sotonjoe

Not surprised someone got there before me but, depending on how you define 'arsehole', I'd say Punch has a pretty good chance of fitting the bill. The whole Punch saga shows you how the club would deal with arseholes at the moment, but maybe things would have been a little different if Punch didn't play so awfully at the beginning of last season.

A lot of his opportunities from the bench have seen him playing up top and we were told this was on his CV when he was signed. However, I'm not sure if the fact that he has played as a striker a fair bit is because that's how Nige sees him, or simply because he was been the only attacking option on the bench in the games when this has happened. I don't have the stamina to go back and check the records but do remember seeing many games recently when Connolly and Barnard have been injured and Steve is the only 'striker' on the bench. It would be very significant if we saw Nige shopping for a right wing player in January. Personally, I'd want a striker at the top of the list.

Guly did take a while, that's fair (I don't want to get into a discussion about Guly's recent form though ;-) ), and Steve is a lot younger I suppose. To be fair, I trust Nige enough to think that he would stick with a young talented player like Steve and help him develop, as opposed to chucking him off the bus after a couple of months just because he's not playing 'the right way'. Maybe it is still early days.

When Steve was signed he was hailed as a great prospect. The obligatory Youtube greatest hits video excited everybody and his debut against West Brom preseason excited everybody even more. So why has he failed to cement a place in the team? When he has come off the bench and played out wide I have been consistently impressed by his desire and ability to run at the defence (something many of our players seem afraid to do). I seem to remember talk earlier in the season that he was defensively naive and that it would take time to make him play the way we expect and that his first team options would be limited until the management felt this process was complete. Recently though Nige made some pretty explicit comments about Steve's failures against Blackpool (his decision making at the end of the game as he ran with the ball in particular), and Steve doesn't even get a run out against Pompey in a game in which having somebody with his pace may have been a great boost late on. Reading between the lines a little (as we inevitably must, seeing as were not privy to everything that goes on), I wonder how happy the powers that be are with Steve and his development. In my opinion the fact that Nige keeps improvising when it comes to deciding who to play on the right wing suggests he still lacks confidence in Steve. Over the past few games we saw Chaplow getting tried on the right, where he did alright and it's understandable this kept Steve out the side whilst it was going well. However, since Chaplow's injury we've seen Morgan tried on the right and having seen the games I don't think he's stood out as playing particularly well in this position which is unnatural to him. It looks to me as if Nigel is trying almost every other option (options which include playing players out of their positions) before giving Steve a start. So I wonder how other people read 'the Steve situation'?

My understanding is that it's your responsibility to list the extras when you get the quote, at which point the insurer will give you their quote and make it clear whether they will insure the extras or not. You then either agree to that or not. In your case, it's up to you to work out whether you asked them to quote for the extras and / or whether you think it was made clear to you that the extras weren't included (bear in mind that it's your responsibility to read the terms and conditions in full).

Any chance you could upload those videos from bus 9 as i was on that one too? cheers

Nice to see people sat at home watching on TV having the gall to criticise the real supporters who were actually there singing their hearts out. Mongs.

Nope. Missed out on Brighton and no way of watching on TV.

I'd be tempted to swap two Pompey tickets (stadium) for two Brighton tickets as long as you have your Brighton tickets in hand.

Still a bit mythed that Nige claimed we would only buy players who would be an improvement on what we've got and yet we still find De Ridder and Fox struggling to hold down a place in the side. I think De Ridder is fantastic, but if Nige isn't confident in starting De Ridder and Fox at this stage, you've got to wonder whether they've turned out how he expected them to or whether they're still adapting.

You can get an inflatable fish that's over 20" long on amazon for about £3.

I lol'd

**** poor ... in fact!!!!

Utterly ****ed off with this. Didn't even know they were on sale yet. The fact they sold them in six hours suggests a ballot would have been fairer but of course the ticket office couldn't care less as they long as they sell them. Can't understand the total overreaction about how to allocate tickets for and police the Pompey game and that a complete free for all for Brighton. Odd.

Utterly rubbish reporting. With relations between the club and the Echo what they are, I'd think the Echo would be the last people to know if the club was suffering financially.

From where i was sat in the kingsland, his "link up play" wasn't great, his work rate wasn't great either. I remember one incident in the second half where he actually chased the opposition and put in a tackle, and he got decent round of applause from everyone to try and actually encourage him. In fact, his attitude was shocking last night if his body language was to be believed. If a pass didn't fall straight to his feet, numerous times he was giving it verbally to a team mate or shrugging his shoulders to excuse his lack of effort in reaching the ball. He wound me up something rotten last night and I certainly think a game on the bench would give him a vital wake up call. Out of his goals, many of them are simple tap ins etc and these certainly don't detract from the overall poor performance and attitude he is displaying on the pitch.

Interesting post. Not sure why you got the usual "ffs" moan from some. Good to try and put our progress in some sort of context, no matter how hypothetical.

TBH I thought the biggest idiots last night were the ones who gave Guly a standing ovation when he was finally substituted.

google maps

yep, bloody odd! Odd that the interviewer kept going and going. The BBC is into rubbernecking now almost as much as Sky News etc

stop moaning you utter bunch of girls.

Applecare?

If we're signing a striker on an emergency loan because we don't have enough strikers, we're not going to send one of our remaining strikers out on loan!

TBF, he is partially struggling to explain himself because he's not speaking in his native language. I hate the bloke and disagree with his point of view, but the language barrier hasn't helped him.

Reading some of the anomalies on here, it really calls the credibility, or even the very existence, of the FM researchers into doubt.