Although idk if I 100% want that

remember it’s about the right names not the big names guys

In the US, all PL games can be watched on NBCUniversal channels and Peacock. For European competitions you need to get Paramount+ and for FA/Carabao Cup you need ESPN+

Might stick 50 on Arsenal winning the league. Surely the universe isn't kind enough to give us an Arsenal collapse a year after Liverpool missed out on their quadruple

partey injured, use that 50 to cop a united share they’ll skyrocket once the takeover is complete

This Arsenal title collapse will move mountains.

A draw would be great

Need City winning, difference between second or third not really important to me. If City win (2 times) we can still catch Arsenal and hope for a City point deduction

Ban

That KDB run is patented

Biggest difference between him and Bruno unfortunately. KDB is so powerful and can sprint with the ball — if Bruno had that to his game he would be so much better. But he just can’t carry the ball at all

If only the queen didn't f***ing die

too many things have been going our way lately we're definitely holding 5 tomorrow

lmao

Imagine we get 2nd and City get deducted points

Well I'm going to go off of the beggars can't be choosers principle that you stated. So I don't really know how useful making hypotheticals is because we are only going to have a handful of bidders reportedly, I agree it's hard to determine a line, but in this case I think it is possible to look case by case. In this moment the main contender for Qatar seems to be INEOS and Jim Ratcliffe. If we first purely look from the perspective of what kind of people own our club, I will touch later about how the clubs could actually be ran by these people.

INEOS sure has had it problems and scandals in the past, but no come close to the Qatar World Cup workers scandal. I do not really know if a chemical company like INEOS employs a lot of low wage workers in bad work environments, I suspect it to be less than most other companies of the same size. A company like INEOS does also not throw homosexuals in prisons as far as I know, sure they might discriminate against them (and other minorities) on the work floor (which is also horrible), but it is not explicitly banned.

Also thinking identity is not only from our own perspective, but also the perspective of other people, clubs that are run by oligarchs have a really bad name in football and throughout history have become synonymous with smaller/mid-table clubs with little history (compared to traditional big clubs) suddenly spending incredible amounts of money and disrupting transfermarkets (an example we have unfortunately followed over the last 10 years) to buy titles out of thin air. I know this does not sound like it applies to us, but now that we haven't won much for 10+ years, for younger viewers this view could also be projected on us in a couple years if we start to win things again (we can assume that most young fans just gravitate towards the clubs that are currently winning and don't really care about their history until a bit later). And even tough I think both the chemicals that INEOS are selling and the oil that Qatar are selling are both hugely important for the world (I'm not gonna pretend oil=bad because somebody has to sell it because currently we just need it), Oil is already getting and will be getting a much worse reputation in the (near-)future, just look at all the stop oil actions we've seen in the last year. This may not be a problem now, but will have a big negative consequences on our reputation as a club in future years I fear. While some of the chemicals INEOS might be selling also contribute to climate change might be bad, I think they are way more abstract and they will have to change and they already are changing in what they manufacture to accommodate renewable energy sources, Qatar will try to do the same with Sport-washing etc, but it is hard to get rid of that original Oil-image they come with. I'm using INEOS now but you can replace that with companies similar to them, think Tesla (repeat I'm not talking about the sporting perspective here).

And I do not really believe in fan ownership at this point, on one hand I don't think they're going to introduce it and add to that that you can't do anything with 30% it would be just for show, hence why they have a 50+1% rule in Germany.

You're right that unlimited money in the bank does not really mean unlimited spending nowadays anymore, but that does not really mean that it does not matter. Clubs like us, Liverpool and Arsenal can really spend only as much as they make, we have made this money from having had great sporting achievements in the past. This is purely a personal feeling so I can understand if this does not mean much to other people, but in my opinion it just feels better to spend money that you have really earned. I know United can still just spend the money they have earned with past achievements in the future even with Qatari owners, but I expect (and you're right this is just speculation based of what they are doing at PSG) they will put a lot more money in transfers than they should actually be able to, considering we will also be renovating Carrington & Old Trafford (hopefully) or building a new stadium. I don't know exactly how FFP works, but if revenue that is being spend on facilities and other things will also limit the amount we can spend on transfers and salaries, I'm sure they will find away to get around it (and this could be in an illegitimate way).

I feel like if you have unlimited money in the bank, the owners will want to spend that money. A few good signings might not be enough for them, when the next big superstar is on the market (even though we have already reached the max spending we could do). We can be a top 5 club in the world, but also we have a limit on what we can and what we can't do. I agree that this point is mostly speculation, but I have a feeling it would even be a point of consideration with candidates like INEOS.

Now on the sporting aspect, this is the most unpredictable aspect of the takeover and also involves a whole lot of other (unpredictable) factors. If we go back to the two different scenario's in Qatar and INEOS. They both come with different kind of worries. The obvious worries with the INEOS takeover aspect I feel like I see a lot is that they simply don't have enough money to invest to keep up with the Chelsea's and City's. This is a valid argument that I can simply not rebuke fully because I simply don't know how much money they have. I feel like if they can pay for the obvious investments (see renovations) and still have money to spare to do some decent transfer business I don't see how we could not compete at the top. Last year we thought we needed eleven new top players to get back to competing, I think now that only big (and expensive) signings we need are a midfielder and a striker. As long as you have a good base of players you don't need to spend 250 mil every summer. City have now only bought like 2 players a year for the last 5 years and I think that we can easily compete doing the same for the next years if we spend big on a young striker and midfielder in the coming summer. As long as our new owners are being able to do that, I don't see how that's a problem (and I think INEOS can do that because otherwise I don't believe they would be trying to buy us).

As for management I think this can go both ways and even though this is a critique to the Qatari's this could all equally apply to other potential owners (like INEOS), but the Qatari's already own a football club so its easier to extrapolate for them. I know that the management of United under the Qatari's will be partly under different people than that of PSG, but I feel like their attitude towards running a football club will probably be similar. I think that comparing to the amount Qatar has invested in PSG they have underperformed a lot. They are always looking at the next big marquee signing to make while having no regard for the managers plans, yesterday again they played like a bunch of strangers on the field. Managers are expected to adjust their teams so that these marquee signings can shine and when they don't adjust immediately the manager will be sacked in no time. Managers there don't get time like Ole did and who is to say that if hypothetically a player like Mbappe is signed and benched by Ten Hag that he won't get sacked as soon as the results are not there anymore. We have seen with Ronaldo how important it is that the manager is fully backed in what he does, and I have seen the opposite happen at PSG run by Qatar. I agree that this is speculation and could also happen with other owners, but we simply don't really know enough of the other candidates to compare in my opinion. I just know that if we will be ran like PSG we would not be successful. This doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that its oil money tho. More to do with owners thinking they know football and wanting to handle everything themselves instead of appointing the proper people to run the club (Jim Ratcliffe could also become victim to this, but Qatar already has a trackrecord of this and he doesn't really). Like it may be unimaginable that they sack EtH next season, but just look like what happened at Chelsea when a guy like Boehly thinks he knows ball and wants to be hands on, he sacked Tuchel who won them the f***ing Champions League a bit more than a year before. The Glazers simply didn't give a f*** as long as the dividends keep coming, their big fault was appointing Woodward who doesn't know a thing about Football. Qatar just has a bad track record managing top clubs, despite having unlimited resources.

That's really all I got to say, don't want to spend too much time arguing on this anymore cus in the end all we can do is wait and watch till something is done. This is just my point of view, nobody has to agree with it, but I just really not prefer us to get bought by Qatar.

Here I sat in the dark for an hour typing walls of text on a forum, I feel like a dumbass

Crazy to think of what the table would look like if we had won both Leeds and Palace games

felt like a dumbass typing my paragraphs out too, at least we can be dumbasses together

Y’all are gentlemen and scholars

I read all of them I’m sure most did too. Interesting POV’s curious on what happens in the near future on these bids it should be Friday that we hear on who’s actually in the running

Carrick doing bits at Middlesbrough