trousers

2-1 Brazil 4 mins to go

1-1 Dreadful defending from Brazil

Uruguay 1 down at half time. Assume we'll see Gaston come on fairly early in 2nd half if score remains the same.

I disagree with you there, sir. It's totally believable. This is Pompey we're talking about here.

That would be one way of increasing inflation and the cost of living...............

He did. Don't tell me he missed you out?

...

Mike Onslow ‏@MikeOnslow @JimmyZincke Massive fail from the powers that be. A promising season hits its first hitch before a ball is even kicked. Not good enough! Jimmy Zincke ‏@JimmyZincke How do I break to my 5 year old nephew that he won't be getting his new pompey kit tomorrow after being promised? VERY ****ED OFF!! #pompey Jimmy Zincke ‏@JimmyZincke 1st they showed the wrong shirt online, now we won't even get it on the date we were told!

I'm surprised Pompey haven't thought about doing this before now... http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/pay-play-20k-guarantees-spot-4714096

I've been thinking along similar lines.... Maybe Cortese had lined up Genii/Lotus to buy out the club from the Liebherrs, when he first suspected the Liebherrs weren't prepared to inject further funds to match his desire to push the club to the next level. So, when the Liebherrs did a u-turn following Cortese's reported ultimatum (if indeed that's what they did) Genii/Lotus weren't willing to sign up for a compromise sponsorship deal. Who knows. Edit: pingwing's theory sounds much more likely than my random out loud thoughts!

[video=youtube_share;g8fjeG5oCGQ]

Martina Navratilova

Seems somewhat inconsistent that aap were happy to confirm one part of the sponsorship situation in that Twitter exchange (i.e. the continuation of the sponsorship) but duck a seemingly less significant question about the logo appearing on the shirts. Backs up the theory that the shirts may be sponsor free again this year (well, the replica ones at least). IMO of course.

They had an agent on Talksport about half an hour ago and he said the tax situation for footballers is different to that of other people in the "entertainment" industry. I didn't catch the detail but that was his justification. In other words, agents have always sought to get their cut from the club rather than the player so that the avoids picking up a double whammy tax bill. Can anyone else who listened to it better articulate the difference between footballers and actors etc regards the tax situation?

Back to Wanyama....Matey on Talksport saying its tax reasons why a player doesn't pay the agent fees in football transfers. Some sort of 'double whammy' tax situation. Haven't been following it closely so not sure what the ins and outs of that are.

No, "we" haven't "established" anything. It's inconclusive. That's the point. Anyway, with apologies to itchen (and everyone else), suggest we get back on topic...

Yep. At the Travelodge in Portsmouth. In December.

If you're going to "fabricate" a valuation then adding extra little details like "NET" would tend to make it look more genuine... crafty buggers some of these journos....

Is that a promise....?

I've been banging on about it not being a direct quote for a while now but you've articulated better than I ever have.

There's a large grey area between "horse's mouth" and "totally made up" quotes. I'm sort of agreeing with you in that it's not unreasonable to deduce that he got those figures directly from Gaston. All I'm saying is that we can't be 100% certain.

Who knows where a journo gets such figures from. Maybe he was reading between the lines. Maybe Gaston or his agent or someone from Bologna dropped some subtle hints and he put 2 and 2 together. Maybe they ARE the exact figures that Gaston gave him. The point is we can't be 100% certain one way or the other. And its no surprise that all the other media outlets quoted the same figures as they would have all got said figures from the same original article.

That article takes its information from original article published here: http://www.corrieredellosport.it/calcio/calcio_mercato/2012/08/17-259600/Ramirez+al+Southampton.+Bologna%2C+giusto+cederlo%3F The original quote is: Translation: The 'insidefutbol' article writes the above as follows: So, in the original article the figures appear as an indirect quote (i.e. the figures are put in brackets which COULD suggest they were added after the interview) whereas the subsequent re-worded article has it as a direct quote. None of which disproves that Gaston didn't give the figures to the interviewer as some point before they went their separate ways but by the same token it isn't 100% conclusive that the interviewer got the actual figures from the horse's mouth. Just an observation. edit: oops, just seen that someone else already tried to highlight the subtleties of the article(s)

It's what they call 'stating the obvious' in some parts of this great country of ours

Fair enough, although there's only been 2 Kenya internationals since the end of the season (5th and 12th June). So, with the last game of the Scottish PL season being 19th May I still think it's slightly odd that he's still on 'holiday' 3 weeks before the start of their season. Anyway, I'm sure Celtic know what they're doing.