MNVillan

2 hours ago, Adam2003 said:

Vegas will move at whatever speed MLS wants it to. They’ve said it’ll be announced by end of this year and expected to be Vegas or St Louis. If it’s Vegas, it’ll 90% be our owners behind it. Edens driving it because he owns all the facilities and land and is building the new high speed train between Vegas and LA, so huge for him if it works out.

St Louis already has an MLS club. St Louis City, new to MLS this season

On 22/03/2023 at 13:28, wishywashy said:

IIRC they've put in around £400m of their money into the club overall: around £360m in share capital and £30/40m to initially purchase 55% of the club (with £50/60m of said capital being used in debt-financing plays to obtain Xia's shares/pay off Lerner).

Forbes (albeit roughly) valued the club at £600m, and the going rate for clubs in relatively similar positions matches up. West Ham would logically be valued at approximately £800m when Kretinsky purchased 27% of the club for £200m (although the Gov subsidy for London Stadium plays a huge role in that), Newcastle were sold for £400m (similar fanbase, worse footballing and financial position at the time) and Moshiri wants £500m for Everton (although I think that's extortionate, given their situation... although you could have said the same about Newcastle at the time)

If they sold the club tomorrow, they'd almost certainly turn a profit. Established Premier League clubs with large fanbases are in demand and extremely valuable. I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that for all of their massive investments in the club so far, Villa has been far from a money sink for them: their returns, all things considered, are/would be very good. I don't see that situation changing anytime in the next few years.

They’ll turn a profit when they sell. Both of them are smart enough to realize that money well spent into the club is an investment, not an expense. Good spending means a better team, which in turn leads to a higher league position and a more valuable club.

I think it’s one of the reasons they had no issues moving on from Gerrard so quickly - he was costing them money by spending it poorly

Gopher Hockey advances to the Frozen Four! Ski U Mah and GO GOPHERS!!!

28 minutes ago, est1874 said:

Incidentally Dragon Rouge have since posted the isolated lion in blue on a claret background (well, it's not really claret, but the sentiment is there...), and it looks far better than the crest. Makes me wish we'd just gone for this. Leo solo.

But as I understand it, most of the message board admins and podcasters didn't like it, so here we are.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the standalone lion be a part of the new branding, and expect we will see it on a shirt sometime in the near future.

7 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Have you tried HP Fruity? It's that over the more common one in every scenario for me.

No I just tried the regular stuff on my one visit to England. I found it disgusting, but everyone seems to love it over there. Just not my thing, I guess.

That being said, I put ketchup on my eggs, so I’m probably not normal.

10 hours ago, delboy54 said:

No HP sauce and no butter on the toast....I mean the toast isn't even on it's own plate, high risk of bean juice soaking into the toast,  and two portions of beans ???......poor effort

I’ve said this before on here, but HP sauce is gross. I don’t understand the obsession

On 17/03/2023 at 20:26, maqroll said:

Anyone on here have ADHD? I have some of the symptoms, and looking back on my life, I might have always had some form of ADD. When I was in junior high, the admin broke into my locker looking for drugs and they accused me of being on cocaine, LOL. I'd never even seen cocaine then. As an adult, I've been hindered by a lack of focus and discipline. I can never quite round the corner. Very frustrating. My physician might be putting me on meds to see if it makes a difference. I have a bunch of stuff I want to do and need to channel my energy productively, which has been challenging for me, so I hope this works.

I'd recently tried ketamine tablets for a couple of months. Didn't really do anything. I almost feel like the company is just selling false hope. I think intravenous ketamine therapy works, just not the tablets, at least for me.

I don’t, but I know multiple people who do. Their meds make a huge difference, I can tell days they forgot to take them without even asking.

I hope they work for you! The medicine has worked wonders for a few people in my life.

Great question. The most important part of a burger is how it’s cooked. I like my burger rare in the middle, basically raw meat. I’m fine as long as it has some pink in the middle, since many restaurants won’t serve me a burger the way I truly like it. But if it’s well cooked all the way through, the burger is ruined.

I’m never eating with a burger with egg on it. Same with tomato.

Usually when I grill burgers at home I mix the meat with chopped sweet yellow onion and shredded Colby Jack cheese before cooking. Then I top the patties with barbecue sauce and cheddar cheese for about the last minute while they cook, and slap them on a bun with mayo afterwards. If I cooked it right, the burger is still rare in the middle.

Incredibly proud of the women, they have come so far. Wish it was easier for me to watch them in America.

Minnesota United’s first home match is currently taking place in the snow. United are almost invisible in their white kits.

Our women’s team is really impressive, it’s great to see

As a Catholic, I’ve made the trip to Rome twice

8 hours ago, sne said:

https://www.avfc.co.uk/news/2023/february/28/SALE--Shop-up-to-65--off-kits-/

Can you imagine the discounts they’ll offer at the end of the season when transitioning to the new badge?

I woke up today and realized that I need to quit drinking again.

Back in 2021 I quit for about 6 months, but eventually started again, foolishly thinking something had changed and I could handle it.

I’m now realizing that I can’t. My cravings are back, but more frightening is the anxiety cycles (drink, get anxious, drink more to curb the anxiety, get more anxious). That was really hard to stop last time around, and although I’m not in as dark of a place as I was 18 months ago, I’m aware where this road leads and I don’t want to go there again.

15 minutes ago, sne said:

Ouch.

 

“Media focus always on miraculous recovery. Never why the need for recovery.”

That’s BS, and not because it’s Tiger. If an alcoholic gets sober, I’m absolutely focusing on and celebrating the recovery instead of the fact that the person was an alcoholic.

Man, a lot of Tiger and golf hate on here. As someone who loves Tiger, the game, and works in the golf industry, I’ll try to provide a different point of view.

Tiger had some major transgressions when he was younger, there’s no doubting that. He cheated on his wife a LOT of women, and it seems like a lot of it was pretty degrading to women (spitting, pissing on them, etc). However, it was consensual.  I could never imagine doing that to my wife, and certainly don’t condone it. However, it doesn’t help that he learned this behavior as a child from his father, who would have extramarital sex with women in the car while Tiger was taking a lesson. Growing up seeing that behavior normalizes it.

He also got a DUI for driving on pain meds, which is obviously incredibly dangerous. I empathize with him here, as he has been through so many surgeries that I would be surprised if he wasn’t dependent on pain medicine in some way. Still, no excusing the DUI. Luckily nobody was hurt besides himself.

Despite that, he’s not a complete piece of sh*t. By all accounts, he is a great father to his two children and cares deeply about them. He goes out and caddies for his son Charlie in junior golf tournaments. His daughter Sam is apparently a really good soccer player, but he is on record he purposely keeps her out of the spotlight because she doesn’t like it. She gave his Golf Hall of Fame induction speech, and it was pretty moving.  

He also has his TGR Foundation that he really cares about. It is based around giving underprivileged youth (particularly those of color) access to education that they might otherwise not have. You can learn more about it here: https://tgrfoundation.org/about/

All of this is to say that Tiger is certainly not perfect, but he’s also not a worthless piece of sh*t either. Like all of us, he’s a pretty complex person with both good and bad traits.

As for the joke, I voted funny but wish I could change to neither funny or offensive. Although it’s probably not my place to tell women what they should/shouldn’t be offended by. What surprises me a little is that he didn’t see this backlash coming before he did it. Of course some people would be offended, I don’t know why he thought it would be a good idea to pull this “prank” on national television.

13 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I thought we were unlucky not to come away with a point in what was a pretty even game, we got to 92 minutes at 2-2 having just hit the bar and forced a decent save out of their keeper, so it's disappointing to be going home on the wrong end of a 4-2 scoreline.

There's absolutely loads to be positive about in that game though, I thought our overall play was really good, individuals played well, we looked dangerous, we had a threat from the bench and we have a manager who won't be easily pleased.

I thought we looked pretty solid in defence (yeah, I know, but we still did), lively and creative in midfield and threatening up top where I thought Ollie had the Arsenal defence worried all game. 

The managers substitutions were good, if a little surprising; I think you'd struggle for anyone else that would have taken Doug and Emi B off when he did, but I thought they all added something - it was particularly pleasing to see how much danger we added up front with Bailey and Duran - those two can be a huge threat in the last half hour of games, they're a handful for tired defenders.

And yeah, Arsenal found a way in the end, a bit of extra quality perhaps, a bit of extra 'need' at the top of the table, and a great big chunk of luck, with our effort against the bar falling generously for their defence and theirs going in off the back of our keeper.

I watched today's performance and couldn't help but think we look like a team that's not far off being able to compete at the top end of the table for European places, and then I remember having felt this way before a couple of times and it never seeming to quite come to fruition and I wondered what the extra bit we're missing might be. Hearing Emery's post match comments I think might have provided an answer to that question - he's not happy we played well, he's not suggesting it means we're heading in the right direction, he's angry, unsatisfied and on the players backs - I like that. I like it a lot. We look like a team that aren't far off being able to compete at the top of the table and we're led by a man who looks like he will not rest until we are. Good.

For Arsenal, I didn't see the Saka challenge that might have been a sending off well enough, but I can confirm that I could clearly see that he is a whiney little bitch all day long if that's helpful. I think epic wins do things for the character of sides and this one will have made them feel that the title is written in the stars this season - they might be right and I hope they beat City to take it. They have some really good players, enough fight, enough pace and enough ability to do so and Odegaard is for me one of the most underrated players in the country; he's superb. I'm sure they'll have a lovely journey home. They've been lucky today, but Champions often are.

Traditionally, after losing to City and Arsenal back to back, we'd put in a lacklustre effort against a bottom half team that are struggling - given Emery's response to this one, I think we might be pleasantly surprised.

 

 

Well f*** me, I’m off to find the nearest brick wall I can run through

Can we compete: depends on what you are talking about. No, I don’t see us competing for the Premier League title or Champions League any time soon.

What keeps you going: I love Villa and the vibe surrounding the club. It’s more than wins and losses.

When do I walk away: probably when I die.

It’s a fixed system, no doubt. But I believe I’ll see a cup win before I die. I’ve only been following Villa for a decade and have seen two cup finals.
 

In addition, I still find euphoria in a Villa win. They might not come regularly at this point, but the feeling doesn’t fade. Konsa against Watford, Barkley against Leicester, Hourihane & Tammy in the first leg against Baggies… I can’t replicate those emotions doing anything else.

44 minutes ago, EvilChameleon said:

MNUFC going with the Northern Lights Kit. Love dropping the badge for just the Loon.

 

I love it

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Yes, one company can own multiple clubs, and yes, those clubs can face each other in European competition. The only qualification around the latter is that they need to have a different group of people involved in day-to-day management of the club. 

Thanks for this, makes sense

4 hours ago, sidcow said:

It's a low payment for 46% but I expect to buy eg a further 5% will proportionately cost one hell of a lot more. 

Wouldn’t buying an additional 5% cause a potential problem? If V Sports are majority owners in two clubs that could both be in, say, Europa League, doesn’t that break UEFA or FIFA rules?

I’m not 100% sure on that, but wasn’t the issue when news broke that Qatar might come in with a bid for Man U, since they already own PSG?

12 minutes ago, sne said:

Can't imagine their fans are happy about this. Really hope we don't start messing about changing their colours, crest or whatever.

Can Nassef even do that if he wanted to? V Sports only has a minority share

5 hours ago, desensitized43 said:

It’s amazing how butthurt the Americans act over this when they’ve been running high altitude manned flights in U-2s over other countries for decades.

I’m not a political or national security expert, but I think all of the “outrage” is politically motivated. If these things posed any actual threat, I am sure our national security team would’ve ordered it destroyed far before it was. As it happens, they basically let the thing float across the continental US.

Then mainstream media catches wind of this and the conservatives jump all over it. “How can Biden let this Chinese spy balloon float over us and collect information?” Try to paint it as Biden and his administration are weak against China. So then, after a few days of political heat, Biden & his team said eff it, let’s just take it down to save some face with the American people. And now the precedent has been set - gotta shoot ‘em all down.

There’s always the chance that they truly didn’t know what the hell it was. Of course, if that was the case, they made the right decision in figuring out what they were dealing with instead of recklessly shooting it out of the sky and running the risk of killing Chinese citizens (and potentially starting WWIII). But with the amount of money invested in our military and intelligence, I find that unlikely.

22 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

As an American, you're excused on that sort of thing. After all, we mispronounce plenty of American place names. For example, I've been told we should be saying 'Los Angeliss', rather than 'Los Angeleez'. 

You could just say LA like 95% of Americans

On 06/02/2023 at 05:41, Beastmix said:

All other NFC East teams and Aaron Rodgers (and, by association, Green Bay).

I think I'm okay with everybody else. Even the 49ers are now just a fun historical rivalry... although this could change if they maintain their upward trajectory.

My hate list:

1. Green Bay

2. Green Bay

3. Green Bay

4. New Orleans

5. Philadelphia

6. Green Bay