Rayvin

True enough, but for me that only makes the strategy even more sound. He knew immediately that he didn't want Mata but got a replacement in and was able to hurt Spurs in the process. It was just the way it happened that looked like it was snideness to me.

Swooped in on Willian - now Salah. Preventing Spurs and Liverpool reinforcing (no other reason, surely) Loaning out Lukaku has meant Everton are strong enough to be a pain to, again, Spurs and Liverpool, but not strong enough to be up with Chelsea. Wenger's claim about Mata. Does look like transfer strategy in action.

Exactly. Fucking genius to be honest. This is presumably what happens when your squad gets as big as Chelsea's but you have more and more money to spend. You keep buying players to deprive your rivals and bolster teams who can't hurt you.

He said this last year too I think, after all of our strengthening. Basically, teams that played Man Utd for the second time in the season before the window are not playing the same team as the ones who play them later. Man U strengthen and become a bigger challenge for those that follow. I'm not saying it's a good argument, but he's basically saying that Chelsea are using the transfer window to tactically reinforce other teams in order to improve their chances of taking points of Arsenal/City. Hence his comment about the deal not going through until after Chelsea played Man U.

Apparently we bid for Salah - admittedly this is a guy posting on RAWK but he seems well informed and they had a big song and dance about him posting. He's basically ripping into Liverpool for being gazumped by Chelsea, but interesting that we bid at all. Now we were following Salah closely since October, we sent a lot of scouts to Basel games, began negotiating in November and his agent met with Ayre in the West Ham game to discuss terms with them. We had a verbal agreement with Basel regarding everything and we quickly became Salah's favoured destination as he saw us as a club where he can grow, get a lot of 1st team action and become a world class player. I don't know what happened between Salah's agent and Ayre, but the impression that the club got from that meeting was that, in reality there is no way Salah is going to leave for anyone bar Liverpool and/or there are no real offers on the table for Basel bar us. When we got to sending Basel our opening offer, it was a laughable offer well below what was verbally agreed upon, think of Wenger 40 million plus one pound bid, this was even more laughable. Basel raised their as a result of being pissed off. We tried to up our offer but it was again well below what was previously agreed upon and Basel didn't want to lower their demands as they sensed that we were wasting their time. They even began courting other clubs that Salah is available. Milan & Inter thought that Basel's original demands were too high for them, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg & Monchengladbach were ready to pay but Salah didn't want to go to Germany. Basel tried to claim that Atletico was interested but it was a bluff by all accounts, however a host of other clubs wanted to be kept updated on the deal one of whom was Chelsea. Since we saw that Salah didn't want to go to the Bundesliga and with no other club offering Basel any offer, we assumed he'll stay there till the summer and we can re-open negotiations, but Newcastle offered Basel a good first offer and now him coming to us in the summer was in doubt if Basel & Newcastle agree a fee. That's why we came back with a much more improved offer, almost what was verbally agreed upon before the window even started. Salah's personal demands were also agreed previously so there was no problems with him & his agent, just us agreeing some minor details with Basel. Chelsea, who were updated on the deal, at last asked about his availability and Basel asked about 8 million more than what we were offering (they tried to fleece Chelsea and I'm sorry last night I got confused cause I misunderstood my source as telling me Chelsea offered 8 million more, which isn't true) but Chelsea really offered a couple of million more than us but with a lot of add ons that favour Basel heavily, we didn't even hesitate and backed off, not even matching their deal.

I love how he's not even joking

I wouldn't put it past us to 'conveniently' lose a few at the end of the season if it looks in any way at all like that's going to happen.

Haven't seen Aeris in ages actually.

It's like he's schizophrenic.

That was superb

...as if you're going to get a better opportunity to win something in the next 20 years. I'd take the League Cup no question if it was me.

Dude... Why would you even go there?

Be interesting if Sunderland's loss in the final put us into Europe...

Hopefully, he's out fucking enjoying this. If he ends up in here then I feel sorry for the kid.

...I don't know about that, Pelligrini seems to have City playing now. I think City will win comfortably.

Overall I would have preferred them to lose of course. But if there was ever a team I would have had to choose them to beat - it woulda been Man Utd.

That was a race to the fucking bottom if I ever saw one. Man Utd managed to be even worse than Sunderland.

You're kidding How bad are Man Utd??

This is the worst sequence of penalties...

... that was a bit more like the old Man Utd.

I've seen enough Hentai to know where this is going...</cliche>

I was under the impression that the only achievable means of FTL travel was through converting mass into waves. What you're saying sounds like wormholes which would also work I guess. I assumed it was just one breakthrough for us to pull off mass/wave conversion really. It's going to be really interesting when someone pulls it off/destroys the universe trying, it's a shame we won't be there for it. And fair enough on your points, I guess I'm just more sceptical about human nature.

Yeah but think of the real estate potential of earth! Cos obviously these aliens will be capitalists. And I dunno. I understand what you're getting at, but I wouldn't put it past human kind to reach light speed travel, begin colonising the galaxy and then kicking off wars with ourselves and others. I think it's more an issue of relative maturity with regards to cultural differences between us and alien races - i.e. increased exposure would make both sides more understanding, but initially all defences would be up. On Capitalism - the only way we're likely to achieve FTL travel is by making it commercially viable for something, IMO. Colonising alien world would also be commercially viable. I don't see how one could reliably argue that FTL competent races are somehow morally superior by virtue of being older civilisations. It sort of stacks up, when you look at the relative maturity of European powers vis-a-vis the US, but I'm not sure that's compelling enough evidence. EDIT - Moreover, say there are two FTL competent species. Who decides who gets which worlds? Or controls which space? How would we establish trust? We'd have to assume that the other was arming and then prepare ourselves. See World War I

That assumes that their evolutionary track was the same as ours but I'd agree that it's likely. With that said.. if their evolutionary track was anything like ours, they would see that they were far more advanced and colonise us. Unless by that point their main focus was more about resources, in which case they'd annihilate us and take our planet. We should really hope that they're fuck all like us to be honest.

I've just noticed - that smiley is holding up a red card. I'm really disappointed because I thought it was giving people the finger, but that the "finger" had been censored..