CB Fry

I can't. He's only just left. Why would he go back to pick up the pieces of that "difficult second season down" which he anticipated and scarpered from in the first place. Coppell, like Strachan, has learnt when to leave. He won't go back there. And I can't see him at Brighton either, not enough to gain, too much to lose.

Mark Jacob, the lawyer of Ali al-Faraj, who bought Portsmouth last month, said of the £15m: "It's a facility provided by a third party, that's all. Like you or I would go to a bank and borrow money on our property or whatever." Surely the more accurate analogy is to go to a loan shark to borrow money to pay off a credit card which is paying off another credit card which is paying off a Ocean Finance loan which is paying off another credit card which is paying off the mortgage which was 120% mortgage on a two bed semi that has lost 50% of its value and the roof leaks. But in five years time the house will be turned ninety degrees and will become a 500 bed luxury hotel. With Riquelme as head bell boy. Honest it will.

I don't know really. Silly how some people want to predict a future that never happened...... Oh. As they say in the playground, you started it. And my point is that the quality of the manager is by far the single most important factor in determining success of a football club. We didn't have much money last season but you're kidding yourself if you think our budget wasn't comparable to Barnsley or Blackpool last season, or indeed this season. Barnsley are still in the Championship and Blackpool are riding high this season with such megastars as Jason Euell and Adam Hammill in the team. It's quality of manager, above all else. Poortvilet would have struggled with Saints with a budget of £500million. And the flip side is Alex Ferguson would have been more successful on last year's Saints budget. Simple.

You say well known, I'd say apocryphal story. Don't think you can be on national TV for five, six years and run national sell out tours constantly just by cribbing gags off the internet.

Highly unlikely that this will be broadcast when it comes to it. Sky don't have the FA Cup rights this season and ESPN I don't think have picked them up. The FA have kept the Sentanta games for themselves and are broadcasting the Leeds game on their website for free. So who in the world is going to broadcast a FA Cup First round game for this site to tap into the feed of? There may well be a lot of PL football nuts in Thailand or South Africa but I just can't see a broadcaster anywhere showing this game off their own back. From what I've seen the general rule is, and I've not seen evidence to the contrary, that for CCC and lower, if it isn't on Sky (or BBC/ITV/etc) it isn't on any websites. Don't get your hopes up!!

Heaven forbid the notion that some random website is taking Boyle's material up and posting it up themselves. The internet is not known for originating material. I can take or leave Boyle, he is pretty good in doses, but I have no doubt he sits down and writes jokes for a living.

So what did you say? I'm saying you said that "even if we had Alex Ferguson at the helm we would have struggled" and I'm saying you challenged my assertion that Ferguson would have kept us up last year. And here's where you said it, I had to look really hard for it...... You're wrong. All things being equal (ie the "other factors" being the same) Ferguson would have kept Saints up last season, no problem, all day long. My example of him turning five of our fifteen draws into wins is example enough. Funnily enough I think he's a better manager than Jan Poortvilet. Controversial, I know. The quality of manager does make a difference to the quality of the team in my experience. I don't understand why you think that is such controversial opinion.

Well, you seem to absolving Poortvilet of any blame at all for our position last season if you think a manager who has won fourteen league titles and four mjor European trophies couldn't have done any better.

Yes, that's exactly what I am saying. Ferguson or whoever (last season the cliche was usually "even Mourinho couldn't keep us up etc etc...") would select, motivate and organise ten times better than Poortvilet and then Wotte did. Ferguson would have spent what funds we had more wisely than Jan/Wotte/Lowe did. Ferguson would have sent teams out knowing they would win, no sh1t scared they couldn't even hold on to a point. We wouldn't have been relegated if we'd had a halfway competent manager. Last year we drew fifteen games. Turning just five of those into wins would have meant ten more points and rock solid mid table. If you seriously think Alex Ferguson (or cliche manager of choice) couldn't have done that you're chuffing bonkers. I take it you'd be happy if Pardew was sacked and replaced by Portvilet tomorrow, then, as it makes absolutely no difference at all who the manager of the team is?

I never thought we would lose at any point, even at two down, it sounded like we battered them. If the worst we do this season is batter a team and not quite win, then we'll storm through this league. We're not going to win every game but we'll win a hell of a lot.

What a load of rubbish. If we had Ferguson last season we would have finished mid table, probably play offs. Or are you saying that Pootvilet would win the league with Man United, as who the manager is makes no difference?

So every other team in Britain is wearing a Poppy shirt, are they? That's the only way we would be unique. And twenty points for invoking the old "only I care about those who died in the war, not you" routine. Well done you. I don't kno nuffink about no war or nuffin, me. And on the subject of being "sure what you are talking about" then you haven't a friggin clue if you think there is a desperate need for Poppy day to be "kept in the spotlight" when it is the highest profile charity campaign by a mile this year, every year, for ever. It's everywhere, and rightly so. That is my point, but if want to rant off about how no-one cares about the forces as much as you then well done. Please take up your disappointment with Lawrie McMenemy whose teams never ever wore a poppy shirt. I think they needed to show a bit more respect to our forces, don't you?

Is it Poppy time again? Blimey. I must have missed every single TV presenter on every single program on every single channel wearing one every single day for three weeks. And Poppies available in every shop and every street corner in every hamlet, village, town and city in Britain for the same time period. And all the news reports, interviews with servicemen and families, and the TV coverage of the Cenotaph next week. If only Saints wore a poppy shirt for a league one game then I'd have realised.

That'll be the £89999million transfer kitty, signing Ricquelme, Eto, Puskas Pele and Hot-Shot Hamish and the construction of a 300,000 seater megastadium ready for next season and hosting the 2027 Olympic Games. Everything's going to be just fine.

Shut up you dopey old woman. Hoddle never rated Beattie and they didn't get along so highly unlikely that he was clamouring for your boyfriend to come back, and as Hoddle is disliked by almost every pro footballer he has ever met, I'd wager Dodd didn't like him much either. Being that Hoddle is one of the most disliked figures with a reputation of appalling man-management at every club he's been at it's unlikely that even a single player was looking forward to the return of Glenda. His prior and subsequent record of utter failure everywhere he's been proves this was an excellent decision. Get over it. Anyway, are we to assume he has not impressed as catetaker at Aldershot then? How have they done?

It's obviously not a bad idea, but it also not the only idea and not something that has to be done every single year without fail or else everyone at Southampton FC has no respect for etc and people died for this country and and how dare you and and and etc etc. which is what we get on this forum on this subject every year. Lawrie Mac's team never once ever wore shirts with poppies on for a match. Ever. Does that make them disrespecful of our armed forces?

Err - remembrance Sunday is the week before. That said, I didn't realise the Charlton Game is on the 11th and is on TV so is an argument for Poppy Shirts.

Sounds to me the club donating to the Help for Heroes campaign is "doing the right thing" far more than embroidering a poppy on 16 football shirts. Being that our game will be covered on 90 seconds of TV coverage and seen by just 20,000 people for an hour and a half, not sure a poppy on shirt delivers much that is actually useful. The British Legion just about muddled through the first 70-odd years of its existance without embroidering poppies on professional sportswear, so I fail to see why not doing it is seen as some gigantic affront to "our boys". Just buy a poppy, donate and shut up about bloody poppies on shirts.

I'm sure that was on his mind when he left The Dell for Blackburn in the summer of 1998.

Its difficult to imagine you didn't type that without a raging bone-on. Little Pompey t'internet forum emperors. Aren't we all scared

Remember Pards played him down a lot when he signed him, going out of his way to say he isn't a superstar, he's raw and he might be an impact sub. Well an impact sub he definitely is - I saw him at Oldham and he was useful and scared them for fifteen minutes. He gives teams something new to worry about in the last quarter of a game. Think that is his role for now. I think he wouldn't be much use to Reading if he went back tomorrow - he needs to be kicked up in the air and "found out" a bit by seasoned pros in this division to aid his development. And we don't need to sign him yet - just extend his loan until Christmas. I love his Beardsley wobbly legs routine though.

Scrolling down that Sky sports link. Apparently he "achieved nothing with Southampton" and "left us in a mess". Message board posters, eh? What do they know?

Storrie has absolved himself of all the responsibity of the financial details of a multi-million pound player transfer because he was "on holiday that week". So, Mr Taxman, whatever happens when the chief executive of said company (me) is on holiday is quite simply not my responsibility, especially when in concerns hundreds of thousands of pounds. I mean, how am I supposed to know what is going on? Now go away and let me count my £1.5m salary Storrie is whatever the opposite of blameless is.

If you went to football once a decade, why on earth would you chose to go all the way to Hull to watch them play Pompey? It can only because he at least thinks there might be some shilling in for him at some stage. Oh, sorry, I forgot. All these people are "investing" in Pompey because they love the club and its passionate fans. Loan upon loan upon loan. Pompey are like the skank kids in school asking every single person in the play ground for ten pence. "You know I'm good for it".

Yes, but its not that simple, as Pompey still would have cashflow they couldn't hide from administrators - ie no one is going to let them go into admin this season, wipe everything clean and then just let them have two seasons of parachute money to spend. Any creditors would take one look at their projected revenue and say "I'll have some of that". The difference between us and them is our debt was stadium related, and no-one could do anything with a second hand football stadium, and it was never going to be knocked down, meaning a settlement had to be reached and it suited us wonderfully. Pompey just have a mountain of debt, plus some (supposed) valuable land. Admin would rob them of the land and anything of material value and the debts would be paid off as best they could from the money the world knows they will get in the next two years - ie CCC TV revenue and two years of parachute payments. So yeah, a white knight will get a club for nothing, but that's because it will be worthless by then. And the divs are still singing for Peter Storrie to be given the freedom of their sh*thole.