Crazy Diamond

To the tune of 'Hey Jude' "Na, na na, NA NA NA NA, NA NA NA NA, Baaaaankruuuuupt" Or we could just sing Taxman by the Beatles.

Had a read through of them all earlier, made me smile I must say.

It's late at night and the Skates chairman (I can't remember his name, there have been so many) gets a phonecall. He answers, and it's Hampshire Fire and Rescue. "There's a fire at Fratton Park!" the chairman is told. "THE CUPS! ARE THE CUPS OKAY?" The chairman asks. "Er... Yes they're fine" replies the Fire Chief... "The fire hasn't spread to the kitchen yet".

To be fair, that's not the only silverware they've got. ...Unless they replaced the cutlery with plastic knives and forks.

Get a load of this! http://www.portsmouthfc.co.uk/LatestNews/home/Championship-Trophy-Visits-Fratton-Park-2867.aspx The Championship trophy is at Fratton Park tomorrow. The last time silverware will ever feature there, undoubtedly.

And just as I say that, BBC Solent tweet the following: solentsport BBC Radio Solent #afcb chairman Eddie Mitchell confirms club is not in debt and he and his Russian partner Maxim Demin will continue to invest to improve

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of them making a move for him. How can you? Look at what Nigel has achieved and look what he can achieve with all his potential, and the potential here. It's unlikely but not impossible.

Following his rant on the pitch over the PA system, the stock of Eddie Mitchell is rather low. To try and turn things around, AFC Bompey have decided to record a special feature for their website's 'Cherries Player' facility, whereby Mr. Mitchell does a kind of walkthrough guide, where he will retrace his steps and explain what he was trying to say to fans as he goes along. Wow. As if that wasn't enough, a request was made for the Football League to look into Maxim Denim, the new Russian part-owner of the club. I don't think it was an official request, but it was regarding the 'Fit and Proper Persons' test. The reason being that no one knows anything about him, or where his money actually comes from - much like Bompey's inspiration, Pompey. In any case, the Football League said they were 'not interested'. I asked a contact of mine about Mr. Denim, and the whole 'mysteriousness' surrounding the origin of the money - not Mr. Denim specifically, just this general trend that is going around. He replied that quite often, being a mystery and trying to hide something are often the same thing. There's a lot of talk about a potential Bournemouth vs Portsmouth 'derby' next season, which I for one would find absolutely hilarious.

The Champions League adventure was rather short and painful. IFK Goteborg 2 - 5 Paris Saint Germain (although we took the lead!) Werder Bremen 2 - 2 IFK Goteborg (we came back from two down!) Shakhtar Donetsk 5 - 2 IFK Goteborg Paris Saint Germain 3 - 0 IFK Goteborg IFK Goteborg 2 - 5 Shakhtar Donetsk IFK Goteborg 0 - 3 Werder Bremen So all in all we didn't do that well, but given no one gave us a chance in the third qualifying round, I'm not too displeased. Finishing third place in the group will be the aim next year, again provided we get that far. There might be a favourable rearrangement of the European qualifying places which would be nice. The money was also nice - it's been put to good use with new youth facilities and I can now offer players £7,500 a week as opposed to £2,5000 a week! Only one or few mind, the wage budget is £80k. We retained the league title which was nice, next year more of the same hopefully. It's all been achieved using the 'Minimal FuSS' tactic I linked to above, it's very good and the creator, FuSS, is always tweaking it. Version 0.4 will be released soon, definitely worth a look, but make sure you have the players necessary for it. Physical stats probably count for more than other attributes, you need fast and strong players.

Could well be some truth in this - pre kick off Nigel was showing a guy around, stopped for photos by the pitch. He was suited and booted.

I think I've got it Mattio. I'll have a look later for you.

No. Guly was dreadful last night. I won't apologise for voicing my opinion on him.

Not the best win you'll see all season. For me the game was about Guly. Got the goal to put us back in it, but other than that was terrible. He was sulking when defenders pushed him or tried to play him offside, rarely ran, played stupid short passes that undid an attacking move to get it to the right end of the pitch and in general was incredibly poor. Well done to whoever shouted "Walking isn't going to help you lazy git", because you were quite right. The goal he scored - I've had the benefit of seeing a replay and initially he couldn't have picked a worse place to steer his initial shot, straight into the hands of the keeper who barely had to move, he then put away the rebound. Far from pleased with him, very pleased at grinding out the three points. Nigel seemed happy. DEFINITE red card by the way. Brady trapped Harding's leg and it could have been very different - i.e a leg break. Nick Barmby disagreed however and had a face like thunder in the tunnel. Too many offsides as well. Game didn't flow at all.

Achieved my main ambition of the season, IFK Gothenborg are in the Champions League group stages! We beat the Albanian champions 10 - 1 on aggregate, then Partizan Belgrade and overcame a two goal deficit to dispatch HJK. Our group is comprised of European champions PSG, Werder Bremen and Shakhtar Donetsk. No trip back to England yet! In the league we've got three games in hand and are two points clear, but we lost to lower league opposition (managed by Henrik Larsson) in the Cup. Anyway, here we go, Gothenborg vs the champions of Europe!

Yeah that was my first thought as to a possible transfer. Though they've got money now (apparently) so they could well stop looking in non-league football.

That tactic I mentioned. This is a guy who got Bury into the Championship. In the F.A Cup they got a trip to some other team in Manchester... Yeah. It's a bit good this tactic.

Minimal Fuss, I've linked to it above. Turns out it was all in my head, my striker finished top scorer in the division - which we won!

I'm using a tactic with a track record of great success regardless of player quality or team quality, but my strikers are missing the easiest of chances. Six clear cut chances and no goals? It's SO f*cking annoying. Anyone got any suggestions as to how to get these ****s to score?

The closest I can come to a description of this is that it's absolutely tragic, and that's an understatement. It really is awful. The Telegraph's cartoonist has drawn this up for the rag next week: RIP Gary Speed

I don't even need to read that article to know that it's complete b*llocks.

Crab Lungs, just noticed this which I thought might interest you. Minimal Fuss Tactic This links to a specific post - a guy is using this tactic in the Moldovan second division and he's doing really well.

Ha. Geeeenius. I'll stick with Gothenborg though, I still have a stupid ambition to win the Champions League despite watching my team struggle to beat sides like Halmstads BK (featuring Michael Svensson as player/assistant manager) and Jonkoping Sodra.

I spoke to Manny Andruszewski about Mark a few months back. Said he initially regretted signing for Saints, he'd turned down United and a lot of other big teams, but he settled in with some good friends and Manny said he loved it. Apparently Mark himself is a really nice guy, though I hear he's very much fallen out of love with football recently.

We're coming for you... Oh and we've beaten you 4 - 0 in the play-off final. Ha ha ha.

Can you believe Wigley has another job? Hull are the latest gullible set of fools to employ him. Whenever he's been at a club they've failed. Well given he'd just seen his team hammered with a lot of them looking like they couldn't give a toss (Sordell), he was really upbeat, even after the refereeing decisions which were rather questionable. As for swapsies, I've started again... Again. Wasn't happy with my squad so I've decided to start from scratch with Gothenborg again. We WILL win the Champions League. Someday.