dubai_phil

Ah that explains it, he'd have a pretty negative attitude to any PL teams trying to gain an unfair advantage then...

:smt046 That proves it, the Guardian bloke can ONLY be a Saints fan

From the beeb gossip site http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/8484330.stm Lol at the PSG one from 7am ish this morning

That wouldn't work. SBT doesn't even have a couple of Cowrie shells to rub together. Unless Sultan Bin Trump acts as the dealer in a game with TS (Ironic that the followers of the alleged backer of SBT all wear RED shirts)

Which leaves Stoke or Stoke as the last people interested in the few's keepers. Hopefully they'll take James on a free rather than Begovic for 3mil

Connolly isn't Lambert. Barnard is also not Lambert but is closer to him in style and build than Connelly is. Waigo is not an experienced forward. Lallana isn't a striker. So the question is, should we have left the transfer window with only Lambert & Connelly as the recognised strikers in our squad? AP has now got cover for every position 4 CB's Antonio/Waigo on the right, Holmes/Puncheon on the left. None of them are clones but it shows his thinking. Let's see what happens with Barnard when he does settle in and find his feet, the only real worry I would have and agree on is that IF Connolly is crocked then only having two out and out strikers may be one too few The point about the Connolly injury

Well, that's why they have ex pats... It's why the roads are so dangerous - red Light, no problem. It is the will of kerbang.. Imagine EoA being replaced in Air Traffic.. yes habibe come on land is no problem insh'allah Yes we will find new investors... It is ONLY ever a problem when you foolishly believe it. Maybe the few will get saved, but it will take an act of God, not an investor with brains...

They clearly cut out one important word Someone will invest "insh'allah" I love seeing the old cultural differences showing up. One issue that many European business people can never get their heads around when they do business with this part of the world is the local concept of "time". Meetings never happen "on time", in fact appointments are incredibly loosely adhered to, often, you just walk in to the office. In simplistic terms, in "The West", you are "culturally programmed" born, go to school, get a job, get married, have 2.4 kids, get a mortgage, get a pension, retire, die. It is as if you have a ticking clock in your head, so the magic words such as "Time Management" and "Planning" come into play. Down here that clock doesn't exist in the same way. Life is "more" meandering, based upon the will of "external factors". Deadlines are more a starting point for negotiations, things NEVER happen on time. (A great example is the number of people down here who book a flight, check in and then simply decide not to get onboard or happily stay talking on the phone in the departure lounge and simply cannot comprehend why the plane isn't still there waiting for them) One of the possible reasons for this whole meltdown is that the Arab owners actually really believe that everything will be alright. They haven't had extensive dealings in the UK, they quite simply may not have been able to grasp the fact that the clock TICKS. It isn't foolishness, it simply never occurs to them that HMRC actually meant the debt had to be paid on a certain day. (Plenty of examples of never getting paid in this part of the world!) Business based Cultural misunderstanding with Brits, Arabs, partial Russians & Israelis all in the mix may be as much to blame for the past months of mayhem as all of the dealings before hand. They certainly would not be the first European based business to totally screw things up by "ASSUMING" just because English language is spoken they are talking about the same things

Ah yes, but what happens if you are a Realist? You can still be an optimistic realist OR a pessimistic realist. But whichever version you are you work much harder to make sure you get the right outcome, it's different from being a blind Dubya.

Sorry, got to disagree with you there Eric, although he put in a stirling effort in the forum match, I really don't think our Hamster is adequate emergency cover for Hammond. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I think Wotton is probably a better back up for him (just) Don't think we would have noticed missing Hammond quite so much if we hadn't lost James as well. I think we really struggle with a midfield of two wide men and Wotton + 1 in midfield. With both out then we'd probably be better with Lallana playing "in the hole" behind Lambert in a 5 man midfield.

I'm really enjoying this season. I used to sit down on a matchday with shoulders slumped and then slink off around the house waiting for the "how many did they lose by today?" line. Now it is "I suppose you won again", (which to be fair we have been doing a great deal). It is a change in attitude, it is something that has helped to give a more positive outlook to my world this year. Should we be in the playoff's already though? The answer from the less positives is "yes we bloody well should be especially after all the money we've spent". It is a valid point, but if money was the only factor in football then why aren't Man City 6 points clear at the top of the PL? Football is a team game, it takes time to settle and understand each other, our team wasn't built until 3 or 4 weeks into the season, so they missed the bedding in process of pre-season and took time to settle. That as much as anything was to blame, not the lack of pre-season per se. Leeds have taken 3 seasons to get their act together fully, we tried to do it in 3/4 of a season. Anyway, I didn't expect to go up this year, I felt we had an outside chance of reaching the playoffs. The fact is, here we are at the beginning of February and lo and behold - we have an outside chance of reaching the playoffs. BUT, I do have one REALLY big piece of worry/negativity which has never been discussed. Just how are we getting the money from Markus? As we are now a private business, we KNOW ML is "loaded", we know he is committed to a plan. BUT is he transferring CASH into the club to buy the players, develop Staplewood? OR is he "Guaranteeing Loans?" Is the money he is putting in being done as Equity expansion? OR is it being done as some form of shorter term Loans? Right NOW how he is doing this doesn't matter a flying fig, BUT technically if the investment isn't equity then it is shorter term debt of one form or another that could become due for repayment. Providing we make the PL, then ML gets his money back with interest big time should he decide to then sell out. But if he doesn't, then although we can sleep easy about where he made his money, we could be back in debt.... It nags me, it doesn't make me negative, but many other fans at many other clubs never questioned how the money was coming in from their "beneficial owners" until it was too late. Thing is, we'll probably never know, and TBH as long as we do go up this year or next, it won't be something to lose sleep or post negatively about.

Another nice quote. There's only one team in Portsmouth... Hehehehe So that means they don't even compete with us for the one team in Hampshire title these days. Oh and this is an old story, he made this "I'm trying to get rid of my involvement before it all goes wrong by dumpning my shares on the fans" line a month or so ago

So for the administrator it depends on how much "not all that much is" He will have to run the club until the end of May. He'll have a good idea of the available income. Could be an interesting day then

I would guess that they are still hoping that Victor Moses will go Barcelona or Real (Sauce was our local rag 7 Days in their "really silly transfer speculation section) Which in his mind would solve the money problems and allow him to keep Danns. Of course if he doesn't then maybe he may have to pick up the phone again

Now THAT was quality lolage

We have some down here that do. They're called Hamed

Listening was grim. But we've won ugly, ground out a 2-0 with a really poor performance. Not good for the fans who had to watch it, but as others have said, how many times have we played superb football and drawn or lost. We need to win. we haven't been of late and if this game is the turning point when we start winning while playing badly, that'll do me. We still have the heart of our midfield to come back from injury. Although I still think Lambert would benefit from being given a week off on a beach somewhere, but for that I guess we need Connelly fit again

Nope. I blame the team for not killing off MKD in the first leg. I've got enough airmiles for one trip back at the moment. An airmiles ticket costs about 100 quid in taxes, and in January there were deals in on-line sales to buy tickets for 220 quid for JPT weekend. If we'd finished them off could have bought the cheapie and had the airmiles in reserve, but oh no we get a stupid sending off and hold on for a 0-1, being a confident fan for the Home leg is one thing, blowing all your airmiles on a non-refundable ticket when it is one possible mistake away from not happening is a totally different equation! (Specially with Glastonbury looming if JPT final doesn't happen!) The JPT & Skate game weekend tickets are now around 600 quid so no way to blow that much on a game unfortunately, so I now just have to hope we don't feck up the home leg. Anyway, would be stupid to buy a flight ticket for the Skate game. They won't be turning up anyway and have never seen a refund clause on travel insurance that covers "cancellation due to injuries sustained while laughing too much"

That story from the Mail about the 10 grand cost of getting to the game is just simply ridiculous and way out of order. I view Man City with great disdain, but today they could really do the rest of the football world a real favour and repeat their tonking of the skates. The story of the "numerous" court orders being delivered to the fan also shows up what a totally insane situation now exists. It has clearly moved a long way beyond being a joke. My sympathy to the staff and suppliers who are having their noses rubbed into the dirt.

It has ever been this way with Saints in all the years I have been. Have commented about it many a time in many threads. At the end of the day as a mate once said. the world is full of people who either get it or it gets them. Some people were just born to be stupidly optimistic about everything and some the reverse. Next time you get annoyed by someone like that just smile to yourself and imagine how awful their life must be if their entertainment time has to be spent so negatively. Sure life isn't always fair or nice or right, but it's a bloody shame to spend it where your only kick out of it is ranting negativity all afternoon. What a waste

They have it in most sports bars here Yep, have the dish, used to be able to get an "interesting" link to a web site to pick up the service. Otherwise it needs a friend to get a second smartcard for the decoder down your way. We also get the full range of PL games but the Cup & Lower League stuff switched to ART which is an Arabic service (with English commentary) but it's an extra 60 quid a month We'll find a way when the time comes

Not next year, the Overseas TV rights package has already been sold. We will lose Showtime down here and it switched to Abu Dhabi Sports. Sp far we've had no word on how they plan to run it but many are concerned we'll lose English commentaries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corridor_of_uncertainty Ah DP may be getting on but the brain's still as sharp as a paintbrush

Meanwhile, c'mon County get a very late consolation goal... I've had a bad few weeks on the Prediction League

Everyone knows it was invented by Geoff Boycott. It's a tight line bowled just outside the off stump. It's Solent, they're bound to get mixed up between football and cricket they're still learning Meanwhile Merryton = Papa has been the BLESSED player since he came on. Put yer teeth back in Dave