Ken Tone

I was surprised Adkins brought on Connolly before Sharp, but less so that he was not in the starting 11, given Lee's form. I thought he had a very promsing first game for us, apart from the one miss that can happen to anyone, but looked off the pace in his second start. I noticed he had some strapping on his thigh. So whether he is carrying a slight niggle or just isn't quite up to scratch yet I'm not sure. Thought he looked fine on his brief appearance on Saturday.

Can someone please explain that logic to me? After the club ceases to exist, the council may consider buying the ground. Presumably this would be to preserve it as a football ground , rather than Chainrai etc overthrowing the planning constraints and building housing or a Tesco's? But then the council would be tying up a chunk of its capital for no noticeable return. (Does it even have any capital reserves or might it have to borrow to do this?) Any 'phoenix' successor club after liquidation would be in non-league , so could not afford to pay anything like a proper rent to the council. They'd be wasting public money.

Not sure they do have enough yet to stop any more loans out. Birch's response when the £200k a month (subject to football debts) implied it would give them just about enough, with maybe another loan or two. I'll be surprised if Henderson or somebody else does not go. Not that that should be too much of a handicap for them on the field. After all their 2nd choice keeper is on £12 a week, so presumably he ought to be one of the best in this division ! But like you, I think their real problems will start in the close season. By then I hope they will be in L1, with no matchday income coming in, far fewer season tickets sales than usual - if indeed they have the nerve to sell any STs whilst still in admin - no buyer, and some of the loan players returning and all the players wanting paying 100% of their huge wages again. IF they make it through the close season, it is unlikely they will be financially 'clean' by the start of next season, so unless the FL has gone really soft since Mawhinney left, another points deduction looms, and therefore maybe another relegation Personally that is my dream scenario -- no clean death, but rather a long, slow, lingering, painful decline to eventual L2 obscurity.

Exactly. This is a new low by the blue few. To ask other clubs' fans to supprt them as many did Plymouth is an insult to Plymouth. How dare they compare themselves to a club that had been through the mill for years, dropped to the bottom of L2 because of its attempts to spend only what it could afford, and as you say even had their manager, not just work for nothing but auction off his FA cup winners' medal to raise money for the club? Meanwhile Ben Haim has possibly agreed to delay for a few weeks receving a small part of his nearly £1.9 million a year salary... and some rumours even deny that. It's like having a banker, "suffering" because of a smaller than usual bonus, asking for charity to keep up the payments on his Ferrari, and comparing himself to a homeless person.

Which of course is basically what ought to have happened last time they went into administration.

I have absolutely no idea but I'm 'bumping' this in the hope someone else might know, because to a layman this seems very odd.

How do you work that out? No one is going to take Ben Haim off their hands with him being on £36k a week, and his contract has quite a while to run yet. That one contract alone is enough to be a millstone round their neck ..the cost of 3 good championship players or nearly a full team's worth of ordinary L1 players. Add to that Kitson and others that no other club will pay the same wages to .. even their second choice keeper is on £12 a week .. and they will be paying way above their league status and income would imply, for 2 or 3 years yet

Hi Corp. Welcome back to the Goebbels of the internet, with your usual selective memory. A simple straightforward quesiton for you -- if, as seems likely, it is a choice between liquidation or Chainrai back as 'temporary' owner , which would you prefer?

IF HMRC win the case , will it apply retrospectively , or might PFC get away with things again , since their case pre-dates the court ruling?

What I've never really understood is why the 'Malvinas' matter so much to so many Argentinians. I can see why their politicians make big fuss....focus on outside enemy to distract from problems at home, plus possibility of oil revenue, .... but way before any talk of oil, to many ordinary Argentinans this was a really emotive issue, and has been from childhood. It seems almost as if they see it as an insult to their collective manhood. I know all the psuedo-legal arguments about who's right or wrong (backwards!) and I know the Falkands are relatively close to parts of the Argentinian coast, but a) at closest they are 300 miles away -- hardly next door and b) no Argentinian can possibly know anyone, or even any descendant of anyone, from their country who ever lived there. When the young conscripts of their army arrived on the Islands in '82 many were gobsmacked, both by the geography (streets not paved with gold after all) and by the fact that the locals were not welcoming them with open arms as 'liberators' as they'd been led to expect. As has been said before, 300 miles from the UK coast would include much of France , all of Belgium and the Netherlands, and even bits of Scandinavia. Yet even now it's a sure vote winnner in Argentina to claim the islands as theirs

Sorry if this has already been posted, but http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17191799 Jutkewitz is saying he especially wants Boro to beat Portsmouth this weekend because he is a Saints fan.

If you botherbto actually read what I said you'll see that I agreed with you that self-determination should apply whatever. I pointed out that there will be no mass immigration into the Islands so there is very unlikely to be any change in the view of those living there. I do know about the islanders' status. I have links with the Islands, have stayed there for an admittedly brief visit and know many islanders. They are as British as anyone living here. Some are even Saints fans!

I was following it ..and I agree with it. Self-determination should indeed still apply if the population changed, and changed its collective mind. However it won't change, at least not that much. The Falklands government has very strict immigration rules, and by the way as as a dependent territory is not part of the EU, so it does not have to admit immigrants in the same way as the uk. All the article you linked to is referring to is FIG giving itself more leeway to give citizenship, if it wishes, to those who have lived on the Islands for some time, eg on a long contract or as spouses of Islanders. Migrant oil workers will not be granted long term residency let alone citizenship... and besides most would not be based on the Islands themselves .. even IF the oilfields ever start producing.

I suspect that, underneath, even you realise that you are talking ********. The current islanders are mostly the descendants of the first properly established population there, settled in 1833 and living there continuously ever since. It is not universally accepted that the Fench first discovered the islands, and even if that were the case, there was never a real French settlement there. No French settlers' children have ever been born there for example. They did briefly have a small military presence yes, but not without British arguing against its legitimacy. We were after all at war with the French throughout most of this period of history. The Islands' goverment is NOT loosening its immigration rules in the way you imply, and certainly not in a way that would allow an influx from Argentina.

Surely Argentina cutting off own nose to spite face? Refusing entry to a cruise ship will cost thousands of pounds to the local economy, and nothing to P&O or the Falkand Islands. cf the argument between Liverpool and Southampton

Beat me to it! In short the view seems to be that we'd be very unlikely to lose the islands to an Argentinian invasion with current defence capability, but if we did they would also be bloody hard to win back.

Yeah. I did the sums before the match. It makes no direct financial sense unless they really do 'pack the park', but birch will be reasonably happy if it loses him nothing and gets a 'poor pompey; how can we give them money' feeling going in the city. And in fact they didn't get many extra. Bear in mind that there were 3000 Leeds fans there , and that's just the ones in the away end What this has shown is that they only have about 13-14k reasonably loyal fans at the moment ..no more. That may well sink lower yet of course.

I had the same thought. Eventually came to the conclusion it was £0.5 million. The administrator surely would not have been so imprecise as to say 1 to 2 million. 'By april' may well be vague though. This could mean that Birch has sorted things to just about get to the end of the season , but then in April, with no more gate receipts coming in, and the players' deferred (not 'cut') wages coming home to roost, they will be scuppered.

Depends just how broke they are. Birch seems to be proper administrator unlike AA. He has cut 'office' staff and apparently temporarily reduced players wages by 25%. Will that mean they have enough cash to see them through to the end of the season? If not, expect more loans out like Huseklepp's. And if so it will have to be loans of their reasonable players on reasonable wages or no one will want them -- plus even West Brom won't lend them many more on the cheap to replace any outgoings I suspect Birch himself does not know yet. He will for example be waiting to see what the net effect on income is of his "slashing" £5 off their tickets for the home game tomorrow. Some interesting sums there. I reckon that just about makes sense if they sell the extra 4000 or so tickets to get to capacity. Much less than that , and he'll be making a loss by the reduction. I think he's gamblng on trying to get a real "rally round the club" feel going that will bring benefits in terms of greater attendances at full price later, and maybe other help from the community... tolerance from local creditors etc If they only get say 16 to 18k tomorrow even with 3k Leeds fans there , and then lose, things could get quite interesting again.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-past/norris_closes_in_on_blues_return_1_3556106 Well surprise, surprise! Now that they've conned the FL into allowing them to sign a loan player to replace huseklepp, "because otherwise they haven't got 14 players", several of their injured players are suddenly fit again.

Looking at the 'players agree to defer wages' news, this is noi so good for them long term is it? It may well help them get through to the end of the season , but whoever buys them will immediately have to pay significant back pay to these players (as well as continuing to pay their ludicrous full wages till the end of their contracts.) Makes them even less attractive as a purchase. Meanwhile the players are taking a risk. They are only safe as football creditors if the club continues to want a golden share and play in the Football League. If liquidation happens, say on the day after the season ends, any successor club will not get a golden share anyway, and will start out of the FL, so there'll be no need for it to pay football creditors the full amount; they'll just become ordinary creditors surely? The football creditors rule does only apply within the football league doesn't it, not to the conference etc?

To be fair (copyright D. Merrington 2001) I think he also said some full-timers were being made to go part-time. So in effect there are more than 33 FTE jobs going.

Which is why Appleton won't play any youngsters, because if he does they count as first team squad memebrs and count towards the 14. Even now they are still cheating ..or at least manipulating the rules. Birch presumably will be quite happy if he gets rid of Huseklepp's wages and Appleton manages to con a mate into lending him another player almost for free, especially if that helps them stay in the championship and therefore be a little more saleable. Mind you even if the FL is caught by its own policies over this, they ought to only allow an emergency loan until PFC's other players return to fitness, so they clock up 14 anyway. Cue many lingering 'injuries' that mysteriously won't clear up.

and no advert breaks!

This no parachute payments stuff is surely just someone on a wind up?