And after the takeover, what happens now?

Presumably Duxbury clears his desk and Brady installs a full length mirror and a sofa bed. Valon Behrami may find himself called into her office early doors, I'm sure Karen will admire his elfish looks and limitless stamina. Or maybe Kovac may appeal more now that she has matured?

Topless waitresses in the hospitality suite perhaps? A double page spread in the programme of a model going down on a chimp under the heading "Blowing Bubbles"? A new look to page three?

How soon before Barratt are marketing Boleyn Mansions, a development of prestige apartments on the doorstep of the City? No wonder Sullivan and Gold want to be caretakers of the Olympic Stadium when it will enable them to redevelop the current ground! And perhaps that's why Straumur fancy retaining a 49% stake!

It has to be good news in the short term but into the future? Why does the name Faustus come to mind?

O West Ham,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That the club may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and West Ham must be damn'd.
O, I'll leap up to heaven!—Who pulls me down?—
See, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop of blood will save me: O my Christ!—
Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ;
Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!—
Where is it now? 'tis gone:
And, see, a threatening arm, an angry brow!
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven!
No!
Then will I headlong run into the earth:
Gape, earth! O, no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up West Ham, like a foggy mist,
Into the entrails of yon labouring clouds,
That, when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths;
But let my soul mount and ascend to heaven!
[The clock strikes the half-hour.]
O, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon.
O, if my soul must suffer for my sin,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;
Let West Ham live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd!
No end is limited to damned souls.
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
O, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Into some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, West Ham, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.
[The clock strikes twelve.]
It strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!
O soul, be chang'd into small water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!

Thunder. Enter Sullivan and Gold.

O, mercy, heaven! look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books!—O Mephistophilis!

[Exeunt Sullivan and Gold with West Ham]