shurlock

Am losing sight of your point am afraid. The issue is whether we would have been liquidated if NC/ML hadn't stepped in. All we know is that there were three bids -Pinnacle whose credibility had been questioned before it was given exclusivity, doubts vindicated by events, ML/NC and one other. That's it. Drawing on statements made in April, suggesting that there was plenty of interest in the club is misleading and flawed. While I don't attribute the opinion to you, there are others who still like to think we were an attractive investment and somehow, someone would have saved us. The details get foggier at that point, except to say that we weren't in July. I agree with you and precedent shows that clubs can find short-term fudges and the authorities are quite happy to kick the can down the road. Once public interest arguments get entangled, football clubs are like the walking dead. Either way, the point of Derry's original post was to put the importance of ML/NC's purchase in context. I like to believe that we would have got a reprieve, though that ultimately doesn't diminish their role. Structural decline or a slow death isn't much better. And that was the alternative in the best case scenario.

Even after the exclusivity ended, Pinnacle continued to be Fry's preferred choice right until the death. The tyre-kicker Lynam later admitted on here that he only knew of two other bids -ML/NC and one other. Perhaps the 'other' would have saved us bacon, perhaps not but tenuous stuff nonetheless and a far cry from suggesting that at the height of the global financial crisis, we were never in any danger.

And yet he continued to flog a dead horse until even the horse told him not to bother anymore. If there were other options -Richard Williams Gillico IIRC- they were not very credible.

April? The equivalent of the opening round of Xfactor where thousands of talentless chancers and m**gs queue up around the block to be told they're s**t. Ok. There's a simple reason why extension after extension after extension was given to Pinnacle -and that's not because we had loads of suitors.

Apart from Rod Stewart, Jim Radcliffe and Richard Branson, I can't remember too many people wanting to buy us

Why indeed.

Glasgow Forest?

Their kuwaiti owners -the al hasawi family- are minted but paupers compared to ML. Can't see Cortese realising his CL ambitions with Forest.

He's proclaiming his love for the Hampshire landscape - next will be a shot of the Marlands.

Excellent post

I doubt we paid the full £15m upfront.

Is it just this incident? Or have been relations distant/strained before it? Not the first time this has happened at a club and the rest of the players decided to live and let live.

Hope Guly starts - good memories of seeing him score his first goal for us at Yeovil.

Reckon with Cortese at the helm, we would stand a better chance of getting him out of the door in the current window and possibly lining up a replacement.

Fonte is one of the niggliest players around.

At least, he didn't do things by halves.

Not really. There also has to be some kind of punishment, a ritual for the good of the group. Doesn't mean MP can't handle things sensitively one-to-one with Osvaldo. The real question is whether its worth the bother. FWIW, I haven't written off yet.

Just let the latinos sort it out with some spit, sawdust and glass.

edit

Was going to say Jos too - a clumsy challenge by someone Osvaldo probably doesn't think fit to clean his boots and whose Dutch bonhomie probably f**ks many off. That or one of Jrod, Lallana or Lambert.

Before the Sunderland game, was looking forward finally to having a full strength squad again. FFS

I'm possibly less relaxed about the uncertainty but otherwise I pretty much see things the same way as you.

Hyperbole? You make it sound like its just said for dramatic effect. Nothing to date has suggested that we'll revert back. Can only take KL's statement at face value as a positive bit of news and see what happens over the summer when actions speak louder than words.

How are you doing today, sir?

One doesn't follow the other. Some liked Cortese's vision for the mindset it represented when we've been accustomed to defeatism and mediocrity. Some even believed that he would improve us further - top 6 perhaps. But did plenty believe we're destined for the top four or develop an arrogant attitude of CL or nothing? That's CB Fry b*****ks.