least their comment sections are ripping Johnson a new one.

I don't watch RT at all. And I do think it is probably Russia, even though I still don't see what they stand to gain really given how this has gone. But it's interesting that had we followed Corbyn's example, we'd look a lot less fucking stupid now.

My £40m includes those two. So for me it's those two plus a striker will be enough to ensure we're not in a relegation fight. Don't buy this idea that every club always needs to spend crazy money to stay up. Burnley's net spend last year was -£15m. Only 5 teams spent more than £40m last season and they're all top ten teams. We have a young team being developed by a world class manager - we need to spend enough that this manager stays, IMO. And my view is that Ashley will see this, and will recognise that failing to do so will see us lose said manager, and risk relegation. I think we would be fine against relegation next season with if all three loanees were signed permanently (assuming Slimani is actually any good). I think £40m+ net is required to achieve this. I think the teams you mentioned will be net spending about what they did last season. Nowhere near net £60m. Villa and Wolves won't net spend £60m either. But again, different situation to Sunderland. All those clubs get £100m a year from the PL. Sunderland would get what, £10m? For Short's £30m? Throwing good money after bad. It's just a bad decision.

Um, no. The criticism I got over my feelings on this were predominantly based around the notion that Ashley 'gambled' by not spending in Jan '17, which could have cost us promotion, that he did so again in Summer '17 at the risk of relegation, and that he did so again Jan '18 at the risk of relegation. This summer, if we don't spend, it's at the risk of relegation. Not at the expense of ambition. I'm fairly sure that's most people's position on this. Even if it is expressed through the prism of 'Rafa will leave if he doesn't 'show ambition', and we will get relegated'. So I would say they're both looking at the same thing, albeit the mackems have a more horrific relegation than the one we would have faced. He did spend money on the McClaren scenario true, that's a decent counter point. Although he would have made that back if we stayed up. Short, had he kept Sunderland up, would not have made the £30m back. If anything, he would have had to keep spending.

I don't think she can even do anything here. If she sacks him it's going to look like UK acknowledgment that Russia might not be behind it, and then all the world leaders who rallied to our cause are going to be pretty pissed. If only we'd followed the fucking conventions and standard procedure before flying off the handle for a quick PR win

Worth pointing out that CT wasn't the only one who bought this hook, line and sinker

Yeah I know that's the prevailing opinion. I stand by my thinking on it. But all I'm saying here is that NUFC spending £40m from money it actually has is not the same as Ashley putting in £40m himself, which is what Short would have had to do in January.

I think we'll spend because the club actually has the money to do so, not because I expect Ashley is going to dig deep for £40m.

^ This.

@Christmas Tree Thoughts?

On BoJo: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/04/boris-johnson-liability-porton-down-russia With the standout paragraph for me being: A functional British press would have investigated whether our foreign secretary may have lied to the world about the activities of another country, but alas the media’s leading lights were too busy implying Jeremy Corbyn’s attempts at urging caution were evidence of some kind of fervent lack of patriotism. Here we have two responses to foreign policy: one is based on the careful examination of the evidence and employing diplomacy, the other involves rushing headlong into a conflict with a heavily armed superpower.

I hope you're right tbh, but they have to stop falling at some point.

Depends how long Short is prepared to keep them afloat. They could turn it around if they can offload the chancers and essentially become a 'small club'.

Based on the fact that two of the teams who fell out of the Championship last year are both incompetent (Blackburn, Wigan) and are currently 1st and 3rd respectively.

I think they'll go back up first time of asking tbh but the fact they went down at all, and that a key factor in this is shite home attendances and a toxic atmosphere, will be a stick to beat them with for years to come.

I remember when they were on here when we went down tbf - All we had to do was set essembee on them poor fools didn't know which way was up by the end of that. No sympathy with the piss taking at all - they're fucking raging at it though

It's almost as if we should have waited for the evidence to be analysed before jumping to conclusions.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/03/porton-down-experts-unable-to-verify-precise-source-of-novichok Shock horror, they don't know where the nerve agent came from.

Daily updates from trooper on how the sky is falling in for xyz reason mixed with people initially saying he is totally overreacting, and then gradually being turned over to his side as the end of the window draws ever closer and we haven't signed anyone etc etc. Mass suicide proposed on September 1st. Then we win our next two games and top ten is nailed on.

Aye there is that. On the balance of things I agree tbh.

Torn on Southampton. Of those mentioned, they're the most likely to recover and be a headache to us next season, so on that basis I would want them to go down. But having said that, I don't really feel that they deserve it as a club...

Palace looked certain to go down at the start of the season, 8 losses in a row and no goals or something like that? Would be kinda funny if they failed now after hauling themselves back from the abyss.

If we get sold I'll put the £10 in either way, but technically you win if we spend under the £40m so that's up to you. The bet is about Ashley really though so it's no skin off my nose if you don't.