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18 minutes ago, Captain Turdseye said:

No chance of them signing “big name” players in January, imo. 

They’ll certainly try for a flagship signing imo. Probably offer Kane half a million a week or something like that. Conti will be manager by then I’m sure he’ll have further plans. They’ll definitely buy in January 

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12 minutes ago, andrew78 said:

That's us fucked when klopp leaves,back to hovering around 4th place I think cause these owners will never get so lucky again, the countinho money set them on the way and  without that little windfall god knows where we would be 

Was always gonna be the case anyway, you can’t compete in this league with their business model, the only reason we do so is because of a freak of a manager. Once he goes it will collapse like a house of cards.

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On 07/10/2021 at 17:40, dockers_strike said:

One of the few erudite articles on this shitfest.

 

Anybody horrified by the Saudis’ capture of Newcastle United risks running headlong into hostility from the club’s long-suffering fans. All demand to know why the same moral indignation is not reserved for Manchester City acting as a shop front for the United Arab Emirates, or for Paris St Germain’s role as a convenient conduit for Qatari soft power. The key difference, surely, is that while both those regimes have fallen short on multiple Amnesty International metrics, neither sanctioned the murder and dismemberment of a journalist just three years ago this week.

 

The case of Jamal Khashoggi – the Washington Post columnist killed, according to US intelligence agencies, on the direct orders of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman – is crucial to understanding why Newcastle’s takeover represents such a grotesque moment for football. Over the past 20 years, the game has made peace with Roman Abramovich turning Chelsea into two-time European champions, despite the owner acquiring Russian oil giant Sibneft, the key to his £10.5 billion fortune, in a post-Soviet landscape described by his own lawyer as having “no rule of law”.

 

It has worn the spectacle of Sheikh Mansour, head of an Abu Dhabi regime condemned by Amnesty for unfair trials and failing to investigate allegations of torture, bankrolling City to three Premier League titles in the past four seasons. It has tolerated Paris St Germain, a club that did not even exist until 1970, becoming the envy of Europe on the back of Qatar’s bottomless sovereign wealth fund, with president Nasser Al-Khelaifi stockpiling star strikers as remorselessly as his fellow powerbrokers in the tiny Gulf state acquire Belgravia properties.

 

But Saudi Arabia’s buy-up of Newcastle, the latest pawn in its sports-washing campaign, deserves a category of noxiousness all its own. If it were not unpalatable enough that the kingdom is ranked among “the worst of the worst” in Freedom House’s annual survey of political and civil rights, or that it leads a coalition accused of war crimes in Yemen, its sanctioning of the hit on Khashoggi leaves a stain impossible to expunge.

 

Let us briefly absorb the horror of what happened to Khashoggi. On October 2, 2018, he was lured by Saudi operatives to their consulate in Istanbul and killed, with Turkish authorities describing how the sound of a bone saw could be heard. All this took place, in the words of a declassified US intelligence report earlier this year, on the approval of Bin Salman, the man now hailed as Newcastle’s knight in shining armour.

 

Supporters whose view on the ghastly deal is roughly summarised as “anyone but Mike Ashley” are conditioned to dismiss this as some trifling ethical caveat. Except Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, regards it as anything but. She has implored the Premier League not to acquiesce to the Saudis, telling Telegraph Sport: “It is horrifying to learn that the Crown Prince is on the brink of getting what he wants: to wash his reputation, and sully the name of sports.”

 

You might hope that the testimony of Ms Cengiz, a woman whose life has been ruined by a terrible state-sponsored crime, would resonate with those Newcastle fans who have not become overnight apologists for the rulers in Riyadh. You trust that it would rattle the Premier League, who demand that would-be owners pass fit-and-proper-person tests, but who are expected to wave this takeover through regardless. And you certainly hope it would deter journalists from offering specious justifications for a regime that has murdered one of their own.

 

But the grim reality is that the Saudis’ PR drive seems to be working. Already an argument has been advanced this week that the only tool they need for fending off human rights concerns is a decent communications strategy. It is an abysmally myopic view. Any brutal tyranny can launder its image via an expensive PR company: for years, Bell Pottinger, since disgraced and dismantled for fanning racial tensions in South Africa, would happily serve as spin doctors for dictators including Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet.

 

While covering Anthony Joshua’s “clash on the dunes” with Andy Ruiz Jnr in Diriyah, in December 2019, PRs were eager for reporters to sit down with Prince Abdulaziz Bin Turki Al-Faisal, the Saudi sports minister, so that he could he depict the super-fight as part of a grand plan to grow grassroots sport in the country. This is all very well, but the endgame of using sport to gloss over barbarity is transparent. You expect this type of cynicism in boxing, where Eddie Hearn has long since shelved any moral dilemmas to negotiate the best possible contracts for his fighters. You expect it in Formula One, too, where Bernie Ecclestone – admittedly in jest – did not discount holding races in Syria or North Korea so long as the price was right.

 

It might be an endearingly guileless view, but there was once some optimism that football could hold itself to a higher standard. After all, Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, claimed last year that he was not prepared to let his teams play in Saudi Arabia, refusing to be party to any “whitewashing” of human rights atrocities.

 

For Newcastle, the calculus is a little different. If sell-outs to the Saudis are good enough for the British government, and if the death of even a minor member of House of Saud mandates British royal representation at the funeral, why should football be a special case? It is this whataboutery, sadly, that trumps any thought of the Khashoggi family’s disgust for what Newcastle appear and the Premier League appear poised to do. Even in football’s hall of infamy, this is the most dismal Faustian pact yet.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/10/07/sport-awash-awful-characters-saudi-arabia-represents-new-low/

Thank god we dont sell them weapons.

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51 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I mean the team, as in we won’t be competing. Not under these minge bags anyway.

Definitely see it a mile off ,been a hell if a ride but its going to end up in a car crash ,buy from a position of strength they have made millions on the price they payed for us, they could easily pump in money and still make it back ,speculate to accumulate ,missed a golden opportunity and covud is no excuse others are buying 

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2 hours ago, VladimirIlyich said:

I just hope none of the Newcastle defenders commit a handball leading to a penalty. They'll never pick their nose again.

You just know as soon as they lob your hands off your gonna get an itchy nose. Always the fucking way when your hands aren’t free 

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I'm just happy I saw another title. I'm pretty sure we still have chance as long as Klopp is here the next couple of years and Newcastle is rebuilding. After Klopp is gone or even if he stays, this is our time to compete, it won't last. Klopp can't keep working miracles in the long run.

 

Chelsea

City

United

Newcastle

 

Three non entities and a bunch of thundercunts albeit thundercunts with merit duking it out for the next umpteen years.

 

Fuck of PL and fuck off football. Drastic measures have to happen for me to really get into it after Klopp is gone. Football is partially dead as it is already.  Even if we got the whole Columbian, peruvian and Juarez Coke mongers as owners and bought the whole god damn world. Who'd give a shit to be honest. On the other hand we might win stuff once in a while. Come on uncle Kloppo win us another one before we have to try and walk away. Try at least.

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