So essentially you don't know and have assumed the venkys own us for a tax dodge based on very flawed logic. Cos I wasn't disputing that point. But that's an example of an actual tax dodge- buy a 7m asset, claim it as a business expense to save £Xm in tax. End result is you pay less tax and have a £7m asset. No they don't they either a) make it look like they're making a loss - massage income into a future period, over state expenditure etc (they've not actually lost money here) b) buy a load of tax deductible stuff to reduce their profits (they've lost money but gained stuff) What they don't do is lose actual money and gain no stuff (on purpose) Sharing group losses is beneficial. Creating losses for no gain is not Please gain some basic knowledge of tax and accounting.

That's not how tax brackets work. Take the UK for example. If you earn 12.5k you pay zero income tax If you earn 22.5k you pay 20% on the 10k over 12.5k If you earn 60k you pay 0% on the first 12.5k 20% on 12.5 - 50k and 40% on the final 10k. You don't pay 40% on the full 60k. If you sum it all up the tax you pay on 60k is like 19% in total. Your logic would say that if I earn 60k I would be paying 24k in tax taking home 36k and i would be better off losing £10k so I'd only pay £10k in tax and take home £40k. I have no doubt venkys engage in dodgy dealings in order to avoid paying tax. The annual funding of a football club is not one of them. For starters it doesn't even work mathematically. Even if it did work, there's far easier ways to lose money than to buy a football club and conspire to relegate it and play a game of spin the plates in order to keep them in the second tier. "Promotion and a sudden injection of 200 million also causes problems as you now can't write off 20 million in losses." You absolutely could. If we had £200m in revenue, they could sanction spend of £220m. Just because we have revenue doesn't mean we have to run at a profit. Its not unusual for PL teams to run at a loss it wouldn't arose suspicion.

As far as tax avoidance goes its very aggressive and horrendously inefficient

But that means they're £16m down overall. People don't avoid paying tax cos they don't like tax, they do it to get more money / stuff. I could avoid paying tax it I went part time and halved my salary but it makes no sense to do that because I'd have less money. I could avoid tax by salary sacrificing into my pension, that makes sense cos I get a stronger pension as a result.

I can't get my head round it. Imagine £100m profit and 20% tax would leave £80m profit for the venkys. Then chuck in £20m of losses would be £80m of profit at 20% would equal £16m after tax profit. So they've spent £20m to save £4m in tax. I know corporations do it all the time but they're usually getting something out of it, so they'd spend the £20m to reduce the tax bill but they'd have £20m worth of stuff. Or they make accounting adjustments to make it look like they're loss making. I'm not accusing you of conspiracy theories cos I suck at Tax but you'll definitely need to spell it out for me with some hypothetical numbers cos I just don't get it.

This doesn't make sense though. They might pay less tax but they'd have less money overall. They flush 20m down the toilet each season, they get nothing from it, it's not like they've bought an asset and found a loophole to make it tax deductible. Its not like they've done an accounting tweak to make it look like they're loss making. They're losing cold hard cash down each year and getting nothing in return.

Formation is an interesting one as 442 was probably the wrong formation in 2004 - there was always the debate about whether lampard and Gerrard could play together. The answer was yes - if Carrick sat behind them. So arguably they could play better in this team.

Gareth has a cracking selection of players at his disposal but its debatable whether it's the best England squad. We've had comparable squads if you look player for player in each position. In my life time - 96 and 2002- 2006 we've had talented squads but not gone as far in tournaments. Look at Euro 2004 starting 11 - who from the current selection (whether Gareth selects them or not) gets into that starting line up. Kane, Bellingham, Rice would be a shout and possibly one of the right backs. Terry, Rio, Cole, lampard, Gerrard, Beckham, 2004 Rooney and a fit Owen would all be disappointed bit to be in the starting 11 if they were playing today We've got a good squad and promising future but calling it the best squad is maybe looking at it through the lens of 2010-2018 being woeful.

Surely cohesion comes from the manager and the players he picks?

Regularly happens at city does it not?

Class from Bellingham. 20 years old and I wouldn't class him as a youngster in the slightest. Looks at home alongside the more experienced heads in the team.

Here goes I have absolutely no problem with my wife's sister keeping her clothes on.....

It's like I made that happen. I literally hit send as he kicked the ball.

Maguire is a different player for England than he is at United. Until he turns up for England looking off the pace and out of form I have no problem with his continued selection. He scored an own goal as I typed that....

*DELETE* I misread!

Step 1 - replace Waggott with a cardboard cutout

I look forward to the enhanced communication and better all round running of the club that this appointment will surely bring.

No - he ended up at Spurs.

Imagine spending that much on transfers and thinking your owners are the worst thing on the world.

Like a lot of people I'd split my rating in 2 One for what we've achieved with both hands tied behind their backs, the rug pulled from underneath them and the general shit show of how our club is run - 7/10 The blackburn rovers transfer window as a whole 1/10. The club have done Broughton and GB a dirty, wait for them to let the top earners go in Dack and Ayala and then tell them there's no money. Unknowns that could affect the ratings - One negative is lack of experience especially in defence. Whose fault is it that we didn't get Batth? - Not replacing buckley with another body in any position. Again who is at fault for this? Overall, I think we've enough for JDT to work with and we could be outsiders for a play off push but we could have made his job a hell of a lot easier. I think we're desperately short in defence in terms of depth. Signings are largely unknown, the striker could be the next best thing or the next Hirst.

I dont rate the Newcastle squad tbh. Looking at their line up yesterday it's just a bog standard top 10 club. Massively over achieved getting top 4 last season.

Nah that was off. Only just but off all the same.

I'd take the glazers any day over this lot.

Sums up some United fans on twitter

I think the whole "clear and obvious" thing should be scrapped. It creates too much grey area for my liking. It should be a tool to assist the ref, not re-ref the game entirely. It should be a chance for a ref to look at the monitor and say "oh wait that's not what I thought I saw on first looking" this is my decision or "Yeah that's exactly how I saw it I'm sticking to it" From what I understand the refs are always on the mics talking their decisions through with the team so all VAR needs to be is - Ref: No handball because XYZ VAR: Yeah that checks out Or VAR: that's not what we saw I think you need another look at that The ref should have the final call. Either that or scrap it and go to a review system. VAR reviews only happen if a team requests it and they have to state the reason they're appealing (to stop speculative reviews). You get one per half and lose it if it fails. Maybe have goals checked for offside regardless. Mic them up to explain the decision like in the women's.