CB Fry

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.

Absolutely - wonder what happened to all those pompous arses at the start of the season patronisingly wagging their finger and starting threads called "Reality Check" about what a fantastic achievement finishing just above the relegation places would be and how dare anyone even think we could possibly do better etc etc blah blah etc Play offs were a realistic aim at the start of the season and they still are now. The arse aching bores suggesting Pardew would need an entire season of absolute dross to "bed in" like Ted Bates did and did you know Lawrie got relegated in his first season and Alex Ferguson took four years and blah blah blah etc blah blah. Horseshi t. Instant results, delivered instantly. Just like people like me and TDD said would happen all along. So much for "reality", eh, reality checkers?

The Torquay game was a technically a draw. It's five league wins in a row which I'm excited about - the cup game doesn't count for me.

Question Time is hardly ever filmed in London. It tours round the country. This is part of the problem - people commenting about Question Time when they clearly have never seen the program ever before last night.

I think the reason the Guardian took it down is because it is not true - ie Fahim didn't give this interview. So for now let's assume that is the case, when I read it it reads like a bit of a hoax, especially the "six months" line which is just silly and even the looniest owner wouldn't say that.

Agree with that - Connolly will probably need a few more weeks as a supersub before he is fully fit. But having options is fantastic - we suddenly have strength and depth of squad.

"Lads your age" did not "go out with phones in their pockets" in the vast majority of nineties! Trust me, I was and I didn't!

I think we'll have to. Connolly is far too good for this division so I doubt Pardew brought him in to sit on the bench. His cameo against Oldham was superb. It's a bit of an England Manager situation - we have a decent crop of players, and we have a system that has worked recently, but we now have a world class* player we have to fit in and the system will have to change. But it will work. The Lambert/Connolly combination is just too good to ignore - they can rip this league apart.

The seventies? Try the nineties.

Well my comment was in response to someone thinking he'd have to live in Middlesborough. He wouldn't have to. The fact that he lived and worked in North Yorkshire suggests he knows the area and there's plenty of nice areas/villages/towns between Leeds and Middlesborough, all of which are in perfectly commutable distances. North York Moors or towards the Dales and Ripon or Richmond etc. Or even York. My point was his six years at Leeds would give him a broader knowledge of northern Yorkshire (where Middlesbrough is) than "everyone eats brown sauce" which was the dumb-ass post I was responding too. And anyway, half the country are driving hour-plus commutes to their workplace. I do it, as do almost everyone I work with, and most people I know in fact. Plus there are such things as laptops and handsfree kits and Blackberries. Have any of you people ever left Southampton? Do you all walk to work to the factory on the corner of your road?

It's the gift that keeps on giving. I'm starting to worry the Riquelme deal is going to fall through in January.

Anyone would be better than Gareth Southgate. You still pining after Marc Wotte, then?

Must be a different Gordon Strachan that played for Leeds for several years, then. He might just know the area a little.

At a tremendous push he could get the Everton job if Moyes had gone to Celtic. Maybe. But no way would he get the Spurs job - he's just not exciting enough. And I can't see Villa fans dancing in the streets at the idea of Gordon pitching up. Strachan's best chance was Allardyce, Martinez, Hodgson, Megson, McLeish or Phil Brown having an absolute nightmare start to the season and being knee-jerk sacked. He would have got one of those. Boro is his best chance outside the Prem, especially if he wants to get on with a job. He must be delighted he didn't have to go to Newcastle. WGS was fantastic for us, but fundementally he is a pretty average manager - get em fit, simple football, motivate the lads, comedy press conference. I love him but he's limited.

What a load of old rubbish. I think appointing Souness instead of Merrington, Ball instead of Branfoot, Strachan instead of Gray show that changing the manager is absolutely the answer. Southgate has had more than a fair crack of the whip and has turned a solid mid-table Prem team into a second tier team. Fantastic. Give him a ten year contract. Changing the manager was the answer for Southampton FC. Or are you one of the "give Marc Wotte three years and he'll turn into Ted Bates" lunatics?

But that scenario is never, ever going to happen. Just like it won't happen to Sheffield Wednesday, or Leicester City or even Yeovil*. Wimbledon had a handful of "fans" who couldn't be arsed to see their beloved team because their current ground was five whole miles further away than their old ground. In London, the city with the best public transport links in the country. They only came out of the woodwork to support AFC Wimbledon when it looked like a fashionable cause celebre and they saw a bandwagon to jump on. Any genuine Wimbledon fans then what happened was a shame for them, but its not like they don't have a new club to support now anyway.

I like them because they have a great stadium, a solid fanbase, a great chairman, a policy of blooding good young managers, they've produced Premier League players already, they've enjoyed success already and their promotion a couple of years ago means they justify their place in the league, one more promotion than Arsenal have ever achieved as I said before. And I like them because so many people froth at the mouth about what an outrage it is, when it is nothing of the sort. The day you lot all volunteer Saints to start at the bottom of the football pyramid and earn their place in the league rather than just be selected to be in it is the day I'll listen to your whinging about MK Dons. I'm not on a wind up, I just think they are an excellent example of a well run club and that is worth highlighting rather than this "Franchise FC" claptrap churned out by the mini-Scargill Anorak uberfans. Get over it.