Bao

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That's right. Any buy-out figure would be irrelevant really, because if the Russian wants him he will be giving him all sorts on top of the astronomical wages. Nice pad. Taking him round the brothels personally, passing on escort girls and the like.

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Saying he 'was fine' is not the same as saying it was 'a fine performance'.

But that would mean he wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Because the HJC do have a problem with it according to some who claim to have talked to/emailed HJC people about it. I think, though, that these are views from individuals and there isn't actually an HJC line as such. I'd never buy it but have never considered it part of the boycott. They didn't run with that story and the fact that I've never seen or heard of 'Don't Buy the NOTW' stickers etc. says it all for me.

It's great how he talks about captains in the plural.

I don't think there was a Post-Heysel reaction. Think about the 86 Cup Final, for example. The Post-Heysel undercurrent didn't move in until the 1990s. Derby Day has always had fisticuffs, especially in town later on, but it all sounds a lot worse now.

Mainly because of injury/fitness problems I believe.

Is Snorky pissed?

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FACT McMahon got plenty of stick from Reds for letting Vinnie Jones put him out of the Cup Final like that. I remember one of the fanzines back then having some kind of 'hardman' McMahon cartoon that ended up with a wimper 'Sure, here you are Vinnie. You take the ball.'

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...and free tickets you can tout for all the big games.

And whatever those 25 incidents may be, they are of course all unrelated to the Milan game, and this even raises the questions as to why, when UEFA have evidence that we're such a bunch of c****, they didn't put stringent measures in place to ensure no more 'incidents' occurred.

How would they go about this? Look at how much a player cost and then judge it by what? Minutes on the pitch, starts? Measure players' contributions in some way? And what's the outcome? Rafa's a great judge of keepers, defenders and midfield players but hasn't got what it takes for buying strikers, so we're going to give that responsibility to someone else? Is that what Yanks do in their own sports? Sounds crap.

The self-annointed 'best fans' to a large extent. Too much of this 'great fans', 'great history' stuff around which comes back to bite one and all when incidents occur.

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It's going to be an interesting summer and it will give an indication of Gillett and Hicks' intentions. So far they've said and done many of the right things and, as Hicks mentioned in a recent interview, they've had a good honeymoon period. Expectations are now massive and they are going to have to go some way to meeting them to keep everybody on side.

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Too friendly? Ask Peter Shilton. He'd get an ovation to the Kop, as was only good and proper for a visiting keeper, and then a shout of "Tiiinaa" would go up and various ditties based on his extra-marital activities would get an airing.

So we must be signing

Josemi