The Kraken

Looks like we're getting nowhere near a sellout for this one; still over 2,800 seats available for home fans. No tickets are available in block 43 but I've got no idea how many fans Fulham will bring; if they're a distance short of the max 3,200 allocation then I think this will comfortably be the lowest gate of the season.

E I E I E I O This thread's going to the muppet show And when that Saint Clark moves it This is what he'll sing Non-Saints related, non-Saints related, this thread is boring.

I've already mentioned various times what I thought our problem was. We played two strikers in Lambert and Rodriguez and two other attackers in Lallana and Ramirez. 4 attacking players, away from home, against one of the form sides of the division. Naive. Just because our best (and most expensive) players are all attackers, it doesn't necessarily follow that they should all play at the same time. In away games against the PL's best sides, I've previously made the point that I think there's an argument to be made in playing only one of Ramirez and Lallana. Given that Lallana is now skipper and Ramirez is the £12M man I accept it'll likely never happen, nonetheless I still maintain it should be a realistic option. Against Man City, particularly Arsenal and now Everton our full backs were exposed by a lack of support from midfield; so I'd look to strengthen in those areas. Our options were indeed slightly more limited with injuries; but as has been suggested by others I perhaps would have gone with Chalpow at RM instead of Rodriguez. On the left hand side, it wouldn't have happened of course as I don't think we have the personnel to play a tight 4-5-1 and Lallana won't get dropped; but I'd consider whether someone like Ryan Dickson could do a job there. Against lesser ranked sides there's more of an argument to line up more offensively, but against the sides we've played so far I think we've committed suicide a little with a cavalier line-up. Away against the better sides (where we'll naturally be more defensive than offensive) I think playing Lallana and Rodriguez on either wing just plays into the opposition's hands. At home I think there's a much better chance that playing 4-3-3 will work in our favour; as I've said before I hope we do that against Fulham with Mayuka instead of Rodriguez. Playing away from home is a different concept and we can't just assume that our regular attacking line-up is going to work out for us.

Why must every Saints song (or suggestion for one that matter) be a blatant copy or a bastardisation of another existing football chant?

as incredible as it sounds, they seem to have complete impunity while they are in administration. It is ironically only when they come out of administration that the new owners will be subject to scrutiny by the Football League (as if that will ever happen, heard it all before). Sh*thouse of a club with a fanbase who once again are sticking their fingers in their ears and chasing the "competitive" option. You only have to see the reaction on their forums to accusations that they're (yet again) outspending the rest of the league and living beyond their means; they jump down the throat of anyone that dares suggest it (including other League 1 club managers).

That is true, I'd forgotten that Saints are the only team that misses goalscoring opportunities and lets goals in that they shouldn't.

Hmmmm

What is truly mental is you trying to put words in other people's mouths; and saying that had we just changed the tactics we would have won, and not lost. As far as I can make out no-one is suggesting that, are they? Unless I've missed it. Most people seem to simply be suggesting that a more robust and slightly more defensive setup may have been a better idea for that particular game, and would have perhaps not left the team so exposed as playing 4 forwards clearly did.

You seem to be taking a very black and white view of it; as if you're suggesting that if we countenance trying to keep things a lot tighter that instantly means we're trying to park the bus. It doesn't. As i said in the post above our team against Everton contained 4 attackers; against an in-form side like Everton that wasn't brave, it was naive. By adopting a slightly more defensive setup we can strengthen the flanks while still playing a similar style to the one we do now.

On this point I very much agree; at least against the better sides in the division. Not only did we have Lallana and Ramirez in midfield positions, we also had Lambert and Rodriguez. That's 4 players whose natural inclination is going forwards rather than defending; its simply too open and too adventurous a line-up. Sadly, I can see that with AL as captain and Ramirez as the £12M man we will never drop either of them. I've said it before but in a more compact and tighter line-up I'd much prefer to someone like Jack Cork or JWP at RM (when injuries permit) and, given the paucity of options on the left side, I'd even suggest Ryan Dickson could have a part to play. Our current options out wide of Lallana, Rodriguez, Puncheon and Guly are all attacking options that expose the defence. Chaplow is really the only other option who has played a decent number of games last season.

I think it depends when they actually get taken over. There are a number of signs pointing to the possibility that their current players are being paid wages that are simply not sustainable within the business plans of either the trust or Portpin. Birch has got them on month to month contracts and it will become the new owners' responsibility to bring the wage bill into shape once he's left; there are signs that may be a very tough ask: - at the beginning of summer Portpin indicated they would progress with a wage bill of £4K per player per week. - Appleton attracted and took on pre-season a number of players (including Brian Howard, Lee Williamson, Luke Rodgers, Izale McLeod etc etc) with that budget figure in mind. Brian Howard stated that he turned down a 3 year contract offer from a Championship club; Lee Williamson turned down a £3.5K per week offer from Sheffield United. - a few days before the start of the league season, Portpin formally announced that they wouldn't sustain a £4K budget, and the new budget would actually be £1.5K per player per week. - Appleton went to the press and proclaimed that Pompey would definitely be relegated with that budget, that it had totally scuppered his plans, and he now had to go out and find 20 new players that he could afford within that wage bill, as the ones he had were recruited on the promise of the orignal budget figure. - still, in the following 3 or 4 days, Pompey signed 10 players that had been involved with them at various points through pre-season, a good deal of them right from the start. - Appleton has often proclaimed that Pompey's wage budget was in the bottom 2 or 3 clubs in the division. This is clearly either a daft mistake or an outright lie. Even if we take Portpin's wage budget of £1.5K per player per week, that is well in excess of many clubs in the division. Including Crawley, Walsall and Yeovil whose management have all been very forward in stating that Pompey are attracting players that many other clubs in the league simply cannot afford. - even now Pompey are attracting players like Akos Buszacky from QPR (who turned down a 1 year deal with QPR to go month to month with pompey). Appleton claims that Buszacky has accepted a minimal wage, which kind of contradicts rumours that Bristol City and Barsnley both failed with deals for the player. So I think there's a very dangerous risk that Birch is still operating on the original £4K per player per week budget, and is using the parachute payment received in September to fund this (and PKF's ever increasing bills, of course). When the club moves into the hands of new owners, there may be sme very difficult decisions to be taken regarding the level of the playing staff budget. Also, Tricky Trev's bills as of August 16th stood at £1.3M, plus another £550K in legal and other associated costs. Since then PKF have managed the bid process and it's fairly likely that the total bills will have surpassed £2.5M by now. These bills will be paid first when a takeover goes through, and unfortunately for the Trust, that's money that they had previously budgetted to run the club, keep it solvent, and be able to afford the player deferral payments. In short, Pompey could be in deep sh*t. Not only could they have an unsutainable wage bill, they'll be saddled with -10 points and perhaps have to recruit a team of players they can actually afford (or, God forbid, play the youth team).

The Laughing Man was one of my favoruites! So obviously an infiltrator but they just didn't twig; top work Ess.

Not sure why Chainrai gets so much bad press; he's been a Pompey fan for years...

He was obviously a bit of a wrong 'un in some respects. This youtube clip from the Louis Theroux documentary about him shows a much darker side to his public persona; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84u9WnylT60 He admitted (during his dance hall management days) how he used to treat troublemakers, by tieing them up in the cellar and "acting as judge, jury and executioner".

He he, I saw that one this morning. Scumfinder General really doesn't realise how poor he is at his self-appointed role, does he?! I'm still there, as are seemingly quite a few others. Do let us know when you think you've caught us though Fratts; I'm not sure if its the fact that you clearly love it so much ("best fun I've had in ages" I think you described it as) or the fact that your scatter gun approach has probably snared as many genuine Pompey fans as it has fackin scummahs. And, not least, that you haven't yet found "the one we really wanted".

I think its another one to add to the "if only we took all our chances and had a different keeper" list. West Ham have largely been without their top summer signing this season, Andy Carroll, since the opening day; so it's no use bleating about injuries as if we're the only side that suffers from them.

I'm sure Balram will be straight on his PC to answer in full all of those entirely fair and relevant questions.

What happens if we have some injuries and don't play to the top of our form?

We're probably going to have to win 3 or 4 games away from home to stay up anyway; that's just common sense, and is what the teams who stayed up last season did. In fact Bolton got relegated after winning 6 away games.

Likely because the tickets will not on be on a sale or return basis (i.e. if the club don't sell 3,000 tickets they have to pay for the shortfall). This always used to be the case, and was often why in the PL last time we didn't take the full allocation. Personally I don't think there would be any problem selling 3,000 tickets for a London game, but the club perhaps thought otherwise.

The problem is that, right now, we have a sincere shortage of those types of player.

It depends if we learn from our mistakes and adopt a tighter method of play or not. If we persist with Lallana and Ramirez playing alongside two other strikers then I think our away points are going to be exceptionally limited. If we learn how to shut up shop and keep it tight then we'll do better. I'll say 10 points.

I think at home the formation can work; in fact I hope we continue with it for the Fulham game, I'd have Lallana on the left and Mayuka on the right. Away from home, much less so. I think there's a case for setting up with a strong midfield 3 and only one of Lallana and Ramirez. There's not a great deal of options at the moment, but away from home against decent sides we have to be a lot tighter, and eventually I'd prefer to see someone like Jack Cork at RM and perhaps even someone like Fox or dare I say it Dickson at LM. Blatantly we don't have the personnel to play a tight system away from home, which as you say is why we're getting absolutely thumped so very often.

We'll find out very soon how we match up against them. As much as they may get criticised for the way they play, Sam has got them set up brilliantly, and they're tough to beat (as evidenced by their keeping three clean sheets so far). And if Andy Carroll is back on form by the time we play them he'll run riot against Fonte or Yoshi; wouldn't be surprised of Hooiveld gets a game to combat the aerial challenge.

If Saints have that run against those teams then I'd certainly say it was a very impressive set of results. Personally I consider 3 wins and 2 draws from any 6 teams in the Premier League is very impressive for a newly promoted team.