stevegrant

Saints: Johns, Flannigan, McCarthy, Turnbull, Targett, Gape ©, Chambers, Ward-Prowse, Sinclair, Seager, Rowe. Subs: Britt (GK), Colmer, Reed, Higgins, Ariyibi.

Joint founder of SOS Pompey, don't you know? No wonder they're screwed with brainiacs like that...

Steady on, they've not finished this spell of administration yet

http://www.football-league.co.uk/footballleaguenews/20121210/league-board-considers-pst-proposal_2293334_3002405

Even at this stage I think a top half finish is way beyond us, much like earlier in the season we're highly likely to be playing catch-up on the teams currently around us, let alone anyone further up the table. Clearly anything's possible, you only have to look at what Norwich have done in the last 6-8 weeks or so, but there's already a group from Norwich upwards who have got a 7-point cushion over us just as we enter a two-month period of very difficult games.

Kelvin Davis is a first choice at the moment, but I'd be absolutely amazed if we offered him another playing contract once his current one expires.

Sounds like a load of made-up nonsense, tbh. Starbucks are operating within the scope of the law of this country. If they were doing something illegal then by all means create a witch-hunt, but until the law changes to prevent (or at least make it harder for) companies transferring their profits to their operations in other countries, they are perfectly entitled to do what they do. I'm going to take a wild guess here, but presumably the amount Starbucks contributes in terms of income tax, national insurance, business rates, VAT, etc dwarves the amount of corporation tax they would be subjected to if this profit-transferring was either limited or outlawed completely?

The shares were trading at 50p because idiots like Michael Wilde and Leon Crouch kept paying massively over the odds for them. Invesco must have thought Christmas had come early when Crouch offered them 65p a share A finders fee is, as far as I'm aware, fairly standard practice in this sort of situation. Clearly it creates a substantial conflict of interests, but it happens everywhere. I remember being shown the offer document and the total pot was £300k to be shared between the existing executive board members. Given the salaries they were all on at the time (IIRC Hone was on around £450k plus benefits), you could argue the fees they'd have got (with no guarantee of keeping their jobs) weren't actually that attractive. Comparing SISU's offer for a controlling stake of SLH PLC with what has since happened at Coventry is like comparing apples with oranges, anyway.

While this is obviously true, there are two ways of looking at what is the best deal for the creditors, IMO. Firstly, you take a "every creditor gets something" approach, which ultimately means that Chainrai takes the biggest haircut. Secondly, you could take a "biggest total pot for the creditors" approach, which could involve the sale of Fratton Park to a property developer on the assumption that without a football club to play there, any council agreement that it should only be used for football could be sidestepped quite easily, with Chainrai getting all of the money and the rest of the creditors getting nothing. The current PDT offer is, what, £2.75m to nullify the charge on FP and then around £500k to be shared among the creditors? Total value £3.25m. If someone (perhaps someone connected to Chainrai ) came in and offered £4m for the lot and decided to close the football club and develop the land, surely Birch would be legally bound to accept that offer?

While I broadly agree that the kickoff time changes are often a turnoff for people, last season saw 11 of our 46 league games televised, plus the Birmingham home game was shifted to the Sunday because of their Europa League involvement. That could be more TV games and kickoff changes than we'll get this season despite being in the Premier League with its various pitfalls.

16. With no option to expand the storage capacity I figured it was best to go for the larger one.

I got one with a 1-2 week expected delivery

Only if you use London Midland, which is a stopping service and takes forever. Group Save tickets aren't valid on Virgin trains.

Why? If you can't score a penalty into a 17.86m2 space that's nobody's fault apart from your own.

Saints team: Cropper, Young, Stephens, Turnbull, Targett, Ward-Prowse, Chambers, Reeves ©, Mayuka, Hoskins, Lee. Subs: Johns (GK), Curtis, Sinclair, Forte, Moore

The most frustrating thing about the whole situation is that we still end up selling the tickets. It's only Man City that hasn't come close to selling out so far this season and there were all sorts of mitigating circumstances there. This is why fans in this country will continue to have the **** taken out of them by clubs nationwide, even when they're being forced to jump through all sorts of hoops just to buy a ****ing match ticket, they'll still happily do so rather than actually stand up for themselves.

The total foul count was 12-7 against us, so that's clearly nonsense, but managers do tend to have a habit of spouting absolute nonsense when they have a microphone thrust in front of their face 15 minutes after the game's finished, so I can't say I'm surprised.

I hope you thanked him for the fine work he has done and continues to do

Michel Platini is dangerous as far as the future of football in Europe is concerned. It'll get even worse when he inevitably succeeds Blatter at FIFA. This is a man who voted for Qatar in 2022 and proposed a winter World Cup.

I've got that day off, so hangover depending, I might pop along to see what all the fuss is about

It didn't really make any difference who he brought on in the 2nd minute of 4 minutes added on with the score at 2-0 and their confidence shot to pieces, to be honest. Pardew had said when Nile Ranger had his most recent brush with the law that he wouldn't play for the club again but he was forced to stick him on the bench to make up the numbers, he was never likely to actually stick him on the pitch. Taylor got injured so he had to put *someone* on.

Disagree. QPR have got a very kind run of fixtures starting tonight (wonder why 'Arry chose now to start ), where they play Sunderland, Villa, Wigan, Fulham and Newcastle before Christmas, where they should pick up some points (especially in the home games against Villa and Fulham). Sunderland, on the other hand, play QPR, Norwich, Chelsea, Reading, Man United and us in the same period. Unlikely to get too many points there - possibly tonight and Reading at home and that's about it for "likely" wins.

Hartlepool did the smurf thing infinitely better than that, and in bigger numbers.