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We spent £38m on Skipp, Ayew and Okoli that summer. You can't imagine Maresca would have signed off on those signings. We weren't going to splash £100m+ like Sunderland did when they went up but we did spend money, we just spent it appallingly.

Owynn seems like a nice guy but that was a really poor interview. 10 minutes with Rudkin for the first time in years and he’s asking questions about Man City. Pointless.

He doesn't say it directly but he certainly suggests that his style of football is very close to Enzo's. First, I don't think it is really. In the 2023-24 season, runners from deep to overload the opposition were a big part of our success, which is why KDH was our top scorer that season. I don't really see that under Martin, the system is less fluid. The main similarity in the systems is they both emphasise possession, but the degree of risk taking in the final third was much higher under Enzo from what I've seen so far. Second, we had much better players under Enzo so the system just about worked, apart from when it didn't and we looked horrible. We had the best squad in the division and financially doped to get that squad, so promotion was the bare minimum expectation (much like this season). We also had a much better goalkeeper who was comfortable with the ball at his feet. I liked some of the football we played under Enzo, and he's clearly a good coach, but we lost 11 games that season which shows the flaws in that kind of system even with the squad we had.

It clearly says that he managed 73 games for Southampton from July 2023, not from May 2024. Obviously he didn't manage 73 games for Southampton after May 2024 because he was sacked in December 2024. So the 3 league wins are from his time with Leicester + Rangers + however many games he managed in the Premier League with Southampton.

I predict we will continue to underperform (because he’s a dreadful manager) but not so much that he’ll be sacked imminently (because we have the most expensively assembled squad in the division so will win some games despite him). Mid table mediocrity beckons.

Old Trafford is a very industrial area. Trafford Park (right next to the football ground) is one of if not the biggest industrial parks in Europe. Go to any European city and get a taxi from the airport to the centre and you'll see plenty of empty land and industrial areas - Manchester is no different. The centre and the areas immediately around it are utterly transformed in the last two decades. I believe there were about 500 people living in the area defined as Manchester city centre in 1991 - by the 2021 census it was over 100,000. Compare that to Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield where the urban populations still haven't recovered fully from their post-war decline.

Which bits are you referring to? There really isn't much undeveloped land left in Manchester city centre now. The only area I can think of is north of Victoria station around Strangeways but that's all set for development as part of the Northern Gateway project. On Richard Leese's comments more broadly - through the 2000s and particularly post-financial crisis the council had a very laissez faire approach to property investment which you can see with the poor quality of some of the buildings developed during this period. This has changed a bit in recent years and the quality is better, even if the enormous glass towers aren't to everyone's taste. I actually think he overplays Abu Dhabi's role - they were hugely influential in transforming the east of the city centre around the Etihad but there were plenty of other developers involved in other parts of the city.

Ah, apologies for misunderstanding. Think the short answer is no - that kind of leveraged buyout wouldn't be allowed now. As well as the IFR, the Premier League recently changed its rules to prevent them.

Would add to this that Manchester City Council are more in the firing line for this than Greater Manchester Combined Authority (the organisation that Burnham led). The property deals done with UAE were agreed by MCC. Lots of questions around the role of Howard Bernstein (former MCC chief exec who died a couple of years ago) in this.

I'm far from an expert on this but my understanding is that the legislation isn't retrospective - so whether a leveraged buyout would be allowed now is irrelevant in the case of Manchester United, because it happened 20 years ago. The specific points where Methven thought Man City's owners would fail the owners and directors test are in the 'honesty and integrity' category, which includes requirements to accurately report on financial issues.

Very good discussion on this on the latest edition of The Breakdown podcast. Charlie Methven raised something which I haven't heard discussed anywhere else, which is that the rules of the new independent football regulator mean Man City's owners are almost guaranteed to fail the fit and proper owners test so will be required to sell whether they want to or not.

Came here to say exactly this! Sounds superb on the tv. Come on you Foxes.

Reflecting on the game again this morning, our main issue yesterday was an utter failure to recognise the game situation at key moments. That's on the manager. 1. They get a man sent off after 25 minutes, already 1-0 down. They're on the ropes. Score another now and we can put the game to bed. But there's no change to the system, no added urgency. Possession still the name of the game. For the last 3 minutes of the half we're content to pass the ball between ourselves while Barnsley are more than happy to go into the break with just the one goal deficit. 2. Aluko has a knock and is on a yellow so Brussell takes him off. Instead of looking at the game situation and perhaps moving to a three at the back or shifting Faes to right back, he makes a like for like sub, putting on Coulibaly who has barely played and doesn't offer the same threat going forward that Aluko does. 3. Barnsley are clearly happy to sit in and their main threat is to knock it long over our midfield and use Cleary's pace. We had a couple of warnings here but continued to play a very high line, with clear instructions that our centre halves should have plenty of possession on the halfway line. 4. After they score, we take off Braybrooke and Cullen and replace with Burns and Watson. Alves seems to drop inside but him and Page are now operating in similar areas and keep getting in each others' way. Burns and Watson are ineffective and we struggle to create changes. Still no change to the overall system which relies heavily on the centre halves drawing the press. As Barnsley are unwilling to press and happy to sit in, this is ineffective and means the centre halves push up. This gives Barnsley more opportunities to play over the top, which they do, creating a couple of good chances. 5. With no second striker on the bench (Bristic not in the squad), Bobby Reid comes on at 86 minutes as a second striker, with little effect. Too late to make a difference, arguably.

Radio Leicester asked and Brussell said he’ll be out for a few weeks with a hamstring injury.

Just saying it how I saw it tbh. Thought he got into some good positions and was ok first half but a big part of our decline in the second.

Amazed to see some saying he played well today. I thought he was dreadful. Consistently made poor decisions in crucial areas. A really poor player.

Bloke’s been tactically outclassed by three out of seven League One managers so far this season.

It's worse than that. His teams are cautious in areas where they should take a risk (the final third) and take risks where they should be cautious (their own box).

I didn't get The Sun Also Rises at all and having read some of Hemingway's other work I actually think it's one of his weaker novels. As you say, the characters are just annoying. I also think similar to Orwell his fiction is a bit overrated while his journalism and essays are underrated. Some books are so good that they can overcome the dire circumstances in which they're read though. I read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen last winter when I was horrendously ill with some kind of Covid/flu thing and still thought it was absolutely wonderful.

You have excellent taste! Remains Of The Day and The Leopard are two of my favourite novels. Radetzky March is on my bedside table waiting to be read. I don’t enjoy American Pastoral as much as I thought I would but that might be because I read it in the midst of house move so associate it with stress and worry. Guest: have you read William Boyd’s ‘Any Human Heart’? It’s more structurally straightforward than Ishiguro but I think you might like it. For a more classic post-war British novel The End of the Affair by Graham Greene might be up your street. Of more recent stuff, Benjamin Myers is wildly inconsistent but Cuddy is probably my favourite British novel of this decade and The Perfect Golden Circle is a more accessible introduction to his work.

Jake when Ric is in the middle of a 15-minute diatribe during the next episode.

We had players who are 25, 27, 28, 31, 33 and 36 out there today. Three of which are his signings. Brussell throwing the kids under the bus to save his skin.

Think Alistair Cook made a fair point on TMS the other day - Baz and Stokes were ideal for Brook when he first came into the team, but managed him poorly once he’d established himself. He’s still got his peak years ahead of him so hopefully with the right balance in the team around him he can play with the freedom he needs while not feeling like he always has to be ultra aggressive.

Exactly this, he was ball watching. Anticipate the knock down and he has a simple tap in.

Only one of those I’m really bothered about is BDCR. That midfield three is probably the best we can put out at this point. Thomas did ok at centre half in the week, I don’t love it but imagine the Finn will come in next week. Jakub for McCarthy is the right decision, McCarthy has looked very poor. Jakub low on confidence but he needs to be given a proper run now.