Rayvin

God I'm going to enjoy this from here. Liverpool two up and facing defeat...

Bloody hell, who'd have thought Milner would make the difference.

...it's hard to argue with this to be honest, Liverpool look utterly unstoppable.

I think basically, Liverpool are the team to support. You just have to divorce that notion from anything to do with their fans...

City need to take the sting out of this or they're gonna find themselves 3 or 4 down...

Jeez, Liverpool fans are taking this seriously...

Maybe he meant that the team is about 10 high profile players away from being able to compete with Stoke. I agree with him. Although I am interested to know who in that team warrants the lofty praise of being the high profile player we already have... ...he probably means Gosling.

"We just didn't get the breaks. I can't fault the character of the players and the honesty they showed." Utter fuckwit.

Utterly abject, but as with everyone else, I really am beyond caring. I've never actually seen any other PL team switch off as badly as this towards the end of the season.

I reckon he'll be offered to AM in the deal for Costa.

Plus Stoke will want to set the record straight for that 5-1 mauling we gave them back when we knew how to play football...

In my defence, I was referring to Shearer pre-Newcastle, when he'd had three good seasons, rather than an overall view on his career... And I agree that Torres wasn't worth £50m - I was merely attempting to take a stab at a market price that would have seemed probable.

They could, but they'd probably have to do what the glazers did and secure it against the club - and the gearing would probably be in the 'unsafe' category.

The site was down earlier and - and I'm just guessing here - that's knacked the clock again.

Right but, which areas of income would those be? TV revenue is higher - gate receipts must be about par. What are we not doing so well with?

Um... So, y'know, it's your life and all that.

If he's done that, he's seeking to take more direct control. Could just be a non-exec though, just more involved in the day to day running than he would have been up until now.

I think when you consider the uttery twattery of the Ashley regime as a whole, such a move would appear to be a logical progression: Alienate club icons Alienate fans Rename stadium Rebrand stadium Ban the press Hire JFK...twice. Buy a Sunderland player to replace Cabaye I think the next step is probably to burn down SJP for insurance purposes. In fact, I'm surprised it's not already happened.

...that would be an interesting transfer. Not a welcome one though.

At about the time we got him in his career... I reckon that before Torres went to Chelsea, a modern day Shearer would go for about £50m. Post-Torres, I think clubs would be more careful; maybe about £30m. I reckon Torres in his prime was about as good as Shearer pre-Newcastle. Just my opinion though.

Aren't you a ray of sunshine today... Not that I disagree - but even so, every other club has seem them rise, it can't just be our lack of ambition. I've wondered if all the free stuff we give to SD could represent quite a loss in sponsorship, but again, it's bizarre to see the figures continually fall...

Have we actually identified -why- our commercial takings are falling?

To be fair to Graing, his comments come from a situation that is entirely different to ours. He may well be right that by making guns available in the first place, the US has opened a Pandora's box that, if it attempts to close, will likely result in short/medium term increases in crime (as criminals will be the last to hand their weapons in, and will be immediately empowered as the rest of the country does so). This makes it different from us simply saying we wouldn't introduce them as they kill people. I still think I'd argue that the long term benefits are higher with gun eradication, but at the same time, we have no idea how long it would take to remove them from circulation in any meaningful way, what the effects of doing so would be in less well policed areas, or even to what extent the likely resurgent black market for prohibited guns would be able to circumvent many of the controls.

...And that's Sunderland done.

Ok so, this is actually one of the more interesting debates I've seen about this, largely because Graing is a gun advocate. My view is in line with most other people on here I'm afraid mate, although I will say that you're right in terms of us looking at it through a certain cultural standpoint. What I am confident of, is that if guns were available over here, they'd all be owned by the people you wouldn't want to own them. Your average Brit wouldn't touch one. As such, we'd just be militarising the criminal element. Also on knives - we're fucking strict on knives. You can't leave the house with anything bigger than a pen knife these days, and even then you wouldn't mention you had one. They're easy to buy though, and I must confess to having a few swords myself (although curiously, it is illegal to buy/move them anywhere, but legal for them to be in my house ) The guys who killed that soldier in London - firstly, London is a very different place to somewhere like Newcastle. I very much doubt they'd have managed it up here without being stopped in some form. The other thing is that it's such a once in a lifetime occurrence, that most people probably didn't understand what they were seeing - and by the time it became obvious, it would have been too late. As for America, it's your country, and you'll inevitably know it better than us - but can I at least ask this: If you could be certain that banning guns would reduce the loss of life dramatically, would that justification be sufficient for you to support such a move? Or is the loss of life a necessary, weighted cost for something that is in actual fact a cultural issue, rather than a statistical one? And I'm not judging on it either way, I'm just curious.