The Kraken

£1.5M sounds like an awful lot of money to pay for an average Championship defender. He's obviously a good player; my mate is a Palace fan and says he's been one of their better players in the last few years and would be gutted to see him go for less than a million. But to me it seems like a huge sum of money. Still, in Pards we trust...

Rubbish draw.

And another one. Put your bravado aside. We lost to Colchester. Thay just lost to Preston 7-0. Preston are struggling massively in the Championship. Skatesmouth are a league above Preston. We're below them for a while. It's unfortunate, but we are. Next year, they'll be on the way down while we're on the way up. But it's not the time to gloat. Not yet.

The perfect example of most things wrong with this site; people who don't go to games and criticise individual players on a performance they haven't seen. Saga hasn't been on the bench for many a week, he clearly wants to go. Pardew has confirmed that and cup-tieing him will reduce his value; and we have nothing to gain by playing him in a competition we are never going to win. Connolly needs rest, and this is the perfect game to allow him it. But carry on. You weren't at the game so you're clearly well placed to comment.

Another loon that thinks we'll beat a Premier League team. I agree with the old faces line, but to think we'd get near giving them a good game is tremendously naive.

Unfortunately I agree with Steve; it really is a massive drop that we have been through in the past 5 years and, as awful as they are looking in the Prem, the blue filth are still streets ahead of us on the pitch. I don't like saying it, but it's obviously true, at least for now. Next year is a different proposition but this year I'd be very happy to stay away from our fishy poor relations.

If it's money you're after you want Man U away; equal share of gate receipts between the two teams in FA Cup games.

Arsenal away. A London away day,, and I've not been to the new library yet. Mind you, watching us get thumped by their third string would be a bit humbling.

Correct. Yellow card amnesty was brought forward to 31st December for this season.

Exactly right St Marco; I doubt there is a team in the league (including Leeds and Norwich) that wouldn't find a place for Lambert in the side. He's as good a striker as we could possibly hope for at this level. And he's the closest thing I've seen at the club since we lost Beattie; a real handful for any defence and with excellent close control and finishing to boot. He doesn't lose very much in the air either. We're very lucky to have him in the side.

It's a sad indictment when you get criticised for scoring 30 yard free kicks.

We do seem to be stumbling somewhat of late; too many games where I've come away thinking that we won despite not playing very well. No matter how good the team you can't keep doing that. I've always thought that on our really decent run of wins we were playing a little above ourselves, and that we were still a way from the finished article. The first team is good for this level, no doubt, but I still think that Leeds and Norwich have that little bit more than us. But then I think those two will be the ones that gets automatic promotion, so I guess that's the standard we need to aspire to, and we're not all that far away from it. At the moment we don't seem to have enough goals in us from all over the pitch; Lallana has dried up a little of late and others aren't chipping in, so it falls on Lambert's shoulders. Also, I'm never all that confident looking at a central defensive partnership of Perry and Thomas, and James just isn't a right back. But I've got faith in Pardew to do what is required, he knows better than any of us how far we have yet to go to be proper promotion favourites. The players he brought in at very short notice were just what we needed and in the main have all been good signings. You'd hope that with more time to balance up what we need we'll see some good signings in the next few days/weeks.

If they get a large loan and get relegated they'll struggle to keep up with the repayments. And that's assuming anyone is stupid enough to lend them any more money; it certainly won't be through the UK banks, though they have enough dodgy contacts to look elsewhere. Their player wage costs must still be huge; if they had the likes of James, Campbell, Defoe, Crouch, Distin etc on mega-high wages (even Utaka rumoured to be on 80K a week) then even their "low" wage earners will still be on tens of thousand per week each. It's just completely unsustainable for a club that can't even fill a 20K capacity stadium. They'll need to sell off almost all of their players that are still on those huge wages and replace them with more affordable options. Otherwise they'll just continue to pour money away and increase the debt.

That's somewhat true, but as Son of Bob and others have already said, Pompey's main attraction to new buyers is their Premier League status. They are not due to go to court for winding up until February, by which time their Premier League status may look far more precarious than it does right now. Which makes them an extremely unattractive proposition.

Yeah everyone. Get behind the team FFS! Wiltshire Saint hasn't been to a game this season, but we should get behind the team like he does. Or says. Whatever, he's obviously studied the game in some depth and is very knowledgable about such matters. WS; you're obviously a very poor wind-up, or worse, a complete moron. I'm guessing (and hoping, for your sake) it's the former.

I've got a feeling we'll start 4-5-1 for this one. Not sure about who will start on the left, perhaps Connolly in a more defensive position than normal. If Lallana is out, it'll be interesting to see how we get by without one of this season's star performers.

The pair of you may remember it the same, but you're both incorrect; it was Dan Harding that backed off and allowed Williams too much space. Just watched the goal on youtube to make sure and Mills is backing up for Harding, so very unfair to blame Mills for the goal.

I very much agree with Verbal; I very seriously doubt that Hampshire Police would allow a groundshare. Imagine the logistical nightmare they would have with 15,000 Pompey fans descending upon Southampton every other week; it would be a policing impossibility. And given Pompey's pathetic level of support, plus the fact that plenty would refuse to make St Mary's their home, the cost of policing offset against our cut of the ticket share would mean it probably wouldn't make financial sense for them either.

Wes, while I do agree with you, there's just no way it will happen. The problem lies at the heart of having supporters trusts/associations in the first place. Just relying on quotes from Joe Bloggs, Saints fan isn't enough for the print media; personalities are given credence by having a title. In the case of NI its chairman of the Saints Trust. In the same article, Mick O'Callaghan as a representative of SISA. Now I wouldn't have a clue how to "join" SISA, from what I hear it would be near impossible, yet the Echo still routinely use these mouthpieces due to the title they ascribe themselves, and I guess its a very quick and easy way to get a quote that sounds like the reporter has actually done some research. There will never be any individual who can accurately report the views of all Saints fans into one sentiment. The Echo often prints selected views from individual fans, particularly after games. However, they will always revert to the same old faces for a quick quote, just because they have a formal title. That the title itself is redundant doesn't seem to matter...

Exactly this. All this bloke has to offer is constant sermonising about what a super duper fan he is. The latest article is no different. And he doesn't half come out with some absolute nonsense. I'm not entirely sure how attendances are related to our ability to make the playoffs, but there we go. He just needs to stop spouting off about being such an uber-fan and get on with just supporting the club without criticising others who do it in their own way.

I think you only have to read a small number of the threads on that board to realise the average mentality of people who frequent it. There's some crackpots on this forum for sure, but they're eminently more tolerable than some of the complete mongtards there seem to be on there.

As spectacular as some of those mentioned are (and I'd probably go with Connolly's against Norwich) I feel a shout out to Lallana's against Norwich is worthwhile, for the fact that it was a really slick move with excellent movement and interplay that cut their defence to ribbons, with a crisp, unstoppable finish.

Because, until Feb 20th, we have 11 games to play. A number of them against some pretty decent sides in this division. Now I don't think for a minute that we should go into any league game looking for any less than a win. On an individual basis it's how we should approach every league match, home or away. That said, I feel it's entirely unreasonable to suggest that it is unacceptable for us to lose any of the next 11 games. Are you saying that if we won 10 of those games and lost against Colchester, we should deem that form as unacceptable? Besides, it's a quirk of football that you sometimes don't get the results you deserve, and through the course of the season we (and the other teams around the top) will have to endure a "shock" defeat. It what happens, and you have to look at overall form rather than focussing on one-off games. I'd suggest that, if we're looking to achieve promotion, we probably can't afford to lose more than 1 or 2 of the next 11 games. I just don't agree with the sentiment that to lose just one of them is unacceptable.

What a ridiculous thing to say.

The only way I'd support a winter break would be if the clubs were forced to actually take a break, and that any friendly fixtures (even those behind closed doors) were strictly forbidden. This will never happen with the Premier League; the greed of all involved would just mean that they'd all be off to the Far East are other far flung regions of the globe to top up the bank balance, thereby making the true value of a winter break totally redundant.