Saint Without a Halo

All successful businesses borrow money to invest grow and prosper no matter how rich their owners are the idea is to make even greater profits downstream! That is why we have a crisis when banks stop loaning! The problem is unsuccessful buisnesses like Pompey also borrow too! The question should be not whether we have borrowed money, but have we borrowed sensibly given our financial position and can the cashflow more than cover any changes in the interest rates! another factor will be has the borrowing made us more successful (if we stay up yes if we go down probably not). Also have the players we bought maintained their asset values (i.e can we flog them and get our spend back at least should the worst happen and we go down)

We have been through this a few times Fact 1 We intend to spend money on players to improve our squad and have spent 30m or so to date! (we can argue whether we got the right ones) Fact 2 Most clubs require a fair amount up front on deals (Bologna wanted 100% upfront) Fact 3 Our revenue now we are promoted will come in gradually over this year based on TV money, Gate money and commercial deals Therefore we needed to bring some of this money upfront to fund our deals! Not really a problem and a typical business transaction as long as the cashflow funds the loan! In Pompeys case the loans were far greater than the cash flow merited given the salaries and deals they made It is all a matter of financial prudence The difference is we have a Swiss banker in charge they had a gun runner! Which of the two is most likely to get his business case right?

However good hard ball winners in midfield reduce your defensive exposure. It is always said you defend as a team! The likes of Ball Williams, Case etc always added good defensive bite!

Also if we lose to these teams they are more likely to be at the top early in the season as 3 points is likely to be at least 25% of their return over 10 games! it would constitute 75% of ours!

Agreed the problem is we are averaging less than 0.5 of a point a game and 9 games out of 38 have already gone! so we now need 34 points from 29 games or around 1.2 points a game (20% up on the target already) still doable, however a bit like a cricket side batting and struggling a quarter way into a limited over innings we need to get our returns up with a few boundaries to ensure we can be back in the game before the target runs away from us and the matches peter out.

Spurs looked aimless and toothless against a well drilled wigan who played as a team got the tactics right and took away all 3 points!

Norwich win

wigan win

Sorry just what influence does Nigel have over Wigan and Norwich?

Wigan score at spurs having outplayed them thouroughly! looks like a missed chance last week for some points! Spurs yet to have a decent shot!

Well done the under 18's now guaranteed a spot in the elite league

Sharp scores again for Forest! well done Billy

Wigan out playing Spurs at the lane! they have missed 2 sitters already!

Most contracts allow the client to hold back monies for work done if thet are deemed to have not met the specification. /this looks like a normal construction dispute to me if not resolved the dispute clause probably calls for adjudication or arbtiration before court proceedings!

Good idea would help us tighten up! then on second thoughts would it help us if we brought another of our defenders on! errr probably not

No Chance at all? So essentially you think we are down already and there is no chance we can improve or others can fall apart! Maybe we should stop playing now as its all over?

Are you suggesting we use Guly and Rodriquez as our centre back pairing against the type of forwards we are facing? Cant see that stopping the flood of goals going in. There have been a couple of successful forward CB conversions Dion Dublin comes to mind but there arent that many successes I can remember

Having the likes of Walcott as a fringe player has a lot to do with it!

You keep saying that so why spend more than 30m and buy a 15m midfielder who will probably leave for a lot less if we go down if that was our strategy. Yo Yo doesn't make any senses at all there is no guarantee when you go down you can come straight back (look at last seasons relegated sides and the seasons before). The only credible starategy is to do what you can to stay up and try to stay within your means or at least as close to them as you can.

Mayuka, Cork to start Ramierez and Lee to come on (hopefully)

Another in the list of gallant defeats we have too many of these, another comical goal against (the 2nd) and another game where we had a good and a bad half to add to Everton, Westham, Arsenal, Villa etc Didn't think much of davis today he had a poor match gave the ball away more often than not! Hope Cork is fit soon, we finally cut out comical goals against and we learn to play for 90 mins before time runs out on us!

Actuall Guly defended better than davis did and gave the ball away far less today!

puncheon has a shot

Yup Wigan Westham and Fulham looked good against us! other teams are struggling but no one is being consistently outplayed like we are now yet we started the season reasonably well against the two mancs

Davis is absolutely aweful today!