2 hours ago, bluebruce said:

None from the first team squad.

So what words was I putting into your mouth?

21 hours ago, bluebruce said:

It's not the benefit of hindsight, it's the benefit of remembering that I was relatively happy with him in that season and thought it was worth protecting our £7 million investment.

I do want to keep Gallagher, although it will have to be at the right wage level. But he has less potential to improve now than Brereton did in that season as he's a lot older. IMO we don't have the money to buy someone at a similar level but on less wages. Additionally, we were rejecting cash bids for him this January, so he does have some market value.

BBD had scored 7 goals in the league from out wide and looked like a nailed on starter who may improve and we'd invested 7 million in, to justify a new deal. At that point his wage demands wouldn't have been too high, and the understanding is he wasn't on all that much.

I'm not basically advocating that, you're entirely putting words in my mouth.

OK, which player under 23/24 do you think we should let walk at the moment? 

52 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

I'd have been perfectly fine with extending his contract after the 20/21 season where he scored 7 goals from out wide. In fact after the investment we had made, it was a pretty obvious thing to do.

Maybe you would have been. Maybe, that's the benefit of hindsight.

I know I didn't. In the same way that I don't want Gallagher to be offered a new contract right now. If Gallagher re-signs and we get more of the same then it will prove to have been a massive waste of money. If we let him go and he goes on to score 15-20 goals at a Championship club next season, supporters will be questioning the decision.

BBD had done nothing to justify a new deal and, by the time he did, he was too late.

You're basically advocating that every player under 26/27 should be offered a new deal to protect our investment. That will work out some of the time, but it will lead to some awful contracts.  

Having printed masks in the past for some events we've hosted at UNESCO, you'll need a far higher image quality than that if you want to avoid us being the laughing stock of the footballing world for a day. 

7 minutes ago, lraC said:

Remember, we had paid up the contracts of several established players and then brought in, those wanted by the manager and his agent.

Granted a team game is harder to fix than an individual sport, but if we had 3 or 4 players all in on it, then it becomes a lot more likely.

Statements made about Ryan being on traction and other crazy things said, are coming sharply back into focus.

I think a very key point has to be made here.

Sometimes those dismissing conspiracy theories are labelled as Venky's defenders.

I'm not defending our owners. They've been awful and their decision-making, particularly in those early years, has been highly questionable, negligent, and stripped this club of any sense of professionalism and dignity.

However, I don't think they're involved in match-fixing. 

6 hours ago, Upside Down said:

It's obviously not the prime reason for their ownership but it certainly can't be denied that things like that have happened here at this club.

This is just far too strong of a statement. 

1 hour ago, Upside Down said:

Spot fixing as in x players will start the game. Y players will come on at this time of the game.

No, as in getting players to agree to carry out very specific actions. It could be as simple as a booking. It could be the number of corners. Le Tissier has famously spoken about agreeing to have the first throw-in of a match occur within a specific period of time - although that was also spread betting so the time became an even more crucial factor.

The problem with this approach is that there isn't a ton of liquidity in those markets, so you'll have bet limits and any unusual betting patterns will be flagged - this includes across different bookmakers.

You cover that with illegal betting, but that comes with separate issues. 

2 hours ago, simongarnerisgod said:

if you wanted to fix matches,you`de have to get at the officials,there was a massive scandal in the nba a few years ago when one of the court refs was sent to jail for nobbling the points betting line,on the whole,footballers earn to much money to risk getting banned for fixing a match,suppose it could happen lower down the leagues but why would you bother fixing a game where there is hardly any money going down on it

Yes, Tim Donaghy.

We actually had the former investigator who wrote the book on the betting scandal in the NBA on our podcast a couple of years ago:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5MBsIQIQSwsjcEY8Jo8rgf?si=bfacb337868745a3

He continues to research and speak about match-fixing and sports gambling. It's a really interesting topic and he speaks about it all very well.

1 hour ago, Upside Down said:

You have such a naive view of how the world actually works.

Believe it or not things are not black and white, there is grey area in everything.

I'm not saying match fixing and betting scams are absolutely certainly going on here but to say it isn't possible is totally childish.

See above, I might not know as little about the topic as you'd like to make out.

I 100% believe that there is match-fixing in every sport on a weekly basis. I just remain highly skeptical of the idea that a team at the highest level of a sport would be throwing matches. Spot-fixing definitely, but games being thrown is a little bit harder for me to wrap my head around.

Match fixing in individual sports or at a much lower level? That I do buy.

22 hours ago, Upside Down said:

That is absolutely beyond naive.

How much money are you going to have to pay a group of Premier League players to start throwing matches? How much would you then have to bet? Keep in mind, we were awful. Not a lot of opportunity to get value in the opposition. It is actually quite the opposite, we actually had the biggest upset (from an odds perspective) in Premier League history when we beat United.

Spot-fixing is the route you have to go in team sports to be consistently fixing outcomes. Bookings, throw-ins, corners, etc. But to think that 6/7/8 of our players were taking money to throw matches is a wild conspiracy theory. 

On 09/03/2024 at 11:50, Ossydave said:

You can make thousands if you're well informed, when Souness went to Newcastle I know a fair few who cleaned up.

Cleaned up meaning what?

A nice payday for your average person? Or something that would interest a billionaire?

The reality is that these aren't very liquid markets, so the exposure that comes with any sizeable bet is too much to be worth it - even for illegal bookmakers.

Why would you want to make a book where you are guaranteed to lose tons if a specific outcome comes in? Nevermind the fact that who in their right mind would take a big bet on a specific market like that without being suspicious of the fact that the bettor has more information than the bookmaker.

Could someone give me a decent tip on a next manager and I could have a nice day? Sure. I could spread 100-200 (absolute max) bets around across a few bookmakers and have a nice day, but we aren't talking about a payday that would interest the UHNW.

3 hours ago, Roverthechimp said:

The betting market has 2 angles - one is profit (anything above evens given a known outcome is a ROI) and the other is to move money around without direct links.

Systematic betting fraud doesn’t need every transaction to get 33-1 - multiple bets all the way down to (and beyond) evens are winning bets if you know the outcome.

If money laundering is involved then even losing money deliberately as the bookie enters the picture…
 

Eh?

Even odds-on shots are profit if you know the outcome.

10 hours ago, Upside Down said:

It's certainly a possibility, and is a really good way to move around illicit finance.

But that's the thing. It really isn't a possibility. 

16 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

Little and often.

Someone posted something on here a while back about money laundering in sports and football in particular.

Venkys ticked a lot of boxes.

Now they're under investigation for financial corruption.

I'll let you form your own conclusions.

The point remains the same. It would have to be so tiny and so often.

I've bet on next manager markets and putting 100 pounds on either radically shifts the market or makes it close altogether.

You cannot make millions, hundreds of thousands, or even thousands betting on next manager markets easily.

Do you really think they're charging someone with placing 50 pound bets at dozens of bookies?

They might be dodgy, but they are billionaires. Hardly worth it.

2 minutes ago, Darrenbot said:

Has a player ever been top scorer of a league and got relegated in the same season? 

Quiz question I had not too long ago:

Southampton went down from the First Division in 1973-74 (along with Manchester United) but Mick Channon was top scorer in the division with 21 goals.

Yet another awful goal to concede. 

Ordinary defending throughout the buildup and some very casual defending from Hyam inside the box. Another example of the keeper not exactly covering himself in glory, but the criticism really has to be directed at the defending.

There are so many moments within the game where we lack commitment, intensity, and even just basic effort within our own defensive third.

That isn't down to quality, although the skill level doesn't help, that's culture. 

Sell Pears.

Let's hope that someone watched that cup game and thought that he was Premier League quality.

Get rid ASAP.

Just now, Exiled_Rover said:

As I've repeatedly said about Gallagher - hell of an athlete, but he's never a footballer. 

I think that's very generous.

He's relatively big and strong, but he doesn't have a ton of pace. He's the level of athlete you would genuinely expect in the Championship.

I'll say it now and my opinion won't change: 

I'll never be a fan of Eustace.

This is an awful brand of football and he has the charisma of a sponge. 

Gallagher is such a donkey.

Zero chance he was going to beat 3 defenders, but has an easy pass to Brittain in space. Instead he has his head down, zero awareness, and in the end is only slightly saved by the fact that the ball somehow found its way to Brittain.

And instantly 2-0 down. Giving the ball away in midfield cheaply. Inability to close down yet again and I'm not entirely sure how to describe what Pears has just done. 

1 minute ago, Bethnal said:

Buckley corner that floated out of play, leading to a smart and quick goal kick. Andy Moran lets his man float by him before a bit of a calamity at the back meaning the one man in the box gets a scuffed finish past three men around him, including the keeper.

Three really poor actions in a row, leads to a goal.

You've left some steps out.

Poor clearing header that went 4 yards and straight back to Swansea. Pears flapping at a cross you'd expect an under 15s keeper to take. 

More clueless defending. Several opportunities to get the ball clear, zero urgency in closing down, poor goalkeeping.

Same old. Same old. 

The Pears praise will have quickly evaporated. 

This is a very revealing thread.

It combines both those acknowledging that they were perhaps to quick to judge Pears and those stating that Wahlstedt is a dud.

Lesson learned.

Just now, Armchair supporter supremo said:

And to be fair it wasn't even a bad penalty! Just well saved

Yep, not a terrible one. In another world and a few more favourable inches, his would have crept in and Pears would have tipped their 4th onto the post.

That's just a shootout for you. 

Just now, jim mk2 said:

 

He's a pundit, paid a huge salary by the BBC to give insight into football, not be a superfan waving his Newcastle scarf. He was unprofessional and it was all the more galling he was so open about it at the club where he made his name. And he called us Blackburn too.

 

Everyone outside of Blackburn calls us Blackburn. If you don't call us Blackburn it's impossible to expect people to know who you're talking about.

Name a neutral pundit. Linekar was in his underwear after Leicester City won the league. Neville spends most of his time talking about United. Carragher makes no attempt to hide his Liverpool allegiances even though he grew up an Everton supporter. Micah Richards is an open City supporter even though he's from the Midlands.

You'd love it if he supported us.