Verbal

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.

Well, the Lowe years might have made it appear as though all the fans who detested the idiocies of that time shared a common interest. But there always were a whole raft of agendas (for want of a better word) lurking beneath the surface. I think that some - even, or perhaps especially, those who drew direct fire from the Great Leader - saw themselves as able to exercise more influence somehow in PLCWorld. Going to shareholder meetings, Trust meetings, or whatever must have given the sensation (if not the reality) of being an integral part of the whole thing. For many of the rest of us, the difference between ownership by a private individual and being shackled to a PLC is seen exactly the other way around. Things may go pear-shaped with the ML - who knows? But right now, we sure as hell prefer it to the parade of pygmies who lucked out with their share certificates and then lorded over the club from the boardroom as the whole shebang sank into near-oblivion. For a terrifying demonstration of monomaniacal pursuit under the 'shareholder democracy' of the PLC (actually as democratic as trade union block voting), just reflect on the year that's just been. It was so unspeakably awful that I don't think any of us has really come to terms with it. And in years to come, we'll look back on it with growing amazement that such a thing could possibly have happened. Now we're beyond that, I get the sense that some of the old warriors feel a little becalmed. I'm not talking about FF. Specifically.

Calm down!

Agreed, ESB - which makes FF's high-handed and pompous response all the more surprising. And thanks, Clapham - as ever, a clear and helpful post.

And the rest - not blessed with the x-ray vision of ITKness - said they don't know.