Whitey Grandad

Agreed. I even gave Poortvliet 10 games although I knew it would never work.

Block 31 is now open. I called at the TO this morning at 10:45 and asked when 31 would be open and was told "possibly on the morning of the match" so I bought two seats in block 32 row FF. Then when I got to my desk in Hamble I had an email from the TO at 11:33 saying block 31 had been opened so I had to drive back to the ground to swap for my usual seats. This has all been a serious misjudgment by the TO and they have hacked off a lot of STs who would probably have gone to the game if the normal procedures had been followed. Let's hope that they will learn from this.

Make that 2

That'll be most of Portsmouth, then.

There's nothing illegal about petitioning. It's then up to the court to decide about winding up the company.

They have very few assets apart from the players. There is an outstanding loan secured against the ground, they missed an option to purchase the surrounding land, they don't own the training ground. Apart from that there is their Premiership status and that is disappearing fast. If you had a few tens of millions to invest in an English football club there are plenty of more promising options.

Is there anybody there WCDAJFU?

If I remember correctly, if a player is not paid for 2 weeks they become a free agent and the parent club receives nothing in the way of a transfer fee.

This is our money you're talking about. Why should we pay taxes and let Pompey get away with paying nothing?

I've just called the TO. Block 32 in Kingsland open at the moment, more to be opened as demand increases.

It's not clear is it? I think that they still get a two-match ban at 10 bookings before the second Sunday in April. It depends what counts as 'disciplinary action'. I think that they will receive a warning letter when they reach 5 and then a 2-match ban at 10 before April 11th 2010.

Do those figures include the liabilities from PFI?

It's -10 for going into administration with more to follow depending upon how the club exits administration and how much the creditors are paid. Luton had -10 in 2007-2008 for entering administration and then -30 in 2008-2009 , -20 from the Football League for failing to comply with their insolvency policy and -10 and -£50k from the FA for not registering payments to agents. I suspect that the Premier League has different but similar sanctions.

Well, let's say 'similarities'. Delgado comes to mind but I'm sure we can all think of others.

£80k is excessive by anybody's standards but a few years ago the average Premiership salary was over £1m a year. Part of our problem was that we had a lot of mediocre players each of whom was on what was for us at the time, big bucks.

All this discussion about our best midfield positions confirms to me that the balance is not right with the players that we have at present. I've seen very few games where we have totally bossed midfield. We have lots of good individual players who have got us some good results through moments of brilliance but we don't have a good team who play as a cohesive unit. Sometimes I think we make too many changes, but maybe AP is still trying to get a fell for his squad and what it can do. January should certainly be interesting.

We've had plenty of equivalents at Saints, to be fair. It's just indicative of the ridiculous overpayments in the hyped-up rubbish that they call the best league in the world.

Wouldn't he be playing towards our own goal if we did that? Another right-back with Harding's commitment would come in very useful. There must be hundreds out there, all of them a better option than James.

Promotion is a very long shot, even if we make the playoffs. The JPT might be a nice day out at Wembley but is not really a priority. There's no better way of getting match-fit than playing matches, especially one where the players can perhaps 'relax' a little mentally. Always play your best team.

I agree totally. It drives me up the wall when he won't get forward another 10 yards before trying to cross the ball. Crosses from deep favour the goalkeeper and defenders every time. As a right-back he is a liability. His positional play is woeful and he can't run very fast. He has an awkward running gait with his arms stretched straight out and downwards which means that he shuffles over the ground. He ball-watches a lot when we are going forwards and any opposition left-winger who picks up on it just skins him. He wasn't marking his post on Saturday when Exeter scored and I lost count of the number of times that he tried to cross when he had Antonio in front of him in space. We need a proper right-back in January or we will not make any further progress.

The small capacity may have been part of the downfall. You can't survive in the Premiership for long with a capacity of 20k.

I think you'll find it will be us and three other rivals.

I agree. We did what was necessary, and no more. There was a nervous spell after Exeter scored when we didn't get a look-in which I think is clouding some people's recollections of the game.

I totally agree with the sentiments, but I'm not surprised by the current situation. The potential was always there once the internecine struggles were replaced by a benevolent 'dictatorship'. It's just unfortunate that we had to sink to the depths of administration before we could start our revival. Old ingrained perceptions are hard to shake off though. I still talk to people who think of us as 'struggling Soutampton' and are genuinely surprised when I tell them how we are winnning so many games. I can't quite believe it myself, to be honest.

:smt038