The Kraken

Good stuff. Shows how criticial the next 6 games are. 2 "mustn't lose" away games against Villa and Wigan, plus tough games against Man United, Man City, Chelsea and Everton. Its very unlikely we'll get anything out of United and Chelsea away, plus City at home is an almighty challenge. Really need to capitalise with the other games; if we lose points to either of Villa and/or Wigan it'll be an enormous blow.

I imagine a lot of the cost cutting has been done as PKF realise they could be seriously in the sh*t if they continue to run a loss making business. They've clearly already hoovered up whatever working capital there was and the club's very existence is reliant upon HNW contributions, so they're pretty much insolvent without that financial backing. Tricky Trev is on shaky ground there, if he's allowing an insolvent business to continue to trade, PKF could find themselves in serious hot water. Especially so as the PDT are not necessarily the only game in town; Portpin haven't (yet) failed the Owners and Directors Test so they're still a potentially viable prospect. Trev has given exclusivity to the PDT at the expense of the financial sustainability of the club; that's a huge thing for a court appointed administrator to do. And if the creditors (i.e. Portpin) have now exerted pressure on Birch to prove that the club can be run sustainably, or they'll object to the ongoing administration (which I imagine they will do/would have done in court) then Birch has a sudden problem on his hands as to how to fiddle the books to show the club can be/is on an even keel. If Portpin can/want to argue in court that the club should be killed as there is no way of salvaging it, I think Trickster might have a very hard job convincing the court that they're wrong, or that he's done a good job with his £3M - £4M expenses clocked up to date.

Poorly executed WUM. Zero subtlety. Registered since 09 but hardly posted at all until recently. Only 4 posts in total; 2 separate threads dedicated to RDM being appointed. Obvious WUM is obvious. Come on pal, you're not even putting the effort in.

This is incredible. There's genuinely going to be no-one left! Connolly must be looking around wondering where everyone went!!

As ever pap, I do enjoy your prose.

To be honest I'd have to take my time to decide between Astori with a blindfold on and Hooiveld without one....

Dammit. I'd just had a think about it and changed mine to agree with you.

Nonsense my dear Bear. The forum is often a gathering of wonderful minds and a sharing of boundless opinion.

I would if he could have a couple of days of training. Any less and probably not. As he is so massively better than anything we have already, I'd be willing to give a little more leeway. Unless its done tomorrow I'd suggest (if it gets done at all) he won't be in for Villa.

Nah, you're talking b*llocks now pap. A debate is where you exchange ideas, go into it with an open mind and on some occasions allow your opinions to be altered (or even reversed). I'll wager that Alpine has never, ever admitted he is wrong about anything (he has been countless times of course, with some absolutely fabulous whoppers that he still somehow sticks by). In fact on another post yesterday when I called him up on his negative predictions for Saints upcoming matches, where he had predicted 1 draw and 5 defeats (we actually had 3 wins 2 draws 1 defeat) he even tried to lie and deny his idiocy, saying that his prediction had been pretty good. Don't get me wrong, its trolling and WUMmery of the highest degree, but please don't try and call it debate. It isn't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one to call for bannings and wouldn't in this case either. In fact I've said before that I enjoy having Alpine around as he's exactly the kind of ignorant and illogical buffoon you need to have around to laugh at their sheer bloody minded stupidity and keyboard thumping anger.

I'll defer. My maths have been up the spout all day. I just figured 2M net at 50% tax is (very roughly) 4M gross, and before NI is around 4.5M euros per annum. Christ knows if that's right. I hope not, anyway. I used to be good at maths. Top set at school, passed my GCSE a year early, did it at A Level. Where did it all go wrong?

MLG, I'm disappointed with you my boy. I thought you had learnt from those thieves at the other end of the M27. Unlike them, this football club pays National Insurance contributions. Net pay is 2m euros per year; before tax 4m euros. NI is 12%. Total gross pay is therefore probably around 4.5M euros per year, or 86,538 euros per week. Which is around £72,000 per week. Yikes.

Its got to be the boy Lambert for me, Jeff.

Sorry did I say week? I clearly meant day. Or hour. Or something. Sod this, my brain hurts. I'm going to play 5 a side.

Indeed. Gaston was so honest he went public with exactly how much he is on! Good lad; if you've got it, flaunt it.

I'd hardly say its the norm. Average wages for the Premier League last year were still less than £25K per week. This is way more than double that. Gaston's deal was £2M per week net plus a £1M signing bonus. Or, to put it another way, in his first year his contract was worth close to £100K per year. A figure that Cortese himself said he wouldn't consider paying unless we had a 50k stadium. Gaston is on (and Astori is apparently being offered) a contract that put s a buyout on them at their purchase price if we go down. If the others on teh books don't have relegation clauses (they surely must have) then relegation could be a crippler.

Yep, sounds like we could be being used as a leverage for a deal closer to home. £2M net a year is an enormous wage for a club our size. Same as Gaston too. That worries me; so much for living within our means.

This season, photographed in the Echo at least twice that I've seen (sat behind Cortese).

Apart from them being photographed still turning up to matches? Or are you not including that?

Not really, no. Rodriguez was bought in the summer, and the more I hear about it the more I'm sure it was as a direct replacement for Lambert. Such was the priority placed on his signature. Lambert was being offered around for transfer out of the club in the summer, and from what I hear it got fairly close to him going. He still hasn't got the contract he wants, and I'm absolutely sure he won't be here next season if things stay as they are right now. I'm not dismissing Rodriguez; I'm saying he's not turned out as the signing he was intended to be. And he certainly hasn't turned out to be the signing we needed for this season IMO.

Sturridge is a classic example of a young British talent who came up through a big club, got a move to another big club and failed to push on. I feel we don't even know his true ability level; at Bolton on loan he was a goal machine (8 goals in 12) but he simply hasn't done it at Chelsea. I actually can't see what role is in store for him at Liverpool. There's talk of Suarez playing more wide as he used to used in Holland, but Suarez is on fire right now and Rodgers would surely be stupid to do anything to quash that momentum. Rodgers is already saying that Sturridge is "nowhere near fit" (which is slightly bizarre in itself, he shouldn't be too far away) so I guess he'll build up his fitness and we'll see from there. I find it a slightly odd signing, but only in that I don't know where he'll play. But he's not a winger, he's a centre forward and as you say I think he'll get limited opportunities to actually play there.

You're such a bully.

I'm done here. But congratulations, you've completed your aim of being the centre of attention pantomime villain yet again. Keep on trolling, troll.

Troll.