deep blue

You forgot to mention the profit on Tielemans, and many others...

Sorry, but that takes no account of unpredictable events, not covered by the manifesto, that crop up during a parliament and which require a response. Two of the obvious recent examples - COVID and the Iran war. .... Sorry, didn't see the reply and other responses that cover this.

I'm not convinced about Milliband, but the increase in energy bills isn't because of zero carbon, it's to do with an inadequate national network and the link between gas and electricity price. The underinvestment in the network occurred under the Tories. The link between gas and electricity prices needs to be broken, and I would criticise Milliband for not acting with more urgency on that. I also suspect that his keenness in progressing òn ways to remove carbon from the air will not be cost-effective.

LibDems

I think that applies to all of our good young prospects over the last few years. What have we got at the moment to help the final development stage for our promising youngsters? An inability to secure suitable loans, an unwillingness to integrate them into our playing squad, and a training and playing environment which doesn't nurture them (lack of fitness, low standards, poor discipline, bad on-field management etc).

Good and interesting post, but I find your view that the LibDems ever had economic policies that were anywhere near to Thatcher's rather weird.

Interesting. What area of Manchester are you? I'm with the LibDems in Stockport where we did a good job of holding off the Reform challenge in the recent local elections.

We probably came close to having that in the Champ last year. Look where that got us. We don't have a bigger wage bill because we have better quality players ... it's precisely the poor recruitment that has hamstrung us with an overpaid, lazy and uncommmitted squad. What makes you think any of that is going to change in div1?

I suppose he wouldn't have signed without that.

That should be the case, but that presupposes that the board have an ounce of football and financial nous, and use their position to consider all the stats available before making a decision. With KP we know that isn't the case and, sadly, many of the supporters have more relevant knowledge and acumen that those responsible for making the key decisions. Here's just one example ... the decision makers have shown over the last few seasons that they think it a better strategy to pay peanuts for managers and then spend a fortune on garbage players rather than believing that getting the best manager in is the most important starting-off point.

You can stop right there.

Him or Farage ... it's a hard call to make.

Will they be able to afford to do that?

I'm intrigued with this statement as I see no justification at all for making that assumption. There will be a limited number of players left from last season, most of whom were well below par last season. The rest will be made up of players from our development teams (however promising they may be it's expecting a lot that they will immediately be able to slot into div 1 action) and new signings/loanees (our record on those over the last couple of seasons has been abysmal). So what do you base your assumption on?

Just like to add my thanks to the Trust team. You've given an awful lot of your personal time to this over the last few months. Your work appears to have been very professional and thorough in your approach. It raises hopes of being effective, too, and I hope you manage to keep on pushing at the club to get better communication from "those that count" to the fans. Thanks again.