DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
jlee said:
Was at work during the game, so I cannot comment too much, but general consensus is that City may be a very difficult team to beat at home this year.
Kinda lame to hear about Masch, as Liverpool undoubtedly need his services more then FCB. Also never a fan of the "I won't play" model for those seeking a transfer, but at the same time, my squad seems to be dealing with the opposite end with Schwarzer. Also, hope you have better luck getting a real valuation out of Mash then we got for Cesc. At least I think you can argue that Masch doesn't have any Barca DNA running through his veins to lower his valuation.
I am hearing that the latest deal is 12M for Masch and throw in a Hleb (and maybe someone else). If Masch is valued at 30M or so, I suspect that is a few million dollars (more likely a few other players) less than needed.
Also, any of you Scouser fans shed some light on what is going on with the club now, and more importantly the general consensus of if you guys are facing doom and gloom, or if the debt issues are just over hyped? My understanding is that October 6th is like do or die for the Yanks to make a move. I also heard that those dudes are due 2.5M a week in interest payments. 2.5M a week could pay for a lot of quality players wages.
As I understand it, the deal that Kenny Huang was fronting (which may not yet be dead in the water) was based on a plan to buy the debt from RBS and then call it in, thus forcing Hicks and Gillett to sell, which they'll almost certainly have to do if a new owner hasn't been found by October. Huang has said that his deal doesn't involve "enriching the current owners", whereas Hicks and Gillett are determined to make money on the sale, and so their preferred buyer seems to be Yahya Kirdi, a Syrian based in Canada, who's indicated a willingness to pay the asking price.
While a lot of people are wringing their hands over the ethics of LFC possibly being owned by the Chinese government, an equally big worry amongst the actual fans is that no thought is being given to Kirdi's suitability as owner, so long as the deal he's offering involves equity for Hicks and Gillett. We could quite easily end up with another useless owner to match the equally useless board.
At last City have demonstrated an ability to move the ball out wide. Milner seems to have been a valuable piece in the jigsaw; him and Johnson stretched it across and allowed space for passes to be strung together rather than ploughing it through the middle or long-balling it. It was a soft penno but that doesn't detract from what I believe to be City's best performance under Mancini. Even Micah Richards was up for it.
Also done without Boateng, Mazza Bazza or Kolarov.
LFC never got an idea going. Babel (who I still can't believe is unable to get a starting gig) had a good chance late on but the midfield was coming up with nothing. Masher being a horse's ass isn't helping. Ireland would have been a good buy but hey ho. The window is still open...
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
J i m s t e r said:
At last City have demonstrated an ability to move the ball out wide. Milner seems to have been a valuable piece in the jigsaw; him and Johnson stretched it across and allowed space for passes to be strung together rather than ploughing it through the middle or long-balling it. It was a soft penno but that doesn't detract from what I believe to be City's best performance under Mancini. Even Micah Richards was up for it.
Also done without Boateng, Mazza Bazza or Kolarov.
LFC never got an idea going. Babel (who I still can't believe is unable to get a starting gig) had a good chance late on but the midfield was coming up with nothing. Masher being a horse's ass isn't helping. Ireland would have been a good buy but hey ho. The window is still open...
We looked quite bright for the first few minutes, and it was nice to see us fielding an attacking formation away from home for a change, even if it never came to anything. I'd be happy to send Masch on his way if I thought there was any likelihood of replacing him with someone of similar quality.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
For those of you in London on Saturday 4th September - come down to the Notting Hill Arts Club, i'll be DJ'ing there with DJ Cliffy at his Batmacumba night. PM me here with names for discounted guest list entry. Would be nice to finally put faces to e-names & avatars.
Several investigators said in interviews that Scotland Yard was reluctant to conduct a wider inquiry in part because of its close relationship with News of the World. Police officials have defended their investigation, noting that their duties did not extend to monitoring the media.
Matt Driscoll, a former sports reporter, recalled chasing a story about the soccer star Rio Ferdinand. Ferdinand claimed he had inadvertently turned off his phone and missed a message alerting him to a drug test. Driscoll had hit a dead end, he said, when an editor showed up at his desk with the player???s private phone records. They showed Ferdinand had made numerous calls during the time his phone was supposedly off.
One senior investigator said he was approached by Chris Webb, from the department???s press office, who was ???waving his arms up in the air, saying, ???Wait a minute ??? let???s talk about this.??? ??? The investigator, who has since left Scotland Yard, added that Webb stressed the department???s ???long-term relationship with News International.??? The investigator recalled becoming furious at the suggestion, responding, ???There???s illegality here, and we???ll pursue it like we do any other case.??? In a statement, Webb said: ??????I cannot recall these events..."
"Muse performed their new single ???Uprising??? on an Italian TV show recently and were told they had to lip sync the performance, so the band gave them what they wanted. Lead singer and guitarist ???Matthew Bellamy??? decided to fake the drums while the real drummer ???Dominic Howard??? took on vocal duties. Bassist Christopher Wolstenholme ???played??? the guitar and Keyboards."
So will anyone here actually ride for Muse. I had a friend who I used to swap mixtapes with bitd who would insist on putting a Muse song on every single on in an effort to convince me of their awesomeness. I remained entirely unconvinced by their overblown wailing but people seem to like them.
Yeah you see this is my feelings about the group yet they seem to sell out stadiums and shift shitloads of albums. It seemed to me that they were perhaps catering for a kind of person that didn't really like rock music as such but liked the idea of it.
I'd like an actual muse though. I guess first I'd need a talent that would be inspired by said muse so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.
Slow today isn't it.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
Junior said:
So will anyone here actually ride for Muse. I had a friend who I used to swap mixtapes with bitd who would insist on putting a Muse song on every single on in an effort to convince me of their awesomeness. I remained entirely unconvinced by their overblown wailing but people seem to like them.
I wouldn't go as far as to say I ride for them, but I have come to admire the way in which they embrace their OTT-ness and acknowledge the inherent absurdity at the heart of it. They've got a couple of good tunes as well.
That William Hague thing is funny, if you like non-stories. Somehow I can't picture him being a bummer, but I might be wrong. Does seem like an epic PR fail, It's good that these Tory blogs are intent on sabotaging their own party with malicious rumours though.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
Paul said:
That William Hague thing is funny, if you like non-stories. Somehow I can't picture him being a bummer, but I might be wrong. Does seem like an epic PR fail, It's good that these Tory blogs are intent on sabotaging their own party with malicious rumours though.
On the other hand, it could very easily be a necessary double-bluff, given that this story has now been picked up by The Guardian (although, and I can't think why, it's being ignored by just about everyone else), and it raises issues of systematic criminality in the British print media, high-level corruption in the Met and poor judgement on the part of Cameron, who knowingly employed someone tainted by this affair as his senior communications adviser; someone who'd have been spinning the Gordon Brown bullying stories as "an outrage", even though he'd been found to have done the exact same thing to a member of his staff in his previous job.
Easy to conclude from this that Coulson is more valuable to Cameron than Hague, although it's worth considering that the real issue with the Hague story isn't (or shouldn't be) whether or not he's gay, but whether or not the Foreign Secretary is sufficiently lacking in judgement to have employed his fuck-buddy on the public tab (and whether it coincides with the expenses scandal). Or possibly even have been sufficiently lacking in judgement to have shagged a member of his staff. And that's before we mention the unlikeliness of a 24-y-o with a less-than-distinguished degree being blessed with sufficient political smarts to have finagled one of the most senior advisory gigs in the F.O.
Incidentally, rumours about Hague have been circulating for a good ten years now. The person he's most usually linked with in them is Sebastian Coe, who yesterday announced that his 13-year marriage was now over. Odd coincidence, that. A supplementary rumour relates to the security detail assigned to Hague and his wife when Hague was leader of the opposition, and how an alleged pre-requisite for landing the gig was a willingness to attend to certain specific needs of Mrs. Hague's - needs that may not necessarily have been attended to by her husband...
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
I feel a strange combination of nausea and excitement at that picture. Billy Hague looks oddly similar to his fresh-faced appearance at that Tory conference when he was a nipper.
It's funny that much maligned 2001 version of Guns and Roses seem like a vintage line-up in comparison. I think I preferred that guy with the KFC bucket on his head to Slash anyway, of course with your boy Axel in charge, such good things were never going to last.
Comments
As I understand it, the deal that Kenny Huang was fronting (which may not yet be dead in the water) was based on a plan to buy the debt from RBS and then call it in, thus forcing Hicks and Gillett to sell, which they'll almost certainly have to do if a new owner hasn't been found by October. Huang has said that his deal doesn't involve "enriching the current owners", whereas Hicks and Gillett are determined to make money on the sale, and so their preferred buyer seems to be Yahya Kirdi, a Syrian based in Canada, who's indicated a willingness to pay the asking price.
While a lot of people are wringing their hands over the ethics of LFC possibly being owned by the Chinese government, an equally big worry amongst the actual fans is that no thought is being given to Kirdi's suitability as owner, so long as the deal he's offering involves equity for Hicks and Gillett. We could quite easily end up with another useless owner to match the equally useless board.
Also done without Boateng, Mazza Bazza or Kolarov.
LFC never got an idea going. Babel (who I still can't believe is unable to get a starting gig) had a good chance late on but the midfield was coming up with nothing. Masher being a horse's ass isn't helping. Ireland would have been a good buy but hey ho. The window is still open...
We looked quite bright for the first few minutes, and it was nice to see us fielding an attacking formation away from home for a change, even if it never came to anything. I'd be happy to send Masch on his way if I thought there was any likelihood of replacing him with someone of similar quality.
Pretty grim stuff.
For those of you in London on Saturday 4th September - come down to the Notting Hill Arts Club, i'll be DJ'ing there with DJ Cliffy at his Batmacumba night. PM me here with names for discounted guest list entry. Would be nice to finally put faces to e-names & avatars.
[/shameless self plug].
Carry on talking about football now.
Selected highlights;
Several investigators said in interviews that Scotland Yard was reluctant to conduct a wider inquiry in part because of its close relationship with News of the World. Police officials have defended their investigation, noting that their duties did not extend to monitoring the media.
Matt Driscoll, a former sports reporter, recalled chasing a story about the soccer star Rio Ferdinand. Ferdinand claimed he had inadvertently turned off his phone and missed a message alerting him to a drug test. Driscoll had hit a dead end, he said, when an editor showed up at his desk with the player???s private phone records. They showed Ferdinand had made numerous calls during the time his phone was supposedly off.
One senior investigator said he was approached by Chris Webb, from the department???s press office, who was ???waving his arms up in the air, saying, ???Wait a minute ??? let???s talk about this.??? ??? The investigator, who has since left Scotland Yard, added that Webb stressed the department???s ???long-term relationship with News International.??? The investigator recalled becoming furious at the suggestion, responding, ???There???s illegality here, and we???ll pursue it like we do any other case.??? In a statement, Webb said: ??????I cannot recall these events..."
Cunts.
Both are, of course, shite.
I'd like an actual muse though. I guess first I'd need a talent that would be inspired by said muse so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.
Slow today isn't it.
I wouldn't go as far as to say I ride for them, but I have come to admire the way in which they embrace their OTT-ness and acknowledge the inherent absurdity at the heart of it. They've got a couple of good tunes as well.
Not heard that one in donkeys years.
Excellent.
On the other hand, it could very easily be a necessary double-bluff, given that this story has now been picked up by The Guardian (although, and I can't think why, it's being ignored by just about everyone else), and it raises issues of systematic criminality in the British print media, high-level corruption in the Met and poor judgement on the part of Cameron, who knowingly employed someone tainted by this affair as his senior communications adviser; someone who'd have been spinning the Gordon Brown bullying stories as "an outrage", even though he'd been found to have done the exact same thing to a member of his staff in his previous job.
Easy to conclude from this that Coulson is more valuable to Cameron than Hague, although it's worth considering that the real issue with the Hague story isn't (or shouldn't be) whether or not he's gay, but whether or not the Foreign Secretary is sufficiently lacking in judgement to have employed his fuck-buddy on the public tab (and whether it coincides with the expenses scandal). Or possibly even have been sufficiently lacking in judgement to have shagged a member of his staff. And that's before we mention the unlikeliness of a 24-y-o with a less-than-distinguished degree being blessed with sufficient political smarts to have finagled one of the most senior advisory gigs in the F.O.
Incidentally, rumours about Hague have been circulating for a good ten years now. The person he's most usually linked with in them is Sebastian Coe, who yesterday announced that his 13-year marriage was now over. Odd coincidence, that. A supplementary rumour relates to the security detail assigned to Hague and his wife when Hague was leader of the opposition, and how an alleged pre-requisite for landing the gig was a willingness to attend to certain specific needs of Mrs. Hague's - needs that may not necessarily have been attended to by her husband...
I predict it might life a weight off his shoulders / provide ample ammo for on-field red-card-r goading.
May I be the first to say....
;blap:
Dude spent ??1,200 per go on THIS one?
the euro qualifiers can fuck off, too.
bring back the premier league, please.