ooh it's a corner

I would. Second hand mind you, slightly sucked, one careful sucker.....

I find it completely bewildering that a professional administrator has basically admitted to the fans that he needs to find somewhere between £1-2m before April (i.e. in the next 8 weeks), and he is asking for suggestions from the fans...... You can't magically start playing more games, you are outside of the normal transfer window so can't sell anyone, you could cancel everyone's contract, but due to the absurd football creditor rule, this doesnt save you a penny..... If you haven't got the money, are you not obligated to put the closed sign up? As proven against Leeds, the pack the park effort added perhaps 2,000 bums onto Fratton Park seats, which at the discounted ticket price would need to be repeated a dozen times to get close to the April shortfall. They would be clutching at straws, if anyone could point them in the direction of a straw

I see what you mean, bloody hell, doesn't it....

feels like the start of the season again, when every opposing manager bemoaned their "off day". top stuff

Interesting to read Fat Sam's reaction on BBC, after their draw with Palace West Ham manager Sam Allardyce: "As a manager you have to take it but one or two of the players in the dressing room were a little disappointed to get booed because we are at the top of the league ( until Southampton beat Watford). "You build up the expectation as we have done recently having done so well, and we didn't deliver today. But the fans have to stay with us and have to be patient, and then we'll all benefit in the end. Blimey booing your team off when they've gone top......and I thought we were fickle

Fantastic result. Some interest stats ..... Rickie's third hat-trick of the season. Undefeated in last 6 league games, won 3, drawn 3 Only conceded 2 goals in last 6 league games, including 1 penalty at West Ham Played West Ham, Birmingham, Burnley and Cardiff in last six league fixtures Have scored 3 or more goals in 12 league games this season. We have a near-as-whatsit fully fit squad. We have the ability to score goals all over the field. We have Lambert, Lallana, Lee, Sharp, Conolly, Puncheon, Guly, De Ridder all fit and available We are going to win this division.

d'oh ! :-)

EIEIEIO Off to football 'ere we go And when we get promoted this is what we'll sing We are Southampton, we are Southampton Adkins is our king last line can get flipped to Nigel Adkin's king, depending on who you're next two. Lord knows which version is right :-)

Lee's reaction at full time was that of a 9 year old kid who just wanted to run around the stadium milking the applause.... he was bouncing...... fantastic goal, if you weren't there today, get in front of a tv screen this evening. How anyone can hit a football that accurately and that hard....

I can see than happening as well. Chanrai is now going to feel that he has the entire city against him (including the local MP, city council and the fans). He may just get very spiteful.

It means that chinny loses his puppet on the inside. The administrator will now do what an administrator is supposed to do, reduce the outgoings to see if the business can be saved in the long run, as a going concern, rather than do what the owner wants him to do. This should mean that he will endeavour to replace existing higher earners with lower earners, if he can. Possibly this will mean that they start to field an 11 representative of their current plight. Good luck to him with that.

I guess they are striking before the administrator tells them that they must keep the services going. As we are in limbo, with no administrator at the moment, they have, quite rightly siezed their opportunity. poor old pompey

Trevor Birch at PKF is the HMRC preferred choice as administrator (sorry wibble beat me to it)

What do we reckon then? Baker Tilly for administrator? Nobody stepping forward to fund the adminsitration process? Baker Tilly will very quickly do the maths, realise that the risk lies with them, and pull the plug, voluntary liquidation during the early part of next week? Or am I wetting the bed?

surely you can find us a nun in a judge's wig?

is that like being late for your own funeral?

Remember that John Barnes advert for lucozade or something similar..... "After 90 minutes of sheer hell...." I've got work to do, doesn't the court realise this?

So if HMRC are challenging UHY appointment and they win, presumably Baker Tilly become the administrators. At that point, I think the acid test is how much value will they place on PFC assets? I think football/accounting practice allows you to value playing staff on a basis of what you paid for them, depreciated in a straight line over the course of their contract, so anyone want to do the homework on what they paid for their current squad (shouldn't take long, it's the smallest squad in the league....) What else have they got, ground + goodwill + debtors + cash in bank ? I just can't see this little lot being greater than the £50m+ that we can find as creditors. So, if Baker Tilly is appointed, surely they will admit insolvency on both counts (cash flow and net assets) and shut the door? Portsmouth City Council and Miss (lackofmoney) Penny haven't thought this through have they? Or is this a case of damned if they do (appoint UHY) and damned if they don't?

That was the thought at the start of the season, certainly. But nobody is achieving that (West Ham included). So, by my maths, Cardiff and Brum are achieving the best points per game ratio of the chasing pack, currently standing at 8 points behind the 2 points per game curve. If they hold that ratio, then they will end up on 84 points. But they have both dropped 8 points against this metric thus far, so I dont think it is unreasonable for both of them to drop some more (against the 2 points per game ratio). So, I reckon third place will get 82 points. We need 83 or a better goal difference. 27 points from 15 games. 8 wins, 3 draws, 4 defeats, or 9 wins, 6 defeats... not easy, but certainly doable

Eat a pie, Neil Shipperley, your shorts will fit, no matter how you grow woh ho ho (love you really Neil)

Fair play for answering the question posed to you yesterday, and given the points you have raised I can understand why there is so much of a distance between your opinion and others on here. As a balancing view, as requested; 1. A right midfielder has too roles to play. One is attacking, and you're right that we didn't see Guly wip over many balls yesterday, in part because he was ably supported by his right back, who we did see wip over balls with some regularity yesterday, but it is Guly joining up with Richardson that allowed this to happen. The second role for a right midfielder is to help defend, to track movement from the opponents midfield and to provide cover for the full back. He did this very capably yesterday. 2. Once again, your comment that Guly covered no more ground than Lallana or Cork is right. However people weren't lauding Guly's athleticism, they were defending him against another's view that his performance was abysmal. Had someone posted that Cork was abysmal, people would have bought his ability to cover the turf into view. 3. Perhaps he could have been more agressive with his challenge with the 50/50 with their keeper, personally I thought the keeper was favourite to get there first. Other than that, I think you have to consider that with Sharp, Lambert and Lallana on the field it would be very easy to start looking like a 4-2-4 formation, if Guly pushes too far up the field. 4. Defensively, I think whoever plays in this position (Guly or SDR are perhaps two obvious examples), is potentially prone to switching off. Guly's defensive performance yesterday was faultless. He was always in the right place, happy to track back and happy to put his foot in. This isn't always the case, and it is easy to judge a player on previous games, rather than the last 90 minutes, but I don't think he could receive too much criticism for his defensive performance yesterday. 5. Racist bit. Nah I don't believe you're being judgemental in any way because of his race. It's an easy thing to throw out there, particularly in the light of recent media coverage of other teams/players, but I'm not seeing that here. So, I accept people are entitled to their opinion, as I also posted on the Guly watch thread, I think 75% of the crowd gave him a standing ovation off (FWIW I didn't), but I still think it is one of the best shifts we've seen from Guly. And let's face it, it'd be a boring forum if we all agreed with each other

Always difficult to gauge, but when Guly was substituted yesterday, I would suggest three quarters of the ground stood and applauded him off the field. If 75% of the crowd thinks he merited a standing ovation, then I would suggest the majority of the support thought he had a good game. 25% of people either couldn't be arsed to stand up (me included), or didn't think he had a good game.

REALLY? Genuinely, do you think he was ****e today? I thought he tracked back, he chased, he harried, he ended up at one point playing right full back to cover... IMO that was the best performance from Guly in a Saints shirt. So, if you think he was sh1te and I think that was his best performance, one of us is wide of the mark

Completely agree. I was reading the WHU forums a fews days ago and the sentiment was "keep the points tally over southampton, then beat them, and we'll be 7 points clear of second, or still be top even if we lose". Now, if they lose, we're top, pressure is firmly on WHU for tuesday...

superb all round performance, but for anyone without a good view of the second goal, it wasn't Sharp's it was an own goal. I not even sure Sharp touched it, but it certainly went in off the defender. We've had a few bits of pinball in the opponents area in recent weeks, just not able to convert, whereas today we got that bit of luck to go 2-0. That said, thoroughly deserved it, and we're back into the opposing manager telling the media that his side hasn't played that badly for ages, lovely. bring on west ham