stevegrant

I assume we're finished on this now?

I remember back in the day when I was too young to drive so I'd go to away games on the travel club, he'd always pitch up at the Winnall roundabout carrying his postbag and still wearing his Royal Mail jacket

MLG, ever heard the phrase "plausible deniability"? That's my impression of these dinners, sure they take place, but there's no recording of what happens, who says what, etc, so if something outlandish gets out in the general public that turns out to be nonsense, the club can simply say "that's never been the plan, nobody ever said such a thing". After all, who's going to take the word of a fan plucked at random to attend over the person who is actually in charge of making the decisions? I remember last year sometime, someone claimed Cortese had basically revealed how much one of our first-team players was earning. Either that person was making it up, or Cortese was incredibly unprofessional in revealing such information (or, perhaps, he "revealed" a fictional number), which given his banking background seems somewhat unlikely. I wouldn't take comments that come second or third-hand from someone who's been plied with beer and wine all evening at one of these dinners to be gospel, to be honest.

Is the fella with the long hair at the bottom the postie who used to always go on the travel club to away games?

If 3 wins from 13 despite having the division's leading goalscorer at his disposal is your definition of "did well" I'd hate to see your definition of "did terribly" As for Pulis, he won them promotion to the Premier League that season, why on earth would he have left them (with Coates' pocket money to throw around like confetti) for us? Sounds like another of Leon Crouch's fantastic brainwaves, rather akin to the "if I get the bank to put the club into administration, I'll be able to own it 100% myself" one which ended so well for him.

I don't think they will. Don't forget we have a rather nice £12m windfall from the sale of Chamberlain to Arsenal, an extra £4-5m in broadcasting rights, an increase in ticket revenue (30% rise in ST prices, plus an extra 3k on the attendances), etc. Any costs incurred relating to the Academy and infrastructure development don't count towards FFP, so even with the new signings and new contracts awarded to existing players, I can't see us making a loss this season.

Nailed-on that they were one of the three clubs who voted against it - when it was last mentioned they claimed they'd take it to a judicial review

To be fair, there's another year and a bit until sanctions will start to be imposed - plenty of time for most clubs to be adjusting their budgets. Pompey are probably ****ed regardless of this latest development.

Not quite. Teams who remain in the Football League at the end of the season (i.e. not promoted to the Premier League) will be subject to a transfer embargo - the article I've read is a bit ambiguous here, but there's a chance that embargo would last for a whole year, similar to the one the SPL/SFA have handed Rangers this week (only allowed to sign players under the age of 18 ). It is only those who are promoted to the Premier League who would be subject to the "Fair Play Tax" at a sliding scale depending on the amount of the loss above the "acceptable deviation". Here's an example: Say an entirely fictional club, East Cheese City, were promoted to the Premier League in the 2015/16 season (when the target "acceptable deviation" will be a £2m loss), having made an annual loss of £10m. That's £8m over the "acceptable deviation". On the sliding scale (1% for £100k losses, 100% for £10m+), that would equate to an 80% "tax" by the Football League, so that club would have to contribute £6.4m out of its revenue from the next season (i.e. its Premier League money) into the Fair Play fund, which would then get distributed evenly among the clubs remaining in the Football League who were fully compliant with the regulations.

On the face of it, that argument looks weak, but dig a bit deeper and you see an underlying problem... the likes of Habib Beye on a 5-year contract at £50k a week, discarded by O'Neill himself after a couple of months, Steve Sidwell was on a similar amount and they had to give him a big pay-off to take a pay cut and move to Fulham. Plenty of other examples as well.

To be honest, for Michael Appleton at Pompey, read Nigel Pearson at Saints. Took us from comfortably mid-table to staying up with 20 minutes to go, yet appears to be hero-worshipped by many

It's nothing of the sort, it's a realisation that games at this stage of the season tend to be of the win-or-bust variety, and if Davis were to get injured or sent off after 15 minutes of a vital game, we might as well kiss the game goodbye. Even West Ham, who haven't had a keeper on the bench all season (and got lucky when Rob Green was sent off at Blackpool with the opposition failing to register a shot on target against Henri Lansbury), have named Henderson among the subs a couple of times recently. The "should we name a keeper on the bench" conundrum only exists because of the ridiculous decision to revert to only five substitutes this season - it won't even be a discussion point next season as we'll have enough options with seven subs to name a sub keeper every time.

Not much chance that Puncheon will come in from the cold straight into the first-team for this sort of game. Outside chance of being on the bench, I guess, but I'd fully expect Guly to start (with Richardson coming back in at right-back, hopefully), with de Ridder as an option from the bench in the second half.

I'd have Bart on there just in case - this game is far too important. I don't understand why we had such a defensively-minded bench at Middlesbrough though, did we really need both Harding and Martin there, leaving ourselves with only one attacking option? Martin should be on there as the defensive cover, but Jack Cork is adequate as cover for the full-back positions. That would have allowed us to have the alternative attacking option of de Ridder as well as Guly.

I can't imagine he'll simply walk away for nothing, knowing that there's not a cat in hell's chance he'll be getting £50k a week (including image rights) anywhere else. His exit will still come at a cost to Pompey, although certainly not as much as if he'd stayed for the last year of his contract.

As I said on the other thread, have the night off.

Have a night off.

Given the £12m received from Chamberlain which will be in this season's accounts (transfer fees received are accounted for immediately, unlike transfer fees paid), we'd have had to have awarded some ludicrous contracts to new signings to go above 93% this season, IMO. Add in an extra £4-5m in TV revenue, increased season ticket revenue with the 30% price rise, increased attendances, etc.

Madejski has said in the press that he won't be renegotiating, saying "a deal is a deal". I suspect he's just desperate to take the responsibility off his shoulders now.

No, those figures were based on last season. They're nearly a year out of date now, and since then we've made a number of relatively high-profile signings and given existing first-team players new contracts.

Reading didn't pay £3m for Roberts, did they?!

Like the man with the orthopaedic shoes, I stand corrected

I don't think Redknapp scored for us in the PL, definitely got one in the FA Cup at Northampton, but no league goals IIRC. Same with Le Saux, scored at Bristol City in the League Cup but no league goals. Beattie didn't score for England, so he doesn't count either. Nor did Kevin Phillips, surprisingly. Peter Crouch Wayne Bridge Kerry Dixon

I wouldn't say that's trolling, it's a fact. If we weren't going for promotion, we'd have taken 1000 to Middlesbrough on Saturday at the very most, the terrace at Peterborough wouldn't have been packed for a midweek game, and even the 600-odd we took to Hull is double what we'd have taken there if we were midtable with nothing to play for.