WarksRobin

I can’t see any merit in their case. To win a JR they will need to show the council failed to follow the correct process, and unless the council failed to consult (unlikely) there is no case to answer. If the firm responded to the consultation and the council took it into account in the officers’ report they have done their job. If the firm did not respond to the consultation that’s their own fault.

QEH

Well played England

Clown show. Games gone

England have a reputation for poor discipline and therefore refs keep pinging us

The gag’s been gone too long

The only person who knew how to operate a fax machine was unreachable

If you’re in France, they’re always on standby

Put the pitchforks away and extinguish the torches

It may be present but hopefully the club have maintained the stand and waterproofing so it should still be serviceable

Anticlimactic

From the New Civil Engineer today:

The sale of Alex Scott does seem to have dented the confidence of the team and the fans. A signing would help to improve the ambience around Ashton Gate, or some communication of the strategy from the top. If SL is creating headroom for an investor then he can tell us and it might buy some patience.

Indeed, given the pension beneficiaries are US emergency service personnel that could be interesting if it goes tits up. "... the new ultimate beneficial owner of the Blues is a US investment fund called ORG, which manage funds on behalf of large US pension pot - the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System - and who own 90% of Gamechanger 20 Ltd." I hope they have a good CEO....

The other consideration here is who would want to invest? There are essentially three types of investors: 1. Institutional investors, eg pension funds who want a stable long term income from their investment. They are never going to invest in a Championship football club. 2. Venture Capital type investors who will be looking for a strong return in the short or medium term. If there was no return in a few years they would start selling anything to find a return. Also, they may not have the means to invest significant sums. A possible investor but undesirable from a fan perspective. 3. An angel investor. Similar to what we have today in SL. Someone who invests and wants a long term return but is patient and prepared to take a loss. Most football investors fall into this category but there are not many of them around.

Well we know the club underperforms on commercial rights, from sponsorship to selling replica kits, or selling anything much in the club shop. If I were an external investor I would definitely see upside opportunities to increase revenue. However, I don't think this is a massive game-changing opportunity, it would need to form part of a package of savings and improvements.

The first consideration is that any owner has to be prepared to put in an average of £13m per year, just to stand still. The alternative is to cut operating costs (player wages) or increase revenues (player sales or promotion) to run the club more sustainably. This is what has been happening over the past 2-3 years but we are yet to see how successful this has been. I'm sure we would all welcome investment into the playing side if we had a wealthy investor keen to see us promoted, but there are no guarantees that spending lots more results in success and at some point FFP becomes a limiting factor again.

What do we reckon? England will do well to win any of their group games, on current form.

That was a very England match. Plucky but not quite good enough

A matter of opinion, each to their own Shame they weren’t in the right place

Why are its eyes on fire?

Snubbed

Depends whether they could prove gross misconduct. You can’t sack someone without due reason They would probably need to reach a financial settlement for termination.

I get the impression that SL would really like Mark Robbins here as manager but it will be very difficult to prise him from Coventry. Unless it goes tits up, I fully expect Nigel to be here for the foreseeable future

You love to see it