Verbal Kint

It was more of a rhetorical question S-Clarke! The football league need to have a long hard look at what is going on here and do something about it. It is bringing the english game into disrepute

Are they covering his insurance costs, his transport costs, his living costs, his food costs? If Portsmouth are paying a single penny towards Thorne in any way whatsoever, then he shouldn't be there

The far more worrying line he came out with was the following: "Trevor has assured me his first priority, first thing on monday, is to ensure we have a group of players that can be competitive in this league" What a ridiculous thing to say

It really is staggering. They don't seem to have learnt from any previous mistakes. Bringing in players is not the answer, the answer is to get the costs down as much as possible and start trying to live within their means, like the vast majority of lower league clubs do. And make no mistake, with crowds of 14k a lower league club is exactly what they are. Their fans can bleat on about how they're the best in the country (we all know that's a myth), but even if it were true, that doesn't bring money in to run the business. Cut their cloth, regroup and pray for a miracle. That's their ONLY option

The skates have re-signed Thorne on loan from West Brom. Unbelievable

Let's see how Birch goes about this. His responsibility is to cut costs now. He should be coming up with a list of their players (all of them including the kids) and starting with the highest paid and working down it trying to offload as many as he can. If he can't get rid of the likes of Kitson and Lawrence then he'll have to get rid of Pearce, Ward and Henderson etc... If he does his job properly, within a month they'll have by far the weakest squad in the division in terms of quality and quantity and they'll therefore be relegated which will take some pressure off the football league after the pathetic punishment dished out. The most important thing from a football perspective is that they are punished accordingly, and that means relegation. I have faith Birch will see that justice comes

You're about 3 months too late... No bookie is offering now but if you were on the ball when the csi administration was announced you could get 5/1. It lasted about 20 minutes before all the bookies took the market down and it hasn't been offered since

McGoldrick 45 starts Lloyd James 40 Lallana 34 Gillett 23 Lancashire 10 Those 5 players, who made 162 starts between them the year we went down, made a total of 2 starts between them the previous season... That doesn't include Dyer, McKlaggon, White, Patterson, Gobern, Mills and Thomson who all made numerous appearances as well. I think it's very clear we turned to our youth in order to try and live within our means. You sold one of yours (Wilson) and replaced him with 2 senior players whose combined salaries were probably in the region of 4 times that of Wilson's. Quality over quantity, or some cases, just more players at more expense....

Very much this. If you look at all the best full backs in the world, all of them are attacking players who offer their teams width going forward. Alves, Cole, Evra etc. Football has evolved, tactically it's a different game to 20 years ago

What's the point with 'arry though, really? He'll just pick a similar team to the last however many clueless idiots that will be based around a spine of players who have proven over and over again that they aren't technically good enough to win a major tournament. So why not look a little bit more long term and get a younger manager in who is going to stick around for 3 or 4 tournaments, at least, and allow him to move on from the Terry/Gerrard/Cole generation and give some of the talented younger players a chance to gain some experience playing together as a TEAM? I'd quite like Brenden Rogers...

The middle ground are those fans who have noted that our dip in form coincided with injuries and suspensions to key players but are still very optimistic for the rest of the season due to those key players being back and a couple of them returning to form (Lambert, Lallana) as well as one of the championship's leading goalscorers to come back into the fold...

Richardson has been one of the players of the season. He's had a couple of dodgy games recently having returned from injury but i wouldn't be thinking of dropping him yet by any means. He was a massive part of our early season success. Harding and Fox i agree. Harding and Lallana is a better partnership but Harding has had too many poor performances to justify his inclusion. Fox has been the disappointment of the entire season for me. A solid defender but offers us absolutely NOTHING going forward due to his inability to cross the half way line, and when we're playing with such a narrow midfield i think it's a very big problem when you have full backs who won't get forward and offer you width. His constant hoofing doesn't help either. 1.8 million of dud from what i've seen. He isn't worth half that

Snitching tart

This. Too many WUMs just see things in black and white. They love the form tables, stats etc. because not many of them go to games and they have to cling onto something to gauge what is happening. What they should be looking at is the starting 11 for the first few months of the season when we were on fire compared to the last 10-15 games when results have gone against us. It isn't rocket science. When we have our BIG players fit and on form then we will go on another big run. The positives from the last few games - Lambert back from suspension and playing well; Lallana starting to get back into some rhythm, Chaplow getting 60 minutes tonight; Puncheon back involved and arguably been man of the match in the last couple of games. And we still have Sharp and Lee to make an impact. Our starting 11 on saturday is going to look something like our strongest for the first time in a couple of months. Bring it on

Danny Fox had stuff thrown at him, you didn't hear him complaining like a little *****. He should just realise there are morons who follow football, every club has them, and the best thing to do is rise above it, not go crying to the local press.

Game of opinions, but i thought Morgan was the best player on the pitch by a mile. Put his foot in, intercepted all day long and was one of the few players on the pitch who looked comfortable passing the ball. I can't quite believe you thought they were hungrier than us considering we controlled 90% of the game. The pitch was unplayable. The ball wasn't bouncing true nor was it rolling true. I think it's a bit of a shambles the game went ahead

That Liam Trotter, i've NEVER doubted him. Top player....

Liam Trotter, a player Kenny Jacket thinks could play for a big club one day. Face palm thingy for Jacket

The comment that we don't win when he is in the side IS ridiculous. Not opinion, just plain wrong. When he is on form, he controls games. First example off the top of my head is Palace. He was outstanding and was one of the main reasons we won the game so comfortably

"Ohhhhh Billy is a Saint now, he came from Doncaster He didn't come for money he said f*** off to Leicester And when he signed for Adkins, this is what he said The skates are cheating ba$tards and he wants the f***ers dead Ohhh...."

Davis Frazer Martin Fonte Fox Guly Cork Morgan Lallana Lambert Connolly

A lot of posters are talking about the lack of transfer dealings and saying the squad doesn't have the strength in depth it needs. I think most clubs and managers operate on a 2 players for every position outlook. The spine has been ripped out of our team tonight, and it was a poor performance as a result, but it's not just the spine of the team that is out, the squad as a whole has been savagely hit by injuries and i'm wondering whether you sometimes just have to hold your hands up and admit you've had some bad luck with injuries all coming at the same time. Lambert, Lallana, Chaplow, Richardson, Fonte, Seabourne, Jos, Butterfield, Barnard, De Ridder. That's 10 players either injured or suspended. Can you realistically expect to be without 10 players for a match at some point in the season and be in a position to be able to cope with that? I want us to improve the squad, we all do, but we're in danger of over stretching ourselves financially if we do i think. People mock Pompey and the situation they are in, and then whinge about the lack of transfer activity. There is a fine balancing act between remaining financially solid and having a squad big enough and strong enough to compete. Our squad at the moment now is the following: Davis/Bart Frazer/Butterfield Jos/Fonte/Martin/Jaidi/Seabourne Fox/Harding Iago/De Ridder Morgan/Cork/Hammond/Chaplow Lallana/Holmes Lambert/Connolly/Barnard/Guly/Tadanari Clearly from a numbers point of view we are fine, so surely before we bring players in we need to be moving players on who we don't think are up to it? I don't feel comfortable with the idea of simply buying our way out of the slump we are in. It's exactly what gets clubs into financial problems. In an ideal world i'd be looking to replace Bart, Butterfield, Jaidi, Seabourne, Holmes, and Barnard but we aren't going to be able to do anything with them until the end of the season and are we in a position financially (the increase in the wage bill) to replace them before moving them all on?

I thought there was zero chance one of your "celtic stars" would move to little old Southampton? Don't backtrack now hooper88, keep saying we have zero chance of getting him. If we don't agree a fee you'll able to salvage a little bit of dignity by claiming he wouldn't have come anyway. That post was embarrassing

We may just pay the money in the end. At the end of the day he's British and is young. NA clearly believes he has the ability to perform in the Prem, and having worked with him before he is in a very good position to make that judgement. If he scores the goals to take us up and then goes on to score 10-12 goals in the Prem he'll be worth significantly more than the 6 or 7 mill we're rumoured to be offering. Resale value is everything

It has nothing to do with the stature of the two clubs involved. If Hooper has aspirations of playing for England he HAS to play in the premier league. History tells you that. He has a great chance of being in the prem in 6 months if he signs for us. He will never have that chance playing for Celtic. It's that simple. If we agree a fee i would expect him to join, but i think the asking price will be too much for us