ooh it's a corner

Just going to give this gem from the 1st May, a little bump.... I will enjoy it even more if us and Stoke are 2-0 up inside the first ten minutes.

I think the mistake we made was the transfer price ceiling. We got used to buying players in the 10-12 million bracket and when the tv money shifted northwards, we tried to continue to buy in that space. I acknowledge we spent 15-19 million on a clutch of players (Boufal/Gabbi/Carillo/Lamina) but we perhaps needed to shift to 20-25 million to keep pace. The additional price doesn't guarantee success, but you can buy proven attitude from other premier league clubs for that money. Ultimately, stop buying crap players and only buy Chris Marsden types and we'll be fine next year :-)

2 wins, 2 draws from the last four fixtures. Better form that Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal and Tottenham. Timely. Well done Hughes.

Stoke will beat Swansea. A team playing with pressure versus a team with no anxiety. The technical abilities of both sides are similar, Stoke will win. And Hudders will lose 0-4 to Chelsea and 0-5 to Arsenal and we won't even finish 17th Dalek will be gutted. (only kidding young man)

That is the most nervous I have ever been listening to a game on the radio. The fans sounded fantastic, well done to all of you who travelled. fecking brilliant. The squad is weaker than the past 4 seasons (if not before) but they are not as bad as the table would indicate. Hughes will win more than 6 games in a season with this lot. I hope he enjoys his bonus. He bloody deserves it. Looking forward to Stoke and Saints scoring within the first ten minutes next week.

holy ****, defender for centre forward. flat back four.

bookmakers still have us as favourites to win this. Not by much, but still favourites. Come on Saints, you've got a goal in you, we know this.

makes you wonder if the shenanigans will continue during the game? slow ball-boy activities for one side, using deflated balls occasionally? It wouldn't surprise me if Swansea time waste from the off, thinking a point is better for them than us, but we just need to recognise over 90 minutes we will get chances to score. Rise above it Saints and just beat them.

on the bench tonight. A chance to come on and score a last minute winner and secure his place in folk-lore?

School-boy error. I'm not meant to be drinking during the week, but have two bottles of Doombar looking at me. Two. Just two. I'm going to open one, but with the nerves being so high, they'll both be long gone before kick off. So, beer run now? Beer run after the first? Or watch it after two and only two? Or head to the pub and watch it there? #firstworldproblems

It's all down to expectations I reckon. Once you become established in the premier league, and nobody thinks you have a chance of getting relegated, then you are expected to be knocking on the door of Europe. Once you have tasted European football, your fans (and possibly your board) expect you to qualify every season. It's almost like there is a greed amongst all the clubs to over achieve and nobody wants to settle for mid-table obscurity, but ultimately, there are only so many top table seats to go round. Burnley will feel this next season.

This is what is wrong with football in this country. I appreciate the nature of this thread and the mocking of our rivals, but for a third tier professional football club to have to close their U23's side due to cost, has to be detrimental for the development of young players in England. What does it cost to run an U23's team? 100k, 250k, 500k? The premier league money ought to fund each and every 92 league club's youth development programs. It might be Portsmouth and reason to poke fun, but it actually saddens me. All the more so when players are resorting to LinkedIn to try to get their next contract (and presumably pay cheque).

Three pages of 1 star reviews. Very funny and not one response from Serban V. the front office manager. His last post was against a complaint from a customer whose room was not ready because Chelsea FC had stayed the night before and too many rooms had been vacated on the same day, with not enough time/staff to ready them. Perhaps he just doesn't like the agro of a 40 room get out, caused by premier league footballers coming to town. Bless. I bet they are wishing they'd just honoured the booking...

Teams in the bottom half of the premier league are not good enough to guarantee their clean sheet. Swansea can try to play for a draw and then hope to better our result on the final day, but that is a very high risk policy. I think Swansea will try to win, just as much as we will. Only 6 points from the two games guarantees Swansea's safety. 4 points and they would likely stay up. Lose to us and they are almost certainly relegated. Draw with us and it is out of their hands. They have to be minded to try to win. As do we. Two crap teams, both needing a win. Should be a cracking, low quality, game of footie

we're going to get a point at Everton and Swansea will lose to Bournemouth, Stoke lose to Palace. We will beat Swansea and that will be that, barring a very large swing in goal difference. We will enjoy the Man City game with the sun on our faces.

Why do foreign investors get suckered in with this stuff? Surely if he realised he needed to move the stadium, he would have understood what restrictions there were on the current one? Surely he would have spent a little bit of time thinking, "I wonder if anyone else has ever tried to move a football stadium out of the city it is currently in?". These folks have a lot of money and a distinct lacking in common sense. Fratton Park will never be allowed to be built outside of the city of Portsmouth, which is the most densely populated patch on this little island of ours. They had their chance to build a better stadium by turning it through 90 degrees and using the land alongside it. They chose not to do that. They are now stuck with a time-warp of a stadium that must be getting to the age where it would be cheaper to tear it down and rebuild, rather than maintain it each and every year. What on earth did Mr Eisner think he was going to achieve? Buy the club for £5m, sell Fratton Park for £50m and build a 15,000 seater stadium in Havant and trouser the difference? Mental.

There was a lot of internet noise about pompey fans joining in yesterday, which is probably why there was such an over-the-top presence. #fakenews

https://mobile.twitter.com/peckham86/status/990356595455479810?s=12 Bury's goal. Really rather funny.

We played boring football under Puel. We played worse football under Pellegrino. Everyone would have sooner had Puel than Pellegrino, but that doesn't change the fact that we were boring under Puel. I was surprised we sacked Puel, but not disappointed. I would have Hughes over Puel every day of every week. Assuming Puel gets fired in the summer, I don't think we will see him in the Premier League again.

What happens if we get a point against Everton and Bournemouth beat Swansea? We will step out of the bottom three on goal difference, meaning that our game in hand against Swansea becomes a "don't lose" game, rather than a "must win". We'll all take a point away at Everton and I think 4 points sees us safe. It might be as few as two points.....

Pleasing to see some of the yellows that we picked up yesterday means that the players have listened to Hughes about being too nice. Lots of fouls in the middle of the park, when we wrong side. Sensible, professional football.

It is this sort of behaviour that alienates these overpaid young men from the people who pay to go watch them. And this isn't isolated to SFC, or even the Premier League. It's only at League One levels that this type of behaviour is rare and that is such a shame for this sport. What causes it? Too much wealth too young? Too many people chirping in their ear that they are the greatest thing since Maradona? I accept that the world's best sportsmen and women need a touch of arrogance, but the true greats manage to balance sporting arrogance with humility and I don't see much of this on display. It would be good to see the club offer induction training that aimed to give these guys a basic grounding. Make them work in the hospital, rather than visit sick kids. Carry bags off cruise ships, load cars onto transport boats, sweep the bloody streets, anything to make these gentlemen realise what an incredibly privileged life they lead. Then maybe they would go about their working business with a bloody great smile on their faces and what a difference that would make.

Like many on here, I think we'll be playing Championship football next season, but that is based on an awful year and the odds on us winning 2 or 3 of the remaining games... But, we are capable of winning tomorrow. I know we have forgotten what that feels like, but play with as much commitment as we did against Chelsea and we may sneak the three points tomorrow. Then the world will look a different place. Keep the faith everyone, in the fairy godmother we trust...

They have a good barometer of current levels of fan interest by the semi final. Selling tickets at £500+ for championship football next season, will see season ticket take-up plunge. Probably to the lowest levels since we left the Dell. We have been served ****e football for two seasons and there will be a wave of the better players leaving. Whatever peoples' attitudes to those who leave, the quality will be reduced. I think £450 is still steep, but would see season tickets at around 15k. Still makes the queue for the half-time toilet easier, and makes the get out simpler...

I feel sick just thinking about that scenario. Needs to be 5-0 Saints at half-time, or 0-0 until we nick the 95th minute winner, with 3 minutes of stoppage time quoted. These two scenarios are much healthier for my blood pressure.