Messages

Got an e/w double up first 2 winners . . . thank god for that because UDS would have cleaned me otherwise!

You're hanging in there!!

I used to set aside £100 for this years ago, placed a few here and there and very rarely got anything back that was significant.. so stopped it and over the four days I'd spend £25 at most.. but its not something I'll miss when its gone, i wouldnt back horses other than Aintree and when I'm out with my dad !

Just got a past news thingy on face ook about the winner i got at Cheltenham last year Willoughby court..£5 on it! 

Guardiola inherited a City team that finished ahead of LVG's United on goal difference. It's seriously overegging things to suggest Guardiola inherited a significantly better side. Who spent the most since then doesn't particulalrly matter as both clubs pretty much have as much cash to spend as they want. If United needed to spend more and didn't that's Mourinho's fault.

Guardiola increased the gap to 9 points last season. Now it's 16. I'm not Guardiola's biggest fan but by any measure (bar a Europa league which Guardiola couldn't win as he wasn't in it) he has clearly outperformed Mourinho. They're actually live contenders for the CL in some peoples eyes which United are miles off.

As for the Spanish media coverage - mostly spot on. I like the word "troglodyte"....very apt.

Your not Guardiola's biggest fan, clearly not a fan of Mourinho, out of curiosity would you telling us who you are a fan of?

Simeone. Pochettino.

Is Simeone not cut from the same cloth as Mourinho? I thought his Atletico teams were very dour?

I'd have thought so also, very hard to break down

Greaney's upped his game for the closing statements he's way more detailed and up to date than Cooney today!

Not much new or surprising coming from the prosecution closing statement. Do all 4 defending barristers give a closing statement?

No only Paddy Jackson's as he is the main star of the show and whatever happens to him will have a huge bearing on how much news the other 3 get.

Yeah all defence seniors will likely do a closing. Starting with Jacksons ending with Harrisons.

Hedworth has finished (I though it would take longer??).  Lunch and then Jackson's barrister will close.  Looks like closing will be over tomorrow and then it's back next Wed for the judge.

Squeaky bum time for all involved.

Would not want to be on that jury! I've changed my mind a few times now

Rashford on the left and Salah on the right would be nice

You'd still need a defence though 

6 weeks or more of wading through evidence and legal argument, not to mention months of prepraring for the trial by numerous firms of solicitors and barristers mean that the costs bill is going to be a hefty one. Out of curiosity who is picking up the tab in the event of a win or a loss ?. Just asking.

Depending on whether some of the defendants have managed to get legal aid, wouldn't think Jackson and Olding would get it, they are responsible for their own legal costs for barristers and solicitors each running into tens of thousands. 4 barristers and 4 solicitors will lift a tidy sum for 6 weeks in court and all the time spent from arrest to court case beginning.

Cost of prosecution falls on the tax payer but if found guilty there is a nominal payment by defendants towards court costs.

Overall it has been an expensive trial. That doesn't include the cost of the jurors being out of their work for the whole time.

If Paddy Jackson has been suspended from his employers (I'm assuming) would he not be entitled to legal aid? Is it also common to bring prosecution barristers over from England?

Same as an English barrister taking a brief in Glasgow or Cardiff.

Flights and hotels add on that wee bit more, but hey, youre not paying for it so

6 weeks or more of wading through evidence and legal argument, not to mention months of prepraring for the trial by numerous firms of solicitors and barristers mean that the costs bill is going to be a hefty one. Out of curiosity who is picking up the tab in the event of a win or a loss ?. Just asking.

Depending on whether some of the defendants have managed to get legal aid, wouldn't think Jackson and Olding would get it, they are responsible for their own legal costs for barristers and solicitors each running into tens of thousands. 4 barristers and 4 solicitors will lift a tidy sum for 6 weeks in court and all the time spent from arrest to court case beginning.

Cost of prosecution falls on the tax payer but if found guilty there is a nominal payment by defendants towards court costs.

Overall it has been an expensive trial. That doesn't include the cost of the jurors being out of their work for the whole time.

If Paddy Jackson has been suspended from his employers (I'm assuming) would he not be entitled to legal aid? Is it also common to bring prosecution barristers over from England?

I'm not sure I'm buying the poor mouth as a reason for Mourinho's style. He has players like Rashford, Martial, Pogba, Lukaku, Mata, Sanchez but he doesn't want to use them in the best way. He has arguably the best keeper in the world (a major reason for MR2 beloved Goal Difference advantage ), and he has a player like Matic who is a very solid DM. There is the guts of a team there that can play a bit more optimistically. Anyway, I'll step out now. None of my business. I'm a Liverpool Fan

I dont buy it either, Jose doesnt know his best team or trust them or himself enough to go at teams in the top six

Have went for L'ami Serge, Kings socks and Glenloe £2 each way treble and couple pound on each

The third day generally is the day the bookies get their money back

First two are picked purely on their names last one just seemed a decent horse!

[Everything was planned]

Man City started the current project in 2008. Everything was planned. Man Utd flogged the Fergie team to death and then dI'd everything short term. It is no wonder Mourinho isn't getting anywhere with them.

By bringing in a billionaire .. yeah, tough planning

What's the obsession with GD MR2 ?!

I mentioned being 5 points ahead and 2nd in the league also.. GD difference is worth a point at the end of the season, can be the difference between first second or 4th and 5th in the leauge.. you dont find GD important?

It's a tiebreaker, but it's not as important as you make it out to be. I'm just not sure what point you are trying to make when you raise it. Unless you are answering my question by saying you prefer to win ugly. Which is absolutely fine by the way. Just win baby, as Al Davis said.

Utd lost a few PL on the last day due to GD...important enough.. but yes a tiebreaker all the same...

would you take an ulgly Liverpool to win a league title in so many years, and a first EPL or prefer to carry on as is? Utd winning the titles like they did was great but I'd say that a Utd supporter would just want to get one again to stop the rot..

Was at my dads on Sunday and he's a big fan but getting very annoyed with the style of play and the lack of league chances, very much at odds having watched the Busby babes to the the Best Law Charlton days through the shit times and then the Fergie years, he feels its going to fall into a long wait again for the title..

Why do you keep going on about better GD MR2? Isn't that sort of the point they are making? Nobody is saying Mourinho can't win matches (I don't think). It's the style of it they are questioning. 10 1-0s gives you a better goal difference than 8 4-3s and 2 4-4s. So it comes down to an existential argument. Is it better to win ugly (most of the time) and feel betrayed when ugly doesn't work, or win pretty (some of the time) and feel frustrated you are not more 'ruthless' or 'solid' when pretty doesn't work? I'm not sure there's a right answer either way.

That's why I asked the question the other day?

and I answered it, you have to do both to succeed, Utd had plenty of 1-0's back in the day.. Cantona won a few games 1-0 to drag Utd over the line one season I remember.. Arsenal fans used chant about their 1-0's when they were winning the leagues...

do you feel betrayed that, lets say Liverpool.. try and win with attacking football but end up dropping points from a winning position in a few games? or should they just close up shop after going 2 up or even one up and take the 3 points.. ?

What's the obsession with GD MR2 ?!

I mentioned being 5 points ahead and 2nd in the league also.. GD difference is worth a point at the end of the season, can be the difference between first second or 4th and 5th in the leauge.. you dont find GD important?

I think the game on Sunday will be a cracker. After the epic win last weekend I really do fancy us to win this one with a bit to spare. Another year in 1b is what we need and deserve.

A bit to spare, I'll take a one point win on the back of a dodgy free
Depends on how Laois travel tbh but if we can't win a relegation play off in dunloy then we deserve to be in div 2

5 point turn around needed, will home advantage and a previous win be enough? Laois to their credit have maintained a decent level of hurling lately and scored well against us last time out, if Antrim can cut out the needless frees, we'd reduced their scores by at least 8/9 points, some frees are unavoidable but the easy ones for the ref to give will hurt us on Sunday, their free taker didnt miss much  I think..

The other thing was, well done on putting the Limerick game to bed and performing like they did to beat Offaly, that has to be noted, also should we get the result on Sunday, barring the Limerick game (which I never thought we'd be close) Antrim have had a very competitive season against teams who will be at the business end of things come the late summer

Not as fat as u but seemed as if he could only do 50 mins

Not fat at all, but carry on with your stupid statements

The Spanish Press's take on the Sevilla game (from the Guardian).

Manchester United's stadium, though, was one thing; their team, quite another. And as for their manager, many were waiting for him and they did not hold back. The Spanish media found itself pointing the finger at an familiar face, Sport insisting: "Mourinho is living on the past." On a night like this "fear took everyone but none quite like Mourinho", El Mundo Deportivo said. "All those millions, unused," lamented El País, who talked of "a huge display of football from Sevilla against a Manchester United who are millionaires but misers; so much money, so poor".

In AS, the editorial called this "one of Sevilla's biggest feats, at the historic and venerable Old Trafford, [one] that will be written into history for ever, and it was done with pure football against Mourinho's troglodyte model, in which so much money has been invested so that De Gea can hoof a long ball towards Fellaini and Lukaku. Sevilla won and so did football".

"You pay for meanness in the end," wrote Roberto Palomar in Marca. "And Manchester United is a walking monument to mean spiritedness. Poor, miserable, they had everything in their favour to go through ... and it was Sevilla that went through."

"The general opinion of this team that was once respectable and no longer is has plummeted. It's an unattractive, fearful team, rich in resources but lamentable in its play," he added. "Mourinho is starting to look like a washed-up rock star, one of those guys that goes around holiday hotels for pensioners playing old hits on an organ with the base and the percussion playing on a tape recorder."

But still second in the EPL (by a good margin), still in the FA cup and better GD than the teams below it, strange