benjii

This is the key lesson for some of our contributors to take on board: "while 38 games on the face of it sounds like a massive number, it’s still a small enough sample size to have variance run amok"

Yeah, but there's nothing bent about it. I know they're a bunch of ****s but there's more than enough to mock without inventing bentness!

In fairness, whatever you think of Royal "work", he did fight in WWII.

No, that's not right. 75% of the shareholder votes are needed to approve the sale but the trust votes with one voice based on the simple majority voting of its members (who are not shareholders themselves). The trust owns just under half the shares so if the trust votes "no" it can block the deal. If trust votes yes then the trust shareholding plus about half the "Presidential" shareholding will reach the 75% mark and approve the deal. That seems quite sensible and there's nothing bent about that.

In fairness, he makes a valid point and that's the Disney in him coming out. The first rule of IP is not to **** with Disney.

I wasn't, pal. I said we should have got out of the group. I mean "should" in the sense that it was an underachievement not to. Do you disagree? The Prague game is, whilst a sample of one and therefore not at all statistically significant, at least some evidence that even when we played ****, the opposition had very little to offer. I think that reinforces the suggestion that we "should" have got out of the group because if we had played a bit nearer a reasonable standard, for us, we would have beaten them. With the attacking players we have, we "should" have been able to manage a goal in one of our away games. I don't think you disagree. I think you're just being a supercilious ****, pal.

Christ, you're weird.

Exactly. We clearly had better players, in general, than our opponents. Which is why we clearly should have made it out of the group and it's nonsense to say otherwise. The Europa League campaign was a failure in what was a very poor group. No away goals FFS.

Yes, the point is that we shouldn't have been. I'm not sure if you are disagreeing or not; odd comment. Despite us being ****, Prague offered nothing and let us have the ball for most of the match. We had 70% possession and only managed three shots on target. They didn't win a corner all match. They were over the moon with the result. The match was about League One standard and Prague were crap over both legs. If we'd played to 70% of our maximum we would have beaten them comfortably but we were crap. The point is, with our squad, we should have got out of that group. Unless you think our group of players is worse than Prague's or Beer Sheva's. You think either of them would be 9th in the Premier League after 34 matches?

If this is true: "League One clubs made average losses of £1.7m in 2014-15, which were mostly covered by owners" it just shows how screwed the current structure of the game in this country is.

Of course we should have got out of the Europa Group. This was evidenced by the fact that: - we outplayed Inter twice; - beat Prague comfortably at home; - had the ball for pretty much the whole 90 minutes in the away match against Prague and they were absolutely over the moon with the result, given they had loads of players missing. If we'd scored one goal in any of our away matches we would have gone through. We didn't because of poor execution at key moments by players - the story of our season. We played badly against Beer Sheva, on the whole, but evidently we have a stronger squad than any of those teams and the players let us down badly.

I don't think anyone's asking for a "better deal" viz-a-viz the EU than its members get. The UK government has already accepted that, hence the position that we will have to leave the Single Market, for example. I'm sure no one really wants to lose all the benefits of the Single Market but we have accepted, at this stage, the apparent EU line-in-the-sand that you must accept all the freedoms in full to be a member. Accepting free movement of people is interpreted as contrary to the referendum result (rightly or wrongly) so we accept the position and declare ourselves "out". May's task is very difficult; I think some of the commentary is simply unfair and people are importing too much domestic politicking into the process. She has to, currently, maintain a position that we can achieve some "wins" otherwise there really is no point with the whole process;-it will amount to nothing other than negotiating exit payments. Maybe that's where it will end-up but she has to try for something better.

You don't know if it's achievable. Neither does May. It's under negotiation; that's the point. It would be hideously naïve to say otherwise. But, as noted, the simple fact of the matter is that in the absence of agreement to the contrary, a departure from the EU returns supremacy over domestic law to the UK courts. You really think the EU will say it's an absolute "all or nothing"? They won't want to do piecemeal deals on security, for example? There is clearly an appetite for some negotiation and both sides will make concessions. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about how negotiation works amongst various commentators.

That's utter nonsense. Removing ECJ direct sovereignty over UK courts is a clear consequence of leaving the EU. It's the de facto starting point, pending agreement of something else. No other leader could have it any differently. She has three options: - ignore the referendum; - immediately declare that we want to participate via the EEA / EFTA (ie. do a "Norway"); - maintain a firm-line and see what piecemeal arrangements can be negotiated. She's doing option 3 at the moment and it's not some great lie to talk about a reclamation of sovereignty in that context.

The Supreme Court is currently, by operation of law, subject to the ECJ and EU law and all domestic law needs to be consistent with EU law or it can be challenged. On exiting the EU, that won't be the case, other than for matters where we agree it ought to be. Simple as that. There's nothing to be condescending about here and listing a bunch of other supra-national conventions / forums is neither here nor there.

It's not untrue. The ECJ is currently the top court in the UK. If the ECJ is the nominated enforcement body for some bi-lateral agreements we enter into or for any legacy arrangements we retain then that is quite a different function altogether.

If her point is simply to state the obvious truism that agreements need an enforcement mechanism then, yeah, she's right. But the whole tone of the piece and her obvious implied subtext is that May is dropping a massive legal bollock by turning away from the ECJ - but that's simply not necessarily the case.

In fact, I would say it is deliberately misleading and a ****e article.

I didn't say that. I'm not surprised you're puzzled though.

There's a lot of unsaid stuff there though. You can have reciprocal enforcement arrangements through other means; EU institutions, such as the courts, aren't the be-all-and-end all. International arbitration is enforced through a system of treaties, for example. http://www.newyorkconvention.org/ It's a misleading article, which suggests cross-border cooperation or trade with the EU is impossible without acceding to EU courts. That simply isn't true. It might be the simplest way, and it might be the way imposed upon EEA members, but it is not the case that there is no other way. I would strongly take contention with the suggestion that the article is "very good".

For the record, I am weighing up whether to renew my ST or not. It's nothing to do with the manager, or the style of football. It is basically because I feel the whole experience is increasingly bland. - It has become clear that most players, if they are any good, won't be here for more than two seasons. It's hard to build much of an affinity with the squad. - It is clear that we have plateaued and are really only playing for cup runs or not to go down - but probably without the excitement of a relegation battle. But it's also clear that we struggle with squad depth to maintain deep runs in cups and Europe. - The Premier League, in general, is bland. Bloated and boring. The managers are quite boring. The players are quite boring. Most world-class players are elsewhere. The pundits are boring. Football coverage is boring. The fans are witless and repetitive. Last season was interesting but it was an exception. - Europa League, despite our away performances, was great - and was interesting - but reaching that consistently is very difficult. I wouldn't be against a relegation, to be honest.

I don't know, but I know we were throughout the 90s and 00's!

But it's nothing like the prospect of finishing 8th. The fact is that any club could still be relegated for a number of non-sporting reasons but no one mentions it because it is minimally likely to happen. We have no realistic chance of being relegated. In fact, any of the big six getting relegated for some sort of rule infringement is probably more likely than us getting relegated on league points alone this season. So, it was a completely pointless point to make, and worthy of some derision.

That's the only real concrete business plan that makes any sense to me but, really, is some random, aging former exec from the States who is allegedly a dollar billion going to be arsed with doing that?

Not really. Finishing in 8th is reasonably likely. Probably less than 50%, but not an outrageous suggestion. The idea that we will be relegated is completely outrageous. Less than 1% chance I expect. So nothing like at all. In the same way that Mane is like Ali Dia, on the one hand, (African footballer, plays as a forward, played for Saints) but nothing "like" Ali Dia on the other (clearly far, far better, unless you are a completely clueless cretin).