The Kraken

While I agree with parts of what you've just said, it's the bolded bit I don't really get. It's not the 70s and 80s any more, inside the stadium there is longer dart throwing, taking the other team's end and such like; it's just banter, pretty much the only things being thrown around are words. Everyone knows that you can mouth off all you like and nothing will happen, its part of football. And long may it continue by the way, I think segregation and banter between opposition crowds are what make football the best spectator sport in the world. However, outside the ground for some it became more than banter and had the potential to escalate into something far worse. Put the numbers into context of the amount surrounding the Pompey fans cordon, and the amount of people who've been charged with anything. Despite there being a few trumped up charges (which have now rightly been dismissed) in amongst the guilty verdicts, it is only very much a minority of people that even got charged with anything in the first place; and they were charged with offenses that were a lot worse than are normally seen inside a ground.

Well whoever said that is misguided IMO. Certainly a professional footballer should never miss the target from 12 yards. However, no penalty is unsavable and if the keeper guesses the right way the penalty has to be very well struck and very well placed or it won't be going in. We may have other players who could step up, but I don't believe any of them would come close to RL's precision and power from the spot.

What a silly thing to say. No, not anyone could score a penalty. It's why MLT was so revered for his record, no-one else came close to it. At Saints we've been extremely blessed with penalty takers down the years; MLT, then Beattie who had an excellent record, and now Lambert. Penalty taking is an art, and claiming they don't count is just nonsense. Take Lambert's penalty up at Notts County, when he had to wait an absolute age in front of a baying crowd before despatching his shot into the corner. Players who have the skill to do that time and time again are in short supply.

You have a very sad and unhealthy obsession with mentioning this.

It's certainly not the tenth best in the league either.

No they didn't. Not entirely, anyway. A substantial amount of people said that Adkins had made a very good start, but that we shouldn't get carried away and that we'd learn a lot more from games against the top sides. We've just lost one of those games, and we have two games coming up that will again be a big test but that will tell us a lot about how good this team really is.

I'm not sure if I agree with that actually; I think Lambert is starting to create a really good partnership with Barnard. And I think Lambert definitely has a role in the team, he's still played as the fulcrum of the team and brings team mates into play with his general hold-up and link up play. In fact, the area of his game I've noticed he is perhaps most off colour on is his aerial dominance, last year he seemed to win absolutely everything, this year it's sometimes looked like he's struggled to get off the ground. I think he'll come good, and I also think he offers us a lot despite not being on top form. I do think he's suffered from not being fit at the start of the season, and is also having a mini crisis of confidence. A couple of goals from open play would do him the world of good.

The problem with that is that I just don't see Guly as a natural replacement for Lambert; I think he's a completely different type of player than that, and one you perhaps have to fit your team around. And Adkins doesn't seem to want to do that. As (IMO) he's not a replacement for Lambert, we simply don't have anyone else who can come in and do a better job in that role. I didn't go yesterday but have been to all the last few home games and have seen a gradual improvement from RL. Not to the extent that he's the player he was last season, he clearly isn't, but I truly believe that an off form Lambert in that role offers us more than any other player we currently have. I don't know what the solution is; clearly Lambert is enough of a potential that we have to give him time, but while he's still well off being the player he was last year, when we fail to win games some tough questions are going to be asked.

I'd take 10 points clear, rather than 10th place, thanks very much. Being mid-table doesn't suggest to me that we are "right in the mix". We're just on the fringes of it, and lets face it, this season we are under achieving. I think Adkins can get us there but we need to find winning consistency against the top sides, starting next week.

His form so far has been decent enough; games against Peterborough and Brighton will tell us a lot about where we are as a team against the top sides (which is clearly the concern at the moment). Too early to judge him now. But he's made an ok start, 8/10 in my book. I am getting a bit worried about how often we're said to be not playing that well, even when winning. I'm starting to wonder if that is just our natural level, because there's only so long you can go along supposedly playing under par.

Adkins harshest critic is going to be Cortese; if we fail at promotion this year then its touch and go whether he'll keep his job. And we obviously have not set the world alight away from home, which is an issue that needs to be addressed. The next two home games will also tell us an awful lot about this team. And I fully expect Adkins to be given funding for 2, maybe 3 players in the transfer window to really start turning this into his team.

Agreed. Sky bang on about it being the "best league in the world TM". Stoke v Blackburn, Blackpool v Wigan, Birmingham v Wolves, Bolton v West Brom. I wouldn't pay money to be anywhere near games like that. Give me a trip to Dagenham & Redbridge any day!

I don't disagree. Even Arsenal, who are considered to be small spenders in the transfer market relative to their position, have spent over £50M on players in the last 2 years. It's kind of why its a bit of a paradox supporting Saints at the moment. While we of course aspire to be as good as we can be and in the highest division, I've enjoyed going to watch games in league 1 at least as much as when we were in the PL, sometimes I've enjoyed it more. There's a lot to be said for lower league football, even if the ultimate aim is to leave it behind.

Of course; but that wasn't the original point. It was that Spurs/Redknapp have spent a hell of a lot of money to break into the top 4.

Yes, he did... 2008/09 Inherited £40M of players signed in the summer by Ramos (Bentley, Corluka, Pavluchenko etc.) and he signed: Jermain Defoe £15M Wilson Palacios £12M Carlo Cudicini Free Pascal Chimponda £3M Robbie Keane £12M 2009/10 Kyle Naughton Undisclosed Kyle Walker Undisclosed Peter Crouch £9M Sebastien Bassong £8M Niko Kranjcar £2M Jimmy Walker Free Younes Kaboul £5M Sandro £8M So yes, I think its fair to say that Redknapp spent quite a bit of money at Tottenham.

Yes, I'm not disagreeing that it does work in some instances. But I've been in games before, including Alan Knight's testimonial (a bloody friendly) at Fratton when we were held in for what seemed like an hour and then subjected to a near riot along Goldsmith Avenue. And again similar stuff when in the PL on away games at Fratton, when we were kept in. If significant numbers of home fans are going to wait around come what may until the away end gets turfed out (as has been the case), whether it be for an hour or whatever, then there's not a lot you can do. I do think Pompey should have been kept in, but the erection of a sizeable fence was used instead as an alternative method (perhaps because the police knew that keeping in fans afterwards had failed before).

Its been mentioned before, but the whole erection of the fence was done so that they didn't have to keep the fans in. Remember the Pompey games at Fratton and keeping the fans in was not really a solution, as hundreds waited around anyway to chuck all manner of bricks, stones etc. In restrospect the fenceline didn't work perfectly this time, but keeping the Pompey fans in would have had no guarantee of success either. Its a sad state of affairs when a whole wall of police plus a big f*ck off fence are deemed insufficient prevention of trouble, and the blame is laid solely at the feet of the police.

Exactly right. Bignall was barely used anyway, and especially with Connolly now back from injury (for how long....) there's no need to take Bignall on.

I agree that names, addresses etc shouldn't be published, as it's the thorough reverse of "innocent until proven guilty". But still, it is the law and all newspapers do it, so it's not as if the Echo are being unethical about it. And they're giving fair column space to both sides of the trial argument (the judge's comments refer to the lack of evidence surrounding the two non-guilty individuals, so much so that he ordered the jury to find them non-guilty as there was no case to answer). The trial is still underway for the other 3, so reading between the lines the evidence against them is perhaps more substantial.

See above. Having a whole page devoted to a not-guilty verdict is hardly going quiet, is it?

There's a whole page feature in today's Echo about the two fans who have been found not guilty. What more do you want?

Not sure if I remember the gates being closed at the end. I do remember Hughes getting a couple of goals and also rattling the post with a long range shot; we were in the upper tier front row for the game. What a player he could have been without the injuries.

The Sky bubble would have to literally implode for £5M to make a huge difference. And if it did, and we subsequently had only gate revenues to offset the cost of the refurbishments/new stadium, I'd suggest that it will never happen.

So you want to see the newspaper article AND my comments on them? Just how much information are you looking for?

Could it though? Its widely accepted in the Prem we averaged somewhere around 30,000 per game. It largely depends how many extra fans you think we'd attract, but I'll stick with my belief as stated above that we wouldn't really need a stadium any bigger than 40K, as we'd only likely sell more than that against big 4 and its debatable if it would be a significant amount more than that in any case. Best case scenario; 10,000 extra seats sold per game, lets say sold at £35 each which was our very top price ticket last time in the Prem, that's an extra £350,000 per home game. However, its still extremely unlikely that against the likes of Blackburn, Blackpool, Wigan etc we'd get any more than the 30,000 we used to average. So I'll be generous and say that we'd get 40,000 for only half the games played. So 10 games, £350,000 per game, that's £3.5M extra per season. Add in extras such as beer, food, programmes and whatever and lets say its a round £5M extra revenue per season. £5M per season. Even setting aside the actual cost of putting those extra seats in place, £5M is not going to push us into the top 6. In today's prices that's not even one Rory Delap. When you consider that in 2010, Liverpool's revenue from domestic television was £47M; down from £50M in 2009. That's just from domestic football. And that's ten times what we could hope to achieve by simply increasing attendance. Raising attendance is a nice to have, but it's not really going to get us anywhere by itself. TV money is where the real money is to be found, where even the smallest clubs eclipse their matchday earnings by the money on offer from Sky.