Verbal

Let's suppose the answer to FF's original question is 'bogus' - in the sense that Pinnacle were merely trying to grab the club at a bargain-basement price and then flog it off to the nearest buyer. If that were actually true, why did it seem that theirs was the highest bid? If you're really going to do this, wouldn't you want to buy low and sell high? One suspicion is that Lynam might have been in it for the long haul but his backers - such as they were - had very different ideas. And they baulked at the price Lynam had agreed with Fry because they saw it eating into their profit margin in the ensuing quick sale. For all those whining about how we haven't rebuilt the team in the last five minutes, just imagine what it would have been like had Pinnacle succeeded. (Not to mention the ruin of MLT's reputation). Someone - whether it was Lynam or his secretive backers - was prepared to slash-and-burn this club for a quick buck, no matter who got hurt. We certainly wouldn't be buying players, and would by now surely lost a lot more. We had a lucky escape.

You can only be sure of that if you're ITK. FF's post is revealing but still, clearly, not the whole story. Let's hope Leon sues, just so that we can get to the truth of all this.

Thanks for that, man with skate manager's name.

I know the road he lives on quite well. Very ritzy. All large, detached Edwardian villas with big driveways. Ali Dias (for short) is 38 years old apparently. Seven directorships. 'Something' in the City, is my guess.

Thanks, FF. But it still begs at least a couple of questions about the bidding war: Why didn't Liebherr simply trump the Pinnacle bid earlier and rush in ahead of them with the non-refundable down-payment? Was his bid not ready at the time? If that's the case, the idea that we lost almost a month to Pinnacle may not necessarily be true. Did Liebherr offer substantially less than the Pinnacle bid? If so, we can hardly blame Fry if he went for the option that offered better value to creditors. That was his job, after all. If, on the other hand, Liebherr stood aside just because MLT was associated with the Pinnacle bid, then that suggests to me at least that Fry should have been much more proactive in promoting the bid with the greater credibility. It would have saved us all a lot of heartache and Leon a cool half a million. In any case, the idea that Pinnacle's bid was a leveraged buyout is deeply shocking. Was Fry REALLY unaware of that his ‘preferred bidder’ was offering to buy a catastrophically indebted club with…debt? It seems highly unlikely to me. Just as it seems extremely likely that MLT and Leon did NOT know. In which case, Leon quite possibly has an actionable case against Fry as well as Pinnacle. I guess we just don’t know how Lynam represented his bid to Fry and to Leon & MTL. Do we (you)?

Not you as well! It's like an episode of True Blood on here.

True. It's like SWF but with really bad spelling.

I hope someone's hidden the razor blades.

Keep trying, Nick. It's a losing battle. Optimism seems to have gone out of style on here.

At 34, he's a damned good player. We'll be lucky to have him.

Of course we're dangerously unprepared! That much was evident at QPR - and Pardew said as much before the game. But are we in the same situation as the last two seasons, when the club was in the clutches of the Pol Pot of football? I don't think so. It's going to be tough playing catch-up with teams that have had a settled pre-season and with the -10. But we were playing a team from the top-half of the division above us today, and it showed. Even so, a few judicious signings - starting with Murty - and we'll be on the up. And by the way, we really do have some pretty good players in search of a team. Last season, we were dependent on a cut-price Dutch no-hoper to find it; this year, we have a manager with a proven track record to go looking for it. Things just aren't THAT bad.

Based on the last two games, he isn't even picked as a starter at Saints - and was lazy as hell for the half hour he was on at QPR. (Guess who came closest to scoring, though.)

With a few additions, I think this team has some potential. Yes, we lost, but it was good to see some intelligent interplay between Lallana, Schneiderlin and Mills; Harding looked like he's improving; and Murty is a must-buy for the sheer authority and calm he brings to the right hand side. The old weaknesses of last season persist - the team just looked lightweight and very young compared to QPR - which became even more glaringly obvious when the substitutes started rolling on. We didn't create as many chances as our possession suggests we should have had. And we have a habit of panicking under pressure. For some reason, we're also now over-hitting every single dead ball, and there's little evidence of much training-ground thinking going into corner-taking or free kicks in dangerous positions. But QPR are now a division above us, are not a bad side, have had a settled pre-season - and we simply won't face this kind of opposition in League 1. The CB problem obviously needs sorting out. They seemed to just stroll through us for the first goal, we panicked for the second, and we can thank 'Am I bothered?' Greg for the third. But the team was certainly more organised, the flanks looked much more solid (James had a good game and a terrific run in the first half), and there seem to be a few more leaders on the pitch. Assuming no one else leaves, this team is probably three signings away from being consistently competitive from the off.

Is that sarcasm, or have you just pureed your brain?

Roman numerals for 0?

Get a mac.

Have you seen him play recently?

Tim, Every single time someone raises something to do with racism on here, we get an instant demonstration of the thin veneer of civilization. Their are enough knee-jerk ravings against the 'politically correct', the 'thought police', or making fatuous comparisons with 'anti-ginger' attitudes, etc, to make this forum a rather depressing place - especially for those of us who think that the club, and football in general, has made some real progress on this issue over the years. I'm not sure what the solution is. Not to raise the question at all? Should the mods have a policy of only allowing the discussion on the Lounge? The problem is, the discussion never evolves: it always turns on the same, tired old claptrap. And I think it happens partly because many simply don't see the reality of racism and its truly gruesome history. Name-calling is one really quite tiny part of it. I agree with those who've called for this thread to be locked.

Step away from the dictionary.

Exactly.

Tim, I've just about worked out your top post, but what does the rest of it - eg, the above! - actually mean? I'm sure I'm missing something important. Thanking you in advance. V

The ITKs - or those that weren't just fantasists and lucky guessers - had their hooks into the old Lowe and Crouch regimes, as well as other assorted leakers and whistleblowers. No one, it seems, has any way into the ML regime or anyone close. Yet.

I know Glasgow's rotten but you'll never find your way back to Bournemouth down there.

Both of thee. Thy is going also?

So long as I can manage to wake up by about 1.30pm, I should be there.