Foxy

If that were the case, and (what with them being crap and on big wages) noone wanted them might Balu be able to have them come round his house and do a few odd jobs (cut the grass, creosote the fence, maybe look after the kiddies while he and Mrs C popped out for a fish supper)?

They really do have a kind of reverse Midas touch, don't they?

To be honest the list of candidates for facing up to the dreadful majesty of the law seems to grow ever longer. My only concern is whether, after providing the customary 'greeting' for a motley cast of former owners, employees and hangers on, Mr Big will have sufficient romantic energy for 'Arry and Milan as I'm sure we'd all hope would be the case when they come to the party.

Admin would stop the WUP. And I doubt whether HMRC would care if they were trading while insolvent (some other body's concern) so they'd simply be joining the clamour for their share of whatever the administrator had to dish out. They may, of course, want to have a little chat with some of the employees or owners regarding seperate issues they may or may not have with their affairs but that would be a different conversation, possibly of interest to other HMRC bods.

Just got home after staying over at some friends' in Wycombe and I have to say the £18 spent on a ticket might wel have been better invested in a few pints in the very nice pub a couple of hundred yards up the road from their place. 0-0 is probably a fair reflection of a very poor game, in fact you could probably say that both teams were lucky to get nil. In terms of the game itself it was always likely to be a bit of a grueller - cold damp conditions, swirling gothic fog and poor floodlights making it hard to pick up anything high, a sticky old pitch and opposition who were limited but committed in defence. And so it proved, a feast of hopeful hoists forward, miscontrolled balls and hacks into touch. The first half was largely memorable for several clearances over the stand to our right and into the carpark and a near-Taibi moment from Kelvin as a soft one slipped though his hands, legs and (for all I know) down a sock leg and trickled agonisingly goalward before he recovered to scrabble it to safety. Plenty of pratfalls with Antonio well to the fore in this respect, giving the appearance of finding conningly concealed trip-wires or holes in the ground wherever he went. He was clearly not enjoying the conditions and it was a probably a kindness to haul him off late in the half. Our main approach seemed to be to hoist hopeful balls toward (but rarely to) Lambert, bypassing a midfield which didn't seem to mind. Only chance of note came to Wycombe with a cross finding its way to the far post where Kelvin was quickly across to charge down a close range shot. Halftime was a welcome respite and the kids doing the shootout could have given the players on both sides a lesson in enthusiasm. Second half and it was more of the same for the most part. With Punchy now wide right we had an option to make use of the better surface out wide (a look at Lala's filthy kit told its own tale about a tendency to drift inside) and when we managed to work this out we suddenly started playing some decent football, resulting in a couple of very acceptable chances, the first a low ball fizzed across the 6 yard line to Lambo, who was probably taken a bit by suprise and shanked it gently to the keeper and a second where Lala, bursting into the box dragged one across goal and wide with the goalie nowhere. Suddenly we were looking the part, but for some reason reverted to the big hoof and we were back to clearances into touch, but this time to the left as we were facing, where the bigger stand meant that we were denied the amusement of seeing the ball disappearing forever. It was looking for all the world like a 0-0 from there on in and, with a hefty shower adding to the delights of the occasion we were counting down the minutes to pub time as wycombe gave us a final fright, breaking through to draw a fine save before the game petered out into dreary nothingness. It had been a poor game perhaps best summed up late on when yet another high ball saw two players tussle beneath it, misjudge it's flight by 20 yards then tumble ring o' roses style onto their rear ends. From a Saints perspective it was dreary, unimaginative fare with the only decent performances coming from Fonte and Punchy once he was moved out wide and perhaps Jaidi and Wooton who the conditions perhaps helped. We seem to have a problem dealing with limited opposition who defend in numbers not overcommit from midfield. The defence wasn't asked too many questions but looked reasonably solid for the most part but going forward we seemed unable to keep the ball or have the guile to manouvre their defensive formation out of position or stretch them with width or pace. In these circumstances we revert to the big hoik forward and if, as today, they can make Ricky's life hard and we have noone getting past him the result is all to often going to be a stalemate. A draw on the back of the Norwich result is not the end of the world but if we are to push for promotion next year, or even through a late run to the play offs this, we need to find a way to turn a lot more of these draws into wins

What about the 10% that's in limbo between Dr Suli and the Pompey trust?

Come on, 2 days = 48 hours. Seems to me like there must be a Red Hot takeover prospect down there

Any reason why you'd want to try? This has baffled me a lot. Not as much as why someone would want to buy Pompey, mind.

It'll be cold and drizzly but nothing to threaten the game going ahead.

But it would also buy a couple of pints of Castle in the clubhouse bar where my parents live down there. I know which I would rather have :drinkers:

Storrie really does have a talent for finding potless billionaires. Until he proved otherwise I always thought that being filthy rich was a requisite to be one of those.

Come to think of it you don't mention Waitrose. But I'm guessing you're thinking that perhaps it isn't an area brimming with Waitrose target customers?

No Pick 'n' Pay though. Perhaps this is the Saffer link after all

Yeah, that's the really damining bit - the £22m is if they finish 17th. That grows to £26m if they come 20th. Then there's the admin consideration. The Grauniad estiamte that even then they'd need £14M, again based on a 17th place finish I would imagine. Even if they had been allowed to flog off their players they'd have struggled to raise that. Even if Chanrai does the seize and leaseback of the ground they'd be short - and with another £1m per annum of liabilities. And we still wont know the whole of it until Monday week, unless there's a leak. So, as has become increasingly obvious over the past few days it's a bail out or it's curtains.

Not from his perspective (although I would count Gold as ridiculous). West Ham stand to lose 4 points if Pompey are liquidated. Four points that would leave them bottom of the league. His investment there looks a whole lot less smart of the Happy Hammers go down and 4 points less makes that a fair bit more likely

Not what you would call a like for like replacement for Thierry Henry as the article suggests, is he?

That was fun to listen to, thanks fellas. And I did listen to the end, only missing the bits drowned out by the noise of the kettle about halfway through (my end that is, I was enjoying the podcast but I wouldn't want to have to go without a cuppa)

500,000+ views, 15,000+ posts now. Has anybody given any thought to what they're going to do all day once this comedy has finally played itself out?

Not sure the 3 clubs rule would apply to players Pompey bought during Jan window as if they cease to exist and were removed from the records for this season I would imagine that playing for them wouldn't count either. As an aside, wouldn't it be annoying for players at other clubs having appearance and win bonuses clawed back if the games v Pompey were declared void?

Please Find Cash Peter's a Fishy Chancer Punt From Conmen Pause 'fore Collapse

Fair for the most part. Although most of us on here felt the 'parent company' argument was against the spirit of the rules but hoped we could somehow get away with it having found a hole in the rules. The FL changed the rules retrospectively and applied a penalty retrospectively, and then held a gun to our heads not to appeal. Probably the right result in the end (certainly for us the way it has panned out) but you could argue it was a crude way of going about it. Admin could soooo easily have been a terrible thing to happen to us. A glance at your roster of recent owners shows that not everyone wanting to own a football club is a Markus. Indeed you could trace your woes all the way back to what happened when you went into admin and Milan came onto the scene and started the whole living the dream model.

Helluva quote for #15,000. Or was that the noise of them going pop?

A crueller man than us might point out it's both. They are sh1t and they are probably going bust.

He was very reasonable in his analysis, even in full ranting spate. I always thought he was a decent enough pundit, but he's risen in my estimation on this evening's performance

Lollage. Nearly had an accident there.