Hitch

This is an excellent move. The team may not have gotten much better but the organisational hirings this off season have been very impressive. That Theo and Bres have history is also very encouraging.

Yeah, it's definitely his fault the market isn't moving.

Ownership is about to get another headache. Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool manager) has just announced he's stepping down at the end of the year. There is a not an insignificant group of fans that want Henry and the crew out of Liverpool, too. Although in this case, Liverpool spend what they bring in, so they're mostly idiots. But the pre-mentioned purchases of clubs by oil rich gulf states means Liverpool cannot compete financially with these teams. That is, without Klopp. With him they have been punching massively above their weight and competing for the biggest titles in world football year after year. A large group of fans believe we should be matching their spending even though we simply do no bring in the same money. Liverpool have had incredibly good management from Klopp and his assistants up to the governors at board level. Unless they absolutely nail the replacement structure (and Liverpool has been built around the character and personality of Klopp), the fans will turn on the ownership ever more when the good times start to dissipate.

Using Real Madrid (and Jesus Christ - Barcelona!) as an argument for fan run clubs is so f***ing lazy it beggars belief. This guy hasn't done even the most basic amount of research you'd expect a journalist to attempt. Let me preface by saying - fan ownership in part would be great. Bu you would want the German model at the absolute least, because most fans are emotional idiots without a care in the world outside of their team winning. And they need grown ups to tell them to shut the f*** up some times. Case in point - Real and Barca are ridiculously run clubs. The Spanish government was found in 2016 to be illegally funding both clubs. Why? Because of the politics of having constant elections to see who runs two of the most powerful organisations in world football. Football in Europe isn't like the collection of MLB/NFL/NHL/NBA in the US. Football is everything. It's the only sport that matters. It dwarfs everything else. Madrid and Barca are seen as the glamour clubs. Every player dreams of getting to play for one of these clubs. And everyone wants to be in control of these clubs because it is to be in control of European football (well it used to be - more on that in a bit) Each and every new President up for election at these two clubs promises the same things - the best players in the world no matter the price. And they get voted in by the fans every time. Nobody is voting for stability. And then each and every President wants to hold on to their power. Real Madrid has spent themselves into so much debt, they were forced to sell their training ground to the Spanish authorities (for a huge mark up of course), which afterwards, the Spanish government just handed back to them, for free. Yeah, that actually happened. And this brand spanking £1billion stadium that this wonderful club of fans was able to build? Have a guess where the money come from? Barcelona, were as recently as just a year or so ago, unable to register players to play in their league as they had overspent by such a gigantic margin that unofficially, they were in danger of going under. But of course, the Spanish government can't allow this to happen and so things were massaged and pressure put on the Spanish league to help them through this crisis. La Liga (the Spanish League) has been battling its two most successful teams for years. Just trying to get them to operate in the boundaries of their own huge financial reach. They fail over and over. La Liga is currently losing out on over £3billion of investment because Barca and Madrid won't sign off a TV deal (yes these two alone can stop the entire Spanish league system from doing anything), because they don't think they're getting enough money from it. By the way 50% of the revenue in Spanish football? It has to go to Real Madrid and Barcelona. By law. (It used to be 90%!) That's like the Dodgers and Yankees getting 50% of MLB revenues, and still spending themselves into such a lather the government has to step in to save them. Repeatedly. And this journalist is excitedly pointing out that the two most financially doped football clubs in the history of European football have won the most? What an achievement. And to top this all off - they recently tried to destroy the fabric of European football by convincing the top 20 teams in Europe to leave their domestic competitions (and hundreds of years of tradition) and compete in a new and ringfenced super league where they'd get EVEN MORE money. When the fans of the clubs in England selected to join found out about this, they rioted. Literally. Manchester United fans broke into their own stadium and started tearing it apart. All the fans of all the clubs were sickened by the greed. Apart from Real and Barca's fans - who's Presidents, are still to this day, demanding UEFA (European football authority) is overthrown and a new super league is formed. They are absolutely TERRIBLE examples of fan led clubs. They are despised by everyone (including their own league), corrupt beyond belief and a cancer on European football. It's astonishing these were the examples he decided to use in this article. Fan-led clubs can be a good thing. And as I say the German model (that he gave one sentence to in that article), is a much better option. Because you need business and/or economic people making the major economic decisions so that clubs don't destroy themselves in the act of trying to satisfy they're unsatisfiable fans. But why kid yourself into thinking it will ever happen in the US? They needed the government to bring in all encompassing legislation in Germany. Every special interest lobby is trying their damned hardest to stop the same thing happening in England right now. The US government is never doing that and even if they did - which fans are ponying up the billions needed to buy the club back from the owners? In closing, I'll say what I said the other day - often it's better the devil you know. English (and large swathes of European) football has sold its soul. We now have situations where countries and oil states own their most precious clubs. Saudi Arabia, Russia (through Abramovic until recently), Qatar, Abu Dhabi and others have bought countless teams and are slowly destroying the landscape of European football. And worse of all, they're just using these cherished institutions as sport washing devices. And then there's the venture capitals that buy the clubs by loading them with debt they've financed against their assets and leeching off them until they're destroyed. Clubs over a 100 years old have disappeared because of this. A club that your great great grandfather watched, gone, because someone came in and loaded a once thriving club with debt which it succumbs to. All so the investors can stirp it of millions for personal gain first. I don't know what the answer is - there's no perfect situation. No perfect solution. I know there'll be people who will just ignore all this and call Henry the Devil. You've not even come close to knowing the Devil, and I hope for Boston's sake, you never get to. There's only so many groups that can afford to buy these clubs now. And trust me on this, none are perfect.

Exactly how I feel.

There's more rumblings around Framber Valdez today. If he's available we really should be in on him with them looking for a left handed batter with speed. Not to mention if our big 3 work out Marcelo Mayer Roman Anthony Kyle Teel Along with our fringe players Wilyer Abreu Emmanuel Valdez Added to our every day players Jaren Duran Triston Casas Masataka Yoshida Rafael Devers We will have 9 left handed hitters in the team at the end of this year. We really could do with a trade or two to balance that out.

@JonHeyman on the Red Sox (via @BRWalkoff stream): “I think the Red Sox still have a big move in them … I do think the Red Sox will do something.” .@JonHeyman called the Red Sox a “good possibility” for Jordan Montgomery if things don’t work out in Texas. “I hear that the Red Sox certainly do like Montgomery very much.”

That's assuming that he'd be happy with that of course. I imagine most pitchers who have a good track record want that long contract to lock in their reward, rather than hoping they hold up to get two smaller contacts. If we could get him and extend for 3 years I'd be all for it.

30 years old at the moment. 32 at free agency. Can't see them even entertaining an extension. The mere suggestion has likely caused a bowel movement in Henry.

Let's ignore the 'facts' you've got wrong on Bauer, just taking the sheer stupidity of the point 'women get believed 100% of the time' is something maybe you could educate yourself on? (Who am I kidding?) Still, those conniving women, eh?

I hope there's no other women here having to read this s***, either.

Congratulations on forming the worst post in forum history. You f***ing low life.

I wonder if we added on could we get Valdez. Then again with only 2 years left, he'd be going to free agency just as we're ready to go for it

Who would you want in return?

She isn't wrong. It feels like the top of the organisation are all over the place at the moment, leading to this garbled shite we hear every week. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if signed Monty even after all this.

Yup. Even for him this has been quite something. Hopefully he'll have let the horses go by ST.

No he wasn't. You strike me as someone who has done next to no reading up about the startlingly similar details four separate women have brought up when accusing him of rape, including the report from the people who did inspections of the damage imparted on the pubic/vaginal areas of one of the women and the damage his 'rough sex' beatings did to her face. Is it any wonder that most women who suffer sexual assault don't report it as they don't think they'll be believed when you've got f***ing clowns like this guy saying s*** like - "How he wants to f*** is his deal. We just need him to get guys out." Grim.

f*** Bauer and anyone who wants him on the team.

I don't disagree, but this is replying to a different point to that which I was making.

And the non-homegrown players like Gomes, Koji Victorino and Napoli among others were and still are loved. And if another raft of new signings came in and we repeated they'd have been held in the same asteem. I'm not saying it's the right way to go about things. I'm saying fans want to win. While not everyone is the same, the vast majority want it any way it comes.

I'm not sure how true this is. The '13 team was beloved by the fans with the free agents at the front of the queue. If we were winning every year with chances at a WS all while trading players and making changes routinely, the fans would be loving it and boasting about how smart the organisation is. Unfortunately, that's not the case and we're doing neither thing right. Fans want a winning organisation. Everything else is just noise.

And therein lies the problem. He does care how much money he makes or loses and it isn't going to change. I also think he wants to be seen as beating the game and being smart enough to build a winning team for much less than others.

Same. Yorke I'd pull that trigger all day.

I wonder if the White Sox still feel burned by the way the return for Sale went and are in never again mode.

I've heard this a few times. That can't be true, surely? If so, he deserved the sack for this alone.