dvaughanwilliams

It depends on how much we're paying, how well he is fitting in to the team's playing style in training and how many positions in midfield he can cover. If we picked up a couple of injuries, then he could be a useful player to have. His presence may be improving other players' performances as an additional competitor for a place. If he's not too expensive and he clearly isn't being treated preferentially, I can't see the problem with him being here.

My first season as a Season Ticket holder was the Prem relegation season. So, mostly, I've seen disappointment. I don't see that we 'deserve' to be in a particular league and that we belong in the league we happen to be in. If we get promotion, it would be great. However, the relegation season from the Championship with Poortvliet and Wotte has made me appreciate the last 3 seasons more. The knowledge of how bad it can be has taken away any sense of the team having an entitlement to anything. Turning up to each game hoping that we might be able to grind a win out, but really expecting to watch a humiliating loss. The high points of the last 2 seasons with the JPT Final and promotion have easily made up for the lows of that disastrous season. Also, if we were to get promoted, I would rather that the club was relegated, with the team playing with dignity and endeavour, than gambling the future of the club by spending money that the club can't afford. In a weird way, I think that the experience has been beneficial overall, even if it didn't feel like it at the time.

Not quite right. Season ticket holders wouldn't benefit from the offer so the cost would be less than £57,500. If they have 8,000 season ticket holders, then the amount to be deducted would be 3,500 x £5 = £17,500. Making a profit of £42,500.

So they need £500k: -average attendance 14,500. So everyone sticks £35 in a bucket? -fine TBH 12 weeks wages? -or they could arrange to loan out Ward and Pearce to Ipswich, with a loan fee of £1m, with an option on a free transfer when the transfer window opens? Then West Brom could send them a couple more sympathy loans until they can officially change their name to West Brom reserves.

Living in St Marys (the area of Southampton, not the stadium), there have been 4 murders on my road in the last 10 years, but the last one was more than 5 years ago. All stabbings. Reported as either gang or drug related. I see loads of drug deals, they really aren't very subtle about it, but never heard a gun shot.

Thanks for posting all of that. It's very interesting, particularly about the potential sale price. When Chainrai sold the club the last time, he seems to have made it a condition that his debt remained intact. This time it seems that any reasonable offer will be accepted, with the money going to the creditors, Chainrai remains at the front of the queue though. Birch clearly knows infinitely more about insolvency law than I do, but I'm a bit confused. The club needs a CVA to avoid a massive points deduction in the season they emerge from admin. If the club were to be sold for, say, £25m: Chainrai gets his £17m with the rest of the £23m-£33m sharing £8m. What if, at the creditors meeting, they vote down the CVA? HMRC are reported to be owed between £1m-£7m. If the final figure is more than 25% of the debt by value, they start next season on -15 or worse. I think that this is going to be the long, slow drawn out misery that some of the more sadistic PTSers have been hoping for.

I suppose that's one way to encourage them to go on loan to another club. The PFA will cover a proportion of the wages, effectively a loan to the club which falls under the Football creditors rule. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them said, "Actually, I quite fancy having my money, thanks."

Because selling and leasing back the ground has been a great strategy for Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and others

The situation may have got considerably worse under the 'stewardship' of CSI. Up to the takeover, they were under FL instructions to be careful. After the takeover, CSI agreed to fund the £1m per month financial deficit [with loans from CSI]. Who knows what contracts were signed in that period?

Also, it hasn't been made clear which transaction that Birch is questioning. Is it the initial loan to Falcondron, the transfer from Falcondrone to Old Co or the transfer from the Old Co to New Co? The first transaction happened in the British Virgin Islands and the other two would require digging through all of the Old Co docs that are currently with Baker Tilly who will be conducting an investigation into whether the old co director were conducting Wrongful Trading. This investigation can only happen after liquidation is finished. So a complex case across companies and legal jurisdictions. Also, it's quite a gamble on both sides. To get an outcome, it'll have to go to court. Birch will have to think that it's quite likely that he'll get a result to make it worth the costs of doing it, especially if Chinny appeals. The worst case scenario is that they take it to court, using up funds that they can't afford to lose and then find that his claim is upheld. Equally, Chainrai's stuck with his sunk costs. Does he throw good money after bad to try to retain his secured creditor status for all of his debts? Vote down a CVA? The really funny thing is that the Snooze commenters think that the debt would get wiped out, rather than just a reduction of the amount that was secured, with the balance unsecured. He'll still be owed £17m, but he might also be given a power of veto over any CVA arrangements too. It just keeps getting better.

Re: Chainrai's debenture. http://www.uhy-uk.com/assets/media/download/portsmouth%20reports/Final%20progress%20report.pdf According to page 18, the debenture has a fixed and floating charge over all assets of the club. Now, I may be being thick, but if the fixed charge over all assets doesn't cover the amount of the debt, doesn't this mean that the club is Balance Sheet insolvent? Isn't this a confession of Wrongful Trading? Also, why would they be so happy about having Chinny as an unsecured creditor? It's as if everyone has forgotten the fact that the last CVA only just got voted through. Having another malcontent in the CVA voting pool, doesn't sound like a formula for success to me.

Even on a free, no club will take on Tal Ben Haim. If he's the one the papers are talking about being on £30k+ per week, no-one's going to match those wages, so why would he agree to leave? BTW his contract is for another season after this one. It would be idiotic to pay off his contract, he's staying. I think that they should try a constructive dismissal approach, throw dog sh*t at him in training, key his car, hurl abuse at him until he can't take any more and leaves voluntarily. More likely that they go out on loan with Poopey paying part of their wages. So Team X pays TBH £15k per week, he gets replaced with a youngster out of a Premiership club's academy whose wages are paid for by the parent club. The team they end up with would be like Doncaster or Coventry.

Totally agree. The way some of them talk, you'd think that the FA were their accountants and auditors, as well as assessing their owner's ability to perpetually fund a loss making company.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/pompey_could_have_more_points_deducted_1_3539161 Nice to see Portsmouth's intelligentsia out in force. Do you win a prize if you can work out what it means?

While I think it's hypocritical of the FA to allow him to join, in contrast to the way they treated Bournemouth; the marginal costs of Thorne joining them are trivial. They can't afford flights, so a seat on the coach has no additional cost, he might be paying for his own accommodation and the additional cost of food are going to be small. The most important thing is that they operate a one in/one out system and now get rid of one of the more expensive players. Kelvin Etuhu is the next one the FA have to make a decision on, he might have just played his last game for them.

Love the picture that he put on there of him at the checkout at Tesco. http://ameblo.jp/lee-tadanari/image-11161416835-11786859177.html So random, it's brilliant.

Lots of Positives: Tadanari Lee's thunderbolt. If you weren't at the game, the highlights are a must. It was an absolute belter. Good team performance. After we went 2-0 up, the passing and movement was amazing. Midfield looked very good. Chaplow had lots of energy and played like someone with a point to prove. Schneiderlin was aggressive in tackling their players as well as passing well. Cork put in a good performance as well. A couple of negatives: Sharp was ineffective. He gave the ball away a couple of times, and wasn't a threat. This could be because our midfield haven't adapted to his game yet and don't know the type of pass he wants to receive or the runs he wants to make. In time, he will make a bigger impact. Harding didn't make any errors at right back, but didn't inspire confidence. Derby were poor for most of the game, but there were a number of occasions when he was not able to deal with situations as effectively as a right footer would have. Hope either Richardson or Butterfield are available soon. Harding would be found out against a better team, playing out of position.

I think that this is a game to play Guly on the right rather than Puncheon. Pacy wingers are most effective against a team that plays a high defensive line and try to press the opposition. I can't see Derby playing that way against us, given that they're a mid table team. I think that they'll defend deep and that will give Guly the space to try to play though balls to Lambert and Sharp with a fluid, inter-changing front line. However, I was surprised that Puncheon didn't start against West Hoof, so he'll probably start this game. If both Richardson and Butterfield are out, I'd rather see Stephens as a specialist right back play, than Harding out of position. There's always the wildcard option of playing Martin there, I seem to recall him filling in at full back before. Schneiderlin and Hammond in the middle for me. Cork has had a couple of performances that weren't up to his usual high standard and a game on the bench or in the stands wouldn't do him any harm. I think Derby will make the mistake of coming to St Marys and trying to play their passing game and give our flair players too much space. 2-0.

1. All this talk of a new CVA is very premature. I don't think that they could get 75% of the debtors by value to agree. I don't know who is allowed to vote, specifically whether Baker Tilly as a representative of the Old Co CVA gets a vote. If it had been AA, there may have been another *unorthodox* interpretation of the rules, forcing it through, but now, I don't think that's likely. 2. I think we've all seen the future of Poopey, it's in the opposite direction. Bournemouth had an even smaller squad, which was mainly made up of their youth team and the Football League were incredibly harsh in enforcing the transfer embargo. The Goal Keeping coach had to come out of retirement to sit on the bench and even then they didn't have a full complement of substitutes. 3. All this talk of players coming in is a fantasy. I expect some home truths are getting told to MA. The squad will be reduced, the youth team must be played. When a business goes into administration, the administrators become liable for any debts that are accrued during the administration. Birch will not allow them to operate at a loss, beyond the capabilities of the cash in the bank. Welcome to Austerity.

I see the usual Wind Up Merchants have been making their presence felt at the news site, you know who you are! What I can't understand is garbage comments like this: http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/potential_buyer_says_losing_points_would_put_him_off_1_3524326?commentspage=2#commentsSection 1. The Debt is massively more than £17m, it's £50. 2. Why would that reduce? Chainrai is a secured creditor, the debt owed to him didn't decrease last time, why do they think it will next time? 3. CSI had other creditors other than Chainrai, if he writes off the debt PFC owe CSI, his claim to the assets of PFC are diminished, so that debt is due, for the benefit of other creditors or the equity holder. 4. The liability for the old co CVA hasn't gone away either. They keep moaning on that the club isn't worth the debt level and no-one will pay Chainrai for the full amount of the debt, well guess what, you're saying the club's insolvent! Looking forward to tomorrow. Even if Administration is granted, that's not an end to their problems, it's just a brief respite. The club runs at a loss. They need a new owner, lower outgoings or higher income in a hurry. I guess I would prefer admin to be granted, even though I can't see how they'll get away with it, because it will prolong the agony.

Ha! http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/potential_buyer_says_losing_points_would_put_him_off_1_3524326 http://www.warwickcourier.co.uk/news/local/my_attacker_walked_free_after_i_chased_him_through_the_streets_1_3346628 I'm sure there are lots of people in the Leather industry who live in Hampstead, are 57 years old and are called Keith Gregory, so just a co-incidence.

I've been looking around online to try and find a copy of the Statement of Affairs from last time. As I remember things, they put a rather *optimistic* figure for the value of their squad. The squad was a lot larger than it is now, with players worth a lot more than the current squad. They were in the Premier League and the value of their Golden Share might also have been quite high. Last time at the liquidation hearing, the Judge said that she suspected that they were trading while insolvent, but gave them 2 weeks to draw up the statement of affairs. The second hearing didn't happen because Chinny put them into Admin before it was completed, without requiring the permission of the court. A harder judge would have liquidated last time. This time, given their track record, the old co's CVA, the fact that the club runs at a significant monthly loss, the fact that they have fewer saleable assets and the lack of credible buyers make this time a lot more serious. It will be interesting to see how they justify a value of assets of more than £50m, or how they try to claim that they aren't liable for all of the debts.

It's not just about servicing debts though. They have to prove that the club is Balance Sheet solvent, ie that the assets of the club are worth more than the debts for which the club is liable. How much would you value the players + the ground? I'm expecting them to produce a document with goodwill valued at £30m. If the debt for which the club is liable is £50m, how do you make the club worth that? Bear in mind that the statement of affairs for CSI put a value on the club of £4m. In a previous post I made an error. It is only illegal to trade when Balance Sheet insolvent, not Cashflow Insolvent see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_trading If the club is Balance Sheet Insolvent, administration must be refused and they get liquidated on Monday.

hth

I recognise a few agent provocateurs among the commenters on the snooze site, all of whom are surprised at the 'bestest' tag but only 14,000 in the shed.