The Kraken

:lol:

To be fair to Reading, especially in the second half that's the most I've seen Rickie beaten in the air by the opposition defence. Like you say they were doubling up on him (and he still won his fair share), but I thought they contained him well. His touch and awareness really are first class though when he drops off; exemplified by his nutmeg pass to set the move for the goal on the way.

You may have been surprised and disappointed, Colin. But neither I nor any of the lads I was with were. In fact I thought it was a good subsitution at the time, and so it proved. Rodriguez had been all sorts of average but he put in a decent shift and was tiring. We were 1-0 up and just needed to hold out; Guly gave us an option to hold the ball up and give more of an outlet. He played well, and got himself into a brilliant position where he could/should have scored, but the keeper did well. I don't know what people expect from Guly. He's not good enough to start (but then neither is Rodriguez IMO) but he's good enough as a squad player as he can replace any of Lallana, Puncheon, Lambert or Rogriguez to a decent degree.

If you've got proof it was "only" £6M Matthew, I'll go with that. Until then, I'll go with the figure I've heard from my sources which is a total figure of the deal of £7M. In any case; you're still massively missing the point. Yet. Again. Its not about who do we play instead of Lambert; its why we spent £7M on someone who isn't good enough to challenge our main striker; someone who will potentially only be good enough in years to come. It was entirely the wrong priority of player for us at the point in time we came to this league.

Missing the point. Yet. Again. £7M on squad strength. You think we should spend £7M on reserve players to make our squad deeper, and maybe hope for soemthing in one, two, three seasons time. Good for you, I don't.

I'm fully aware of that. What's that got to do with what I said? One is ready for the Premier League, one isn't.

I thought JRod was the very definition of average today; not a Premier League footballer. Not yet, and being harsh I don't think he ever will be. The difference between him and Rickie Lambert is night and day, and just like Rodriguez this is Lambert's first season in the top league. Guly; I like him, and he fits into our system really well (if not as a starting player). And he did really well when he came on today (I thought we looked much better than with Rodriguez). And to the many, many absolute c*nts that booed him: quite frankly, f*ck you all. I mean that: to anyone who booed; f*ck you. And full credit to the Northam for getting well above the ignorant pr*cks in our crowd and getting behind the man, full credit for that.

This is brilliant. The latest marketing wheeze from down the road is to send out emails from the club, advertising upcoming games. Revolutionary, right?! Anyway, good to see them catching up. The emails are dressed up as a "personal letter" from manager Guy Whittingham, where he commends Pompey fans as being the bestest and most loyal in the world before asking why they have been so bestest and loyal lately, and would they like to redress that balance starting from Saturday. Its absolutely fantastic how much they promote their own hype as being the bestest! All 12,000 of them. Bless.

They had a discussion about this on the radio the other week; a couple of the pros suggested miking up the referees as they do in rugby, as that would instantly cut out a huge proportion of players talking back. I'd also have a sin-bin system instead of just a yellow card, where you also get 10 or 15 minutes off the field for any verbal indiscretion. Refs are always going to be wary of dishing out yellow and especially red cards for a bit of chat so that might give them license to cut down on it without ruining a game by sending off two or three culprits. Rugby seems to work quite well from having a sin-bin system for any yellow card; and it might also cut down on cynical time wasting and diving too if there's a proper deterrent.

What are you doing?

She was the people's receptionist.

Pini Zahavi and Kia Joorabchian will be rubbing their greedy fat fingers with glee.

Me too. I tried the match threads once or twice this season; good Lord.

Actually its "if you could do one thing this afternoon, what would it be". http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/15126250 #nerd

or are losing or drawing at any point during the game.

It's easy but it takes about 5 minutes to put it together. You have to just go into the normal booking system and click into each section and keep a running total of available seats (it lists the number of available seats at the top of each page). I cheated a tiny bit for this one, from memory I know that typically blocks 22 thru 42 are usually pretty much full with a scattering of free seats, also blocks 5 - 10, so I predominantly looked at the other blocks (11-19 are the ones where the empties usually are) and added an extra 100 for the other blocks I didn't bother checking.......)

The "Pack the Park" scheme is going into overdrive this weekend. Pompey want to say a big thank you to the fans for another year of incredible support. To show our gratitude, we’ve got some great ticket offers to get everyone into the festive Fratton spirit. A family ticket (two adults and two juniors) to watch the Blues take on Preston on Saturday, December 15 costs just £30 – saving supporters an incredible £30. But we’re not forgetting our loyal season ticket holders, who can buy up to four extra tickets for family and friends for half price (adult: £10, senior/young person: £7.50, junior £5). The Preston game will also see Pompey in the Community (PitC) host the first ever Santa Saturday, with fantastic activities taking place throughout the day. It costs just £10 for adults and £8 for under 16s to take part and the price includes a limited edition blue Santa suit. Bring your blue Santa suit to the ticket office and you can buy a ticket for the Preston match for half price (adult: £10, senior/young person: £7.50, junior £5). Click here for more information about Santa Saturday or call PitC on (023) 9272 8899.

You miss the point, really. The "best people for the job" often aren't interested in doing the job or are put off from refereeing entirely because of the verbal and sometimes physical abuse they are subjected to. Ask yourself how many rugby refs, cricket umpires etc are former professionals. Loads of them. How many football referees are former players? Hardly any of them. Why? Because they know the abuse that refs get, the abuse they themselves used to dish out, would be unacceptable to them. You mention managers getting sacked for under-performing; fine, there's hundreds waiting to step in. There is a massive shortage of officials at a national level, at grass roots level there simply aren't enough refs to go round already before you start sacking one and all of them for not living up to your exacting standards. Sometimes you get what you deserve; if football as a whole thinks the standard of refereeing is not good enough then it only has itself to blame for allowing a culture to develop over a period of decades which allows such intimidationary tactics to be used towards the officials, such that its seen as a job from hell rather than a natural career choice.

That would be a reasonable estimate I reckon. Not terrible by any means; just a surprise to not get through 30K given the proximity of the two sides.

I don't, but this shows the current total and average home league attendances for the PL. [TABLE=class: tablehead] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-360] [TD=align: right]1 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Manchester United [/TD] [TD=align: right]528,312 [/TD] [TD=align: right]75,473 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-359] [TD=align: right]2 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Arsenal [/TD] [TD=align: right]420,681 [/TD] [TD=align: right]60,097 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-361] [TD=align: right]3 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Newcastle United [/TD] [TD=align: right]397,082 [/TD] [TD=align: right]49,635 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-382] [TD=align: right]4 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Manchester City [/TD] [TD=align: right]374,590 [/TD] [TD=align: right]46,823 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-364] [TD=align: right]5 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Liverpool [/TD] [TD=align: right]357,783 [/TD] [TD=align: right]44,722 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-363] [TD=align: right]6 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Chelsea [/TD] [TD=align: right]333,117 [/TD] [TD=align: right]41,639 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-366] [TD=align: right]7 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Sunderland [/TD] [TD=align: right]241,613 [/TD] [TD=align: right]40,268 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-368] [TD=align: right]8 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Everton [/TD] [TD=align: right]256,102 [/TD] [TD=align: right]36,586 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-367] [TD=align: right]9 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Tottenham Hotspur [/TD] [TD=align: right]287,961 [/TD] [TD=align: right]35,995 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-362] [TD=align: right]10 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Aston Villa [/TD] [TD=align: right]242,080 [/TD] [TD=align: right]34,582 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-371] [TD=align: right]11 [/TD] [TD=align: left]West Ham United [/TD] [TD=align: right]275,596 [/TD] [TD=align: right]34,449 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-376] [TD=align: right]12 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Southampton [/TD] [TD=align: right]243,110 [/TD] [TD=align: right]30,388 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-336] [TD=align: right]13 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Stoke City [/TD] [TD=align: right]189,751 [/TD] [TD=align: right]27,107 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-381] [TD=align: right]14 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Norwich City [/TD] [TD=align: right]185,919 [/TD] [TD=align: right]26,559 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-370] [TD=align: right]15 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Fulham [/TD] [TD=align: right]178,915 [/TD] [TD=align: right]25,559 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-383] [TD=align: right]16 [/TD] [TD=align: left]West Bromwich Albion [/TD] [TD=align: right]200,461 [/TD] [TD=align: right]25,057 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-338] [TD=align: right]17 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Reading [/TD] [TD=align: right]168,682 [/TD] [TD=align: right]24,097 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-318] [TD=align: right]18 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Swansea City [/TD] [TD=align: right]162,795 [/TD] [TD=align: right]20,349 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: oddrow team-600-350] [TD=align: right]19 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Wigan Athletic [/TD] [TD=align: right]145,989 [/TD] [TD=align: right]18,248 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: evenrow team-600-334] [TD=align: right]20 [/TD] [TD=align: left]Queens Park Rangers [/TD] [TD=align: right]124,023 [/TD] [TD=align: right]17,717 [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] http://soccernet.espn.go.com/stats/attendance/_/league/eng.1/barclays-premier-league?cc=5739

Around 2,100 home seats still available to buy; just under 500 of those in Block 43. The whole of Block 43 isn't available; only around 1/3 of it. I'd imagine (given the non-capacity turnout from both sides) that the segregated area will be fairly sizeable to make stewarding a bit simpler.

Our average attendances are actually very good this season; 30,300 so far. Which is pretty much in line with anything we used to average in the Premier League before.

Especially so when they filled the 3,200 last season for a Friday night game. And this is almost as much of a local derby as they're likely to get.

My head agrees. My heart is unsure.

One off the radar; Tal Ben Haim is training with QPR ahead of a potential move. Oh Harry Good news for us though.