stevegrant

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.

I think the 13/8 figure is for promotion via any means, which would of course also include the playoffs.

319 was the in-vision football vidi-printer, I believe

That was what Steve Cotterill and David Lampitt said. How did that work out for you?

Don't suppose you kept the one about Reading's new not-in-any-way-identical-to-Gaydamak owner, did you?

Is it just me or has the rumafia website been shut down?

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Sorry, no, still not done. Two reasons, I've been feeling a bit crap over the weekend and I think Baj has our login details to download the Tapatalk upgrade. As soon as I've got those login details, I should be able to get it done quite quickly.

I would normally stand up for the rights of a journalist - whether local or national - to state his opinion in his written work, whether that's for or against a football club's policies, decisions, etc. However, in true football fan style, I'm going to be fickle on this occasion and say "**** him".

Ian Ayre at Liverpool is the only one who was stupid enough to say it publicly earlier this season. Liverpool's PR since Dalglish returned to the club has been ****ing horrendous I'm sure there are a few clubs who would think they'd get more money out of individual agreements, but there's a counter-argument which suggests that the very existence of the collective agreement which ensures that a large proportion (50% of the domestic contract and 100% of the overseas contract) of the broadcasting revenue is distributed evenly between all 20 PL clubs is what ensures the value of those contracts is so high in the first place. Without that apparent balance (the imbalance we actually witness is arguably more to do with Champions League revenue IMO), the league wouldn't appear so "competitive" to the outsider and therefore not as valuable as a marketable product.

At the moment, Spanish clubs negotiate their own TV deals, hence why Barcelona and Real Madrid are streets ahead of everyone else in terms of the amount of broadcasting revenue they bring in. There's been talk for a while now that La Liga wants to change to a collective deal similar to the one used in the Premier League, but naturally Barca and Real are opposing it as they'd lose out financially.

Peterborough was always likely to be a popular away game, it's the only ground in the Championship with terracing. The only downside to the game is that it's midweek, but we've already shown this season that that isn't really putting people off. Peterborough can't sell tickets in the Moyes End terrace to home fans if the away team don't fill it (and they don't have the fanbase to do so anyway), and when West Ham went there a couple of weeks ago, they sold all 4000-odd terrace tickets in the space of three days, which would suggest they had them all in one go. There's no reason why Posh wouldn't give us all the tickets in one go if we wanted them.