There is a racist twinge in everything thing that this fellow tweets, isn't there? And despite his claims as a researcher he oddly wears his ignorance with pride. https://twitter.com/NcGeehan/status/1252310918274453505

On the price war..Russia began the action by walking away from a deal with OPEC in March to cut production to boost up falling prices. OPEC retailiated w/ price discounts & more supply . This drove prices down to a level whr US Shale oil & other marginal players became unviable

In early April, Russia & OPEC agreed to production cuts to end the price war. The CURRENT issue is more coz of plumetting demand & storage, most players are long on crude and short on storage, escalating storage costs/lack of availability drove the prices to a negative territory

And that was just for May supplies. If you see the crude prices for June onwards the they are at $14+ and September is at $28.

Now Saudis and most of the oil dependent middle eastern countries know that oil is not an asset they can rely on. So most of them have a plan to reduce their dependence on oil (Saudi's Vision 2030 is an example) and hence are investing in alternate assets INCLUDING football clubs

Have doubts? IMF estimates that the Gulf states at this current rate of consumption will exhaust their wealth in 15 years. https://twitter.com/alialsalim/status/1225654680350420994?s=19

So the price was itself is a way of beating out competition, widening market share (Saudi's cost of production is $8, Russia's is $19 and the US Shale is $35-40) even if it means higher debt (as a proportion to GDP) and some short term pain.

So to summarise it's Saudis aren't spirit as these guys project or are investing in Newcastle for political gains or Sportswashing like they claim. Their obvious bias and a lack of intellectual depth will not allow them to understand any of this.

This is just my (uneducated) reading of the situation. I'd love to hear where in wrong and correct myself.

I can't but feel for the Newcastle fans because for a long time these guys are going to throw the kitchen sink at them using rent a quotes and others.

*help but feel