FloridaMarlin

"It's scary. If you're trying to get a player, another agent will try to scupper that deal." So tell us how you managed to sign Loic Remy when Newcastle had the deal pretty much sewn up? Didn't you find out which London hotel Newcastle had put him up in whe he arrived from France, and nip round there and offer to bump up whatever The Magpies were playing him? Of course, when Harry does it, it's a cheeky bit of business by the cheeky cockernee barrowboy wheeler-dealer. He really is a hypocrite of the highest order. As an old journo mate of mine used to say of his days covering Bompey when Harry was manager; "You can tell when he's lying. His lips move."

Didn't you just love the converted gardens sheds stuck on the terracing that served as dugouts? Bobby Campbell looked like a man who'd had a row with his wife and was going to his shed at the bottom of the garden to have a good look through his jazz mags.

Thanks for the complement but I'm no different to most of the other posters on here. Like everybody else, I have my contacts and they tell me things. Sometimes they are spot on, other times they are a country mile wide of the mark. But again, like most people, I am not a WUM and post the information on here in good faith based on whether or not I feel it should be in the public domain and available for debate. You probably wouldn't be that surprised to find out how many people on here either work in the media or have close friends who do and have information they feel should be shared. The problem is that there is so much management and manipulation of the news agenda - and I don't just mean Saints here - that the traditional role of the media in being a watchdog to provide check and balances on those who are accountable or in positions of influence and power, is being eroded. Journalists are becoming increasingly frustrated that, for whatever reason, they are unable to use a lot of the stuff they know, in their own outlets. So they turn to forums like this to get information out there that would otherwise remain under wraps. A sign of the times.

Had an interesting chat with a mate today who had an off-the-record talk to a senior player. Far from being on the verge of revolt over Adkins' sacking, the players were not that bothered. They were bemused and a little concerned at some of his decisions and man management. For example, leaving Rickie out, or on the bench, and not telling the goalkeepers until an hour before kick-off which one of them was playing. Also, after his appearance against Chelsea, Chaplow was made to train with the youth team. You can, of course, see this as an example of how fickle players are but they certainly seem to have taken to the new regime with smiles on their faces.

Couple of questions/observations. In the early pics of the players in the stands at the Nou Camp, were those seat covers there because they'd heard Punch was on the trip? I'm not sure they are at Barca's training ground. Those rubber mats look suspiciously like the ones you use on Snow Stormers and Summit Plummet at Disney's Blizzard Beach waterpark in Orlando. Chung Lee and Maya are racing the wrong way around the Olympic Stadium track. Athletics races go anti-clockwise.

So who was the presser with? Was it with a) the driver of the removal van? b) A furniture expert? c) some member of the Pompey coaching staff, trying to ellicit sympathy? If a) "Well, we came here with a game plan, and it worked. We went with one up front in the cab, and four at the back. We've got what we've came for, I thought we did really well, we out manouvred them, and they can have complaints about the result at the end of the day." If b) "To be honest, the legs have gone on most of them, and they're looking a bit tired. On some of them the seats are over-stuffed, and in others the stuffing is spilling out. There are one or two elegant pieces, but even they have seen better days, and I don't think we'll get much for any of them." If c) "We've tried our best to keep hold of them, but to be honest, when a bigger club comes calling, you just have to let them go. One or two of them were looking a bit too comfortable so we've let them go as well. But thee's a couple in there we'll be really sorry to see go. Kanu stretched out on one of them, and Avram spent many a happy hour sat on them." And what's happening to the furniture. Is it being taken to their new training ground? The upholstery will get a big soggy at King George VI playing fields.

"Percy received a card from the Queen and a telegram from Work and Pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith." Probably a demand for pension refund as he's lived so long and taken out more than he's due.

Aren't they going to the Olympic Stadium on Montjuic? I think Espanyol used that for a while when they moved out La Sarria before moving to their new ground.

I'm loving that great big shiny silver belt buckle he's wearing. Shaw sensibly letting Puncheon have the aisle seat.

Appleton's tonsorial demands alone kept him in a full-time job.

Lives at Compton, near Winchester. A mate of mine was despatched to try and get a word with him yesterday. Mrs Adkins answered the door and politely told him in as many words to f**k off.

This. Love Ballie to bits, but he was being economic with the actualite when he put this story around. He was in a win-win situation, and Saints (in the form of Guy Askham) knew it. Had they refused him premission to talk to Man City, he would have kicked up a stink. So they gave him permission, only for Ballie to turn it on them, when Citeh threw a great wedge of cash at him, in saying by allowing him to talk it showed Saints didn't want to keep him. Unfortunately, he never got the Citeh players onside as he did his schtick with his World Cup winner's medal, where in his first meeting with them, he pulled the medal out of a velvet bag and told them: "None of you have got one of these, and none of you will be good enough to win one." They loved that.

Israel is a great place for beach holidays. Great beaches all along the Mediterranean coast. Tel-Aviv has the combo of great beach life, and a big brash city, while places like Herzliya and Netanya are smaller but with good beaches, bars and restaurants. Eilat on the Red Sea has a great selection of fantastic resort-style hotels but it's better for off-season hols as it can get searingly hot in the summer. Away from the beaches on the Med, you can easily get to Jerusalem, Massadah, or any of the many other amazing historical places in Israel. From Eilat, you can go into Jordan and Petra, or also into the Negev Desert. Went to Cuba couple of years ago. Mixed feelings on this. We went with the idea of staying in a nice five-star all-inclusive resort close enough to Havana to get their under our own steam. Trouble is, there is no joined-up public transport system in Cuba so the only way to get to Havana was to take the organised trip from the resort. The danger, therefore, is that you could be stranded in your resort for two weeks. Fair enough, the resort we went to was fantastic and had everything you would want if you are happy to spend two weeks loafing on a beach. Havana is a strange place. Travel guides will extol the virtues of its faded grandeur and ts World Heritage Site status, but in truth, it's a bit of a crumbling craphole, which desperately needs money pumping into it.

No. Not Bale II Shaw I

That's if they have any drainage. It collapsed some years ago and I'm not sure they ever repaired it. Why would they bother to spend money on Fatpipe Park when they were about to move to Super-duper Harbourdome?

A lot of sense spoken by The Kraken. As a newspaper, the Echo has a duty to all its readers, not just Saints fans. Those readers include the residents of Marchwood and the environs of the training ground who expect their paper to report on isues that might affect them, such as a major development taking place in their back garden. The Echo would have been failing in its duty as a newspaper (and risk losing credibility) if it had not reported something that was already in the public domain. If Cortese needs to take issue with anyone, it should be New Forest District Council. Hold on, he can't. All they have done is follow the planning regulations which are part of the democratic process. Let's not be under any illusions. A newspaper is primarily a business, and like any business has to make money. A newspaper's way of making money is to sell as many copies as it can. As editor of the paper, Ian Murray has to take the decisions he thinks will maximise the paper's circulation and profit. In making those decision, he has to decide between short-term gain, or a more strategic long-term view. The paper's circulation figures will determine whether he is right or wrong, and the Echo's board will decide whether to act on those figures or not. As long as you live in a democracy and accept that an essential part of that democracy is a free press - and even Leveson accepts that! - then you have to accept the foibles of the media. Besides, who is to say how far Cortese would have tried to push other envelopes with the Echo? He gets the Echo to back down on the training ground story, what next. Don't print that we're selling our best player? Can you hold off on the story that we're sacking the manager? At some point, the Echo have to draw a line in the sand. A paper can get itself into an infinite number of fights, the secret is only to get into the fights you have a chance of winning. Only Ian Murray will know whether he entered this fight with thoughts that he could win it. The problem that all papers face these days is that football clubs are now their competitors. Their websites mean they are seeking the same readership and are in the same market as newpapers. Clubs have the upper hand there, as they control access to players and the manager. It's up to fans whether they prefer the manufactured, massaged and processed 'news' that appears on the club website, or whether they prefer the objective view of an independent media organisation. I know which I prefer.

I presume you're being ironic. You need to talk to David Armstrong about that. He fully admits that nobody forced him to have cortisone jabs but his ankle is now so bad that he is a registered disabled person, all the legacy of cortisone shots. There are more harrowing details of this story but I wouldn't want to breach Spike's privacy without his permission.

Oh dear... http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/university-deliver-pompey-training-ground-blow-1-4654496 But of course, they left Wellington SG of their own volition, they weren't chucked off or asked to leave, or anything like that, no, honestly. I liked this: "It is understood they are not keen to broker an agreement with the club while they are still in administration. In a statement, Paul Tilley, the University of Portsmouth’s head of sport and recreation, said: ‘Portsmouth Football Club will not be using University grounds at Langstone for training in the foreseeable future.’" In other words; 'We have seen how they have shafted other business in the area and we're not going to be added to the list of mugs.' Some of the comments below also tell you all you need to know that some of the Phew still don't get it. Some are attacking the uni for not supporting the club in its hour of need as the rest of the community is. Unbelievable, Jeff.

No so much a solution of how to carry it on a plane, but of how to treat it when you get off the other end. If you find your suit is creased get the shower going to make the bathroom nice and steamy and then hang your suit up. It's a good way of getting the creases out regardless of whether or not you have a trouser press in the room. I am assuming, of course, that your suits are of a decent quality and made from good quality wool fabric. This method doesn't work so well if you buy suits made from cheap and nasty synthetic fabric where the seat of your trousers turns shiny after sitting down half a dozen times.

Have a look where the vast majority of his work appears - national newspapers, and he also works for Sky on Soccer Saturday. You don't have to be employed by a national newspaper to work for them. Most of them use and rely on trusted freelances for stories where they don't have dedicated reporters - which is most places outside of the M25 and Manchester. Alan Nixon appears to be trusted on this forum, why not Alex Crook? Yes, I do know Alex, and know that his contacts are good and that his stuff is pretty sound. In fact knowing Alan Nixon's background, I'd trust Alex Crook's stuff more. And just because his business is based in portsmouth doesn't automatically mean he is a skate supporter.

If anyone offers you a couple of free nights in a place called the Lorraine Motel don't step out on to the balcony.

The main reason they trained in Eastleigh was because they claimed there were no adequate facilities on the Island of Dr Moreau. I'll reserve judgement on whether the main reason they trained at Eastleigh was because it was easier for Harry to get to from Sandbanks, or as most of the players lived at the nicer end of the M27, it was easier for them as well. But surely Portsmouth University and the Royal Navy have good facilities? You can't tell me that the RN's school of physical fitness as HMS Temeraire doesn't have state of the art facilities. What about Portsmouth Grammar School? St John's College? So the question you have to ask then is why they don't train at any of these places? And the answer comes back to the fact that their reputation as serial non-payers is now coming back to haunt them in the community they have shafted from soup to nuts. Apart from the Blue Phew who would blindly follow them to hell in a handcart, nobody else wants anything to do with them. They are outcasts in their own society. Even though they are apparently worth £300m a year to the local economy. It really is pathetic. Even clubs like Sholing, Eastleigh and Totton have their own training pitches so they don't have to train on their main stadium pitch. That illegally-bought FA Cup win is starting to look a better investment every day.

Of course there always have been bigger clubs, even in the days before vast television revenues. In the days when clubs had to rely on what they brought in through the turnstiles Man Utd and Liverpool were always bigger clubs than Saints at The Dell. And yes, we did rely heavily on Marcus's millions to get us out of League One and back to the Prem, and under those circs it might be hypocritical to bemoan about other clubs having a financial advantage. But there was more opportunity back in the day for the smaller clubs to gatecrash the big boys party. Under Ted we were able to finish high enough to qualify for Europe, and even when the capacity of The Dell was cut even further we were able to finish runners-up. That was probably because the difference between the bigger and smaller clubs was not so big as it is now. We might not have entered every season in the top flight with the hope of winning it, but we always had a reasonable expectation of tweaking the big boys tails more regularly than we do now. I think that what caused the Big Bang moment was not so much Sky's arrival on the scene, but the Bosman ruling. It changed the dynamic and while nobody would want to see a return to the days of the Maximum Wage and players being held hostage by clubs retaining their registration, it has created the situation where what earmarks a club for success is not its ability to recruit and develop players and create a winning team by canny coaching, tactics and management but simply the ability to pay the sort of sort of crazy wages players demand. Yes, there's always been an element of that, and even we managed to sign Kevin Keegan. My own view is that while the FFP rules are well intended, clubs will always find a loophole. If Uefa are deadly serious about making it work, they have to be prepared to take on the big boys and close those loopholes. At which point, they will all bugger off and in a Kerry Packer circus style, form their own show with other top clubs from across Europe (and possibly the world) and backed by even bigger TV revenues, thanks to vast Asian audiences, stick two fingers up to Fifa en route. It will mean the end of a meaningful World Cup as we know it, but that won't matter to all the Man Utd shirt-wearing hordes in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzho. Blimey, perhaps it's the time of year. Somebody cheer me up!

I think the key to it all is how the Financial Fair play rules are implemented. The whole idea of the FFP rules are to create more even competition across the piece, and try to make football succees a product of what it was in the past - of good scouting, recruitment coaching and development of players rather than those with the biggest wallets win. Platini was pooh-poohed when he proposed the rules and accused of anti-Premier League jealousy, but I think people now see the value of the rules. I'm old enough to remember the romance of a Brian Clough coached Nottingham Forest winning the European Cup, the sort of thing that has been eradicated since monetary might has been right. Hopefully, the proper implementation of the FFP rules will enable smaller but well-run clubs to compete on a more even field, but I have my doubts. As long as there are loopholes in the rules, clubs will exploit them so expect to continue to see Manchester City gain kit sponsorship deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds as their owners continue to bankroll them.

Or as he called him, Ben Tal Haim.