Rayvin

My position has consistently been that Labour have no electorally sound way of reversing the Brexit decision unless the Tories fuck something up so badly that there is a big enough swing in popular opinion. If you guys think they can strong arm the electorate into a remain position at a new election, then fair enough. I suspect they'd lose on that platform as it stands though, and would likely be damaged by their attempts to 'undermine' democracy with their working class voters. Rock and a hard place. To make that platform work, they would have to basically abandon reaching out to the working classes, and focus on the middle classes. Moreover, they'd have to try to work out how many of the 'pro-Remain' middle classes feel strongly enough about the issue to abandon the LDs or Tories if that's the way they've historically voted. If they managed this, and won an election by pulling over pro-Remain Tories and LDs, whilst at the same time offering sweeteners to some of the working classes to try to make Brexit a secondary issue for them (a challenge in itself, since it would be one message for the middle classes and another for the working classes), then they would suffer at the following election when the single issue middle class voters, having secured Remain, go back to the LDs or Tories. And the working classes who they alienated to get Remain through, don't forgive them. As I've said many times, I'm happy to hear a cogent and strategic assessment of how they can make this work though? I've stuck to my position on this basically because no fucker has given me one And yes - it is entirely possible that they haven't put this much thought into it. Although given that I've put about an hour's thought into it across several weeks on here, and come up with the above, I'd be rather surprised if NOBODY at Labour had done the same thing. You never know though.

Called it.

Team in the current top 6, away from home. Nailed on.

There is no way Ashley cares that much about what any of us think. His mindset for this window will 100% be the same as the last, he doesn't need a scapegoat. If we're not buying, it will be because we don't have the funds. He's not putting his hands into his pockets for this, he's said it before. I don't think his strategy has changed at all. If the money is there, we'll spend it. If it isn't, we won't. We may need to sell before anything happens. Maybe we've got about £15m to spend but they figure if they can sell Mitro then they can get a striker worth about £25m instead. Who knows. But it definitely isn't Ashley trying to establish a narrative about the club sale not going through (he doesn't need to justify that to anyone, what can any of us possibly say?) or trying to force Rafa out on the sly when he's only got 6 months left on his contract anyway.

It sounds as if Rafa himself doesn't get involved in the transfers though. All he seems to do is identify targets and then leave it to Charnley. Seems a bit illogical, because surely there is a need to triage resources a bit, and you would think only Rafa can judge that, but who knows. Him not knowing the budget doesn't necessarily mean nothing is happening...

I'd settle for that tbh. It's a foundation to build on properly.

I reckon it'd put us into touching distance of Liverpool tbh.

As for FFP, I thought the deal was to assess losses over a rolling 3 year period...? So we could spend like crazy in one season as long as we made it back in the next two, I guess.

I didn't realise you guys were actually fighting tbh, I actually think you both have a certain comedic chemistry. I think you both have each other's numbers tbh, quite possibly literally

I thought Sunderlands issue was as much about financing their external debt as it was about FFP. And didn't the football league punish QPR for overspending?

Genuinely don't think Ashley needs to 'force Rafa out' at this point. He could quite happily just wait for his contract to run down at the end of the year and close things down then.

Tbh mate, I was just poking fun.

Realistically, I think Fish wants them to implode as much as we do, but his RTG commitments have compromised him to a degree. He's being watched, so he has to behave here as he would there. Deep down, he knows they're staring death in the face, and he's fucking loving it

I can recall Chez making a reasonable argument in favour of privatisation actually. I can't remember much about it now, but I think it hung on the notion that it would still be universally accessible, but just cheaper.

I don't think anybody can hold up to their standards. It really is like religious people 100 years ago. Posturing for morality points.

The thing that gets me is that his apology was actually really good. He held his hands up, said he had changed hugely - and I think you can see that. He's dedicated his life to running that news channel to support progressive causes. But they've turned on him anyway because once you've made a mistake, you are forever guilty, it would seem.

Oh dear... http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/justice-democrats-ousts-cenk-uygur_us_5a3eb4d1e4b025f99e178181 Cenk Uygur has been taken down by the SJWs... and the progressive movement within the Democratic Party may die with his resignation. So he apparently wrote some sexist stuff 18 years ago, has formally and fully apologised for it, but they've taken him out back and shot him anyway. I'm not a big fan of Cenk, but he runs a YouTube news channel that has 3.5m subscribers and exclusively promotes SJW views (albeit with a degree of rationality). Moral purity test failed though...

I'm trying to get my head around how happy Essembee is going to be if they do actually go down...

If they go down, they're really fucked. Financially, I just don't see how they can sustain it. Would they still be getting parachute payments from the PL? I guess they would. Maybe that would be enough. Selling NDong surely isn't going to make a lot of difference unless they can get back something close to what they bought him for, since they will still owe money on the guy. Personally would be surprised if they get more than £7-8m. Kone probably around the same. If Grabban goes they'll replace him of course, but they must be concerned now...

Hit Champ again briefly yesterday only to lose it once again in a spell of overconfidence. It's really pissing me off now because the season will end soon...

Interesting we're now 1 point behind Brighton and 2 behind Huddersfield. Another win and we could be ahead of both depending how their games go. We're not doing that fucking badly this season tbf. I'm sure there's another horror run around the corner but plenty of teams are struggling this year.

It's interesting that they're still not turning it around actually. I mean they could do, quite easily - two wins on the bounce at any point for the rest of the season would probably revilatise them, but it's still not working. Don't think they'll go down but am starting to be a little stunned that they're still staring relegation in the face. Their club is the very definition of a slow motion car crash though, so maybe they actually will sleepwalk into League One.

#drama

He did? For real?