The9

Just proves what a step it is to the Premier League, that side would struggle to stay in the Prem. Weird that Whittingham's in it, he can't get in Cardiff's team at the moment.

The bloke in the row immediately behind me who yells "YES!" like we've scored every time the ball goes into the box takes some beating. Or at least he will one day from someone nearby.

0.386% at the moment, so not far off. We could also take the bookies' odds and calculate how unlikely that set of results actually is. Or at least I could if betting sites weren't blocked where I am.

I dunno if you're the only one, but in terms of probability there's no relationship between the two sets of fixtures so it's no more or less likely than it was last season.

Yes he is. And one I now have on block due to his incessant nonsense, so please stop quoting !

No more likely than them playing anyone else in the division (except their local rivals, which is prevented in the system). Ideally I'd like us to play Cardiff, Hull, Man U, Everton and the play-off winner in our first 5 games. And maybe whoever Everton nick a manager from if they're still in the Prem.

It would, but it would also be a good time to hone your "telling everyone you're playing then not turning up" technique, to get it from "World Class" to "All Time Great".

I went for Richardson and Seaborne's defending against Stevenage for comedy moment.

I think Wigan will get relegated with (at most) 38 points, meaning 39 would indeed be enough. However, ideally what I'd like is for Villa to lose on Saturday to Chelsea, Saints to win on Sunday, Wigan to get a highly unlikely result against Arsenal as we're already safe, and relegate Villa on the last day. That's because I've been saying Villa are gash all season, they've only beaten sides in the bottom 6 for months now, and Wigan are far less of a threat to us going forward than Villa might be. Of course that would also necessitate decent results for Norwich, which look fairly unlikely. I can see Newcastle beating QPR though.

Will do if I can

It's quite difficult when certain trolls choose to take a black and white view on everything though.

Absolutely plausible, yes. But that wouldn't be in line with the club's claim that they were going to rigorously defend themselves, so why would they say that publicly if the outcome was also going to be in the public domain and their chosen action would only show them to be lying about their original intentions ?

It's very common, especially under the current Saints ownership.

I haven't spoken to anyone, I'm going from the Echo article and claims which were presented in detail, and the timelines implied by the reporting of that - I also did a bit of research to cross-reference the claims compared to the fixtures we played in the period in the last thread on this, and it was pretty obvious Cortese intended to mislead Benali into thinking he could make some extra money for being a club ambassador then pulled his access rights so he never got paid more than the absolute minimum. And all this was a "compromise" agreement after Cortese allegedly didn't pay sufficient rent one month, long before the questions about reparations when he left.

I think the first Prem Skate away was rather unique, standing in the middle of a war zone with a car on fire in a petrol station but absolutely no threat whatsoever from the locals and missing the kick off for no good reason. Middlesbrough away in the Prem relegation season, 14 hours of driving and tried to sleep on the seats at half time. Leyton Orient away, did a messy pub crawl and ended up babysitting a balloon with a face on it for 4 hours around London. It escaped during the first half, attempted a pitch invasion and got burst by a steward.

The analogy is between obeying overarching organisation rules, not expenditure. It is also slightly flawed, as the point of business is usually profit rather than winning trophies - which is also why sport generally is a different type of business model. You can make money but not win things, but the criteria for success is (supposed to be) winning things, not making money. People don't support clubs for their bank balances. If Abramovich wanted to plough millions into burgers, the logical way to do that would be to open a lot of businesses to generate profit by scaling up and duplicating the successful model. That's not an option open in sport, where you're trying to gain success with a single entity and you can't create more winners. I should think the Franchise owner would also have some regulation on how much you can pay your burger flippers to ensure the scale isn't skewed and that their other franchises don't go out of business trying to match their wages or not being able to attract any staff. The fundamental concern of the sporting organisers is to ensure that their league's credibility isn't harmed, whether that means by preventing "financial doping" to ensure there's still some level of competition possible, or by insisting on points deductions for those who can't afford to compete and are prepared to dodge taxes etc to get there.

Doesn't matter what they play, the Premier League anthem comes after it anyway.

The criticism of "the club" here is not even particularly relevant to the specific case, the broadest criticism is the tendency to take the "drag out and pay off" option and the dubious moral rectitude of that apparent policy.

Let's not fall into the trap of using "the club" for a matter which initially arose from Cortese's personal renting of Benali's property, which Cortese then shifted onto the club's liability when pressed on the matter after underpayment.

Because they could have negotiated a settlement without him needing to go to the court, and also (for me) because Cortese was clearly making settlement agreements for outstanding rent with no intention of honouring them in the first place.

Worth remembering that "the club"/Cortese would have had every opportunity to agree a cash settlement prior to this even being raised as potentially a court matter and the club effectively forced Benali's hand to litigation by refusing to pay him anything. Also that Benali was clearly lied to to his face when discussing the ambassadorial role and cash-making opportunity around it when agreeing a compromise with Cortese (which IIRC involved £500 per home match with a minimum payment, but he was never allowed to exceed the minimum).

I'm fairly sure it was the consensus previously that Benali was at least pushing his luck with the size of the claim. But I'd also say the bit in bold seems to be a fairly regular occurrence, whether it requires the lawyer involvement or not.

No one's assuming the club haven't settled in a way that's suitable to them, I think the implication is that it generally is a morally poor way to do business as a matter of course.

You definitely missed the two threads where Barry Sanchez got pulled up for typing "would of" rather than "would have", that much I know.

We do have the figures Benali was after, I remember discussing them in detail the last time this came around, and if someone else can be bothered to find them... it still won't have any bearing on Turkish's point, which is that the club repeatedly has engaged in litigation and then settled out of court... for some reason.