SaintBobby

Lol. I'm not alone then. This should delight all those posters who say we don't move fast enough? :-)

It's madness as far as I can see. It's not so much the change of colour (although that's bad enough), it's the implication that changing the kit to red and having a dragon as the main logo will lead to a surge in support in Kuala Lumpur. Are Asian football fans so easily seduced?

It seems to me that being blind or deaf significantly impairs someone's experience of the game, whereas being wheelchair-bound doesn't necessarily. If more space is made available for someone in a wheelchair and a helper, should they pay 2 or 3 times the amount? After all, for a sell out match, that's 2 or 3 able bodied people who can't get in to SMS and the club's bank balance suffers accordingly.

Actually, I wldnt say no to Skacel returning. Even if he only seems to play well for Hearts. Guthrie would be a great free signing. Especially if Hammond is leaving (I guess he will be, but no source for this)

That's a great list. And cheered me up! I don't think we will finish above all of them, but have a fair chance of finishing above three of them. I'd add Reading and possibly Fulham to the list.

Can't see us making Chelsea green with envy with what we spend. And I'm kind of assuming/guessing this is only about 50% of the transfer budget. If we are seeking to spend, say, 80+% of our available funds on J-Rod, this would seem very odd indeed!

If you can't afford a season ticket, I'm surprised you're looking forward to away games on the continent.

Was the initial question "can you name the 20 Premier League clubs?" Errr.....ummm.....

God knows. Swansea's budget must be huge in comparison. Gees.

I have 3 season tickets for me and the family, will probably go up to four for this season. Only really go to London away games. But not sure how/if I'd help other folk queue jump on away tickets using my numbers. Open to suggestions though!

What on Earth is strange about the Davis family moving house? His salary has probably just doubled. If my salary doubled, I'd move house.

That sounds about right - 7%ish compound interest. Above inflation, but not by miles. Of course, the disposal income of the earning, adult population in Hampshire has gone up massively over last 20-30 years, so you'd expect ticket prices to reflect that. (there's a limited number of seats and more cash chasing them, basically)

Sure, that may apply to him. That's fine. I get that. Similarly, Kelvin would probably prefer to stay at Saints than move to, say, Fulham. Each case is separate, of course. But, overall, on aggregate, we should be able to outbid and outspend Swansea and attract better players. That doesn't mean we should have bought Sigurdsson. Or that he didn't have some particular attraction to Swansea. Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe he did. But - in total - we are able to spend more money and attract better (new) players than Swansea. Anyone who doesn't get that basic point is just wrong, sorry.

Yes, it's very easy to explain that. Their income was higher, but their expenditure was much higher too. Their anticipated budget over the next few years is lower than Saints, most likely. I'm not sure what you mean by "forgetting our owner". The fact that we can risk big losses (by the look of it) enables us to both (a) gamble and (b) plan over a longer time horizon. Once again, if we can't outbid Swansea (which we can) we are in serious, serious trouble. This doesn't mean we can outbid Spurs, Man Utd, Barcelona etc. Just that we can outbid the two or three smallest teams in the top flight.

I'm willing to bet you a VERY, VERY large amount of money they aren't. Everton are nearly broke. They could find £6m for a striker, but only by selling off a present player or two and cutting payroll. They are nowhere near making £6m (net) bids. Absolutely nowhere near.

Simple question (I hope)...with a preface...then a thought Preface: As I understand it administrators are highly skilled, talented people whose job it is to tackle failing businesses and keep them alive/turn them around. This is a very well-paid and privileged position - akin to being a high court judge etc. It's a "closed shop"/registered profession (e.g. I couldn't just stick my hand in the air and say "give me a go") It carries with it severe responsibility and harsh penalties for screwing up (e.g. a high court judge found to take a bribe would be in much deeper sh1t than a juror taking a bribe). The essential principle regarding an administrator is that they must seek to get the best deal for the creditors - but this is often assumed to mean they keep the business operational, and the creditors get a fair-ish % (maybe only 10%, say) rather than conservatively killing the company and the creditors dividing up the remaining paper clips and toilet rollsb(maybe 0.000000001%). However, the administrator is liable personally for any decision to keep the company alive rather than dividing up its assets if an immediate division of the assets would be preferable to the creditors (e.g. creditors can get 2% today or 1% later, therefore I must close the company today or pay the 1% gap myself). Question: If the premise is correct, why hasn't Birch closed the company? What's he waiting for or gambling on? What potential liability does he face? He must be a very bright man, so is he awake every night worried by a potential £5m liability being placed at his door because he didn't shut down the skates weeks ago? This is on him, right? If he isn't worried about this, why isn't he? A lot of the evidence adduced above suggests that the sooner Pompey are toast, the less money is lost to creditors. Why does Mr Birch obviously disagree with this analysis? Especially given that - from his point of view - an immediate closure limits his own liabilities, makes it less likely that he loses his family home and sports car and pension fund etc? Is the man irrational, mad, risk-loving, corrupt? I doubt it - so why behave like this? Thought: Is any pressure being applied other than through this forum? For example, is there some way I can seek to become a creditor to Pompey and then litigate to close them down? What pressure is being applied to the Football League? Are League One teams wholly sanguine about whether Pompey suffer a points penalty next year? Were teams in relegation trouble last season (Bristol City etc) on top of this for their footballing lives? If Portsmouth go bust what would be the consequent reshuffle (e.g. would Cheltenham as play-off losers be promoted?) If so, why aren't these clubs all over it like rash? Not even their fans seem to care much. Can we clarify with some Ombudsman that Mr Birch is liable personally for the debts with every passing day? My thought is we should apply pressure rather than merely observe events.

Err, yes....that's why I said "this may be a one-off and not even a target". My point was a general one - I don't believe Swansea is a typically preferable location for a player, TDD seems to.

Serious question - is this totally unknowable? I mean I can't believe we'd know to the last £, but must be possible to derive what the broad salaries could be. At a broad guess, I'd say we'd pay around £1m pa for a first team player.

If we can't compete with Swansea for transfers, we're in serious trouble. This may be a one-off and not even a target, but if the strong view of most players is "Swansea is a much better club to play for than Saints", we're screwed.

tee hee hee comedy gold sigh

Am happy with Cortese only giving one or two set piece interviews per year. He's the overall organiser not the front man. Disagree with comments on Whelan though, think he's doing Wigan fans a favour by being very honest and direct about the situation re Martinez.

Nobody does it better....Carly Simon So bad it's good.

Oh please. Adam Lallana has a zillion more followers than me, and I get death threats and abuse regularly. Don't be so precious. Or, in the alternative, ask the Saints Comms team how they advise you operate this. Jordan Sibley is - after all - widely considered to be a genius in PR sports management.

One argument I totally don't get is that Cortese doesn't like season tickets because the club makes more on a match-by-match basis. In that case, just alter the price. Make it dearer to buy a season ticket than 19 individual match tickets. Fair enough, I guess. My sense is that the marketing/sales side of the operation is just a bit crap. Not the worst thing in the world, I can live with it. But it's not some brilliant co-ordinated strategy about narrowing a slaes window to sell more ticktes. It's just a bit crap.

We're likely to be in a relegation battle - along with about half the rest of the Premier League teams. I'll say 16th - but so hard to predict until we know who we sign and sell.