redkeith

According to the News, only 12,100 tickets have been sold so far for the crucial 6 pointer against Bristol City including 2,500 away fans. http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-past/pompey-price-cut-for-crucial-city-clash-1-3616689 Bestest fans ever .

On a side note, does anyone think we would be already promoted if Alex OC had stayed another year ? No disrespect to Chappers/SDR and Guly, but he if he can do AC Milans left back he could tie Championship defenders in knots.

On the admin/financial mismanagement front, one answer might be that if a club owed money to another after the transfer of a player, then that player cannot play until the debt is paid. Eg if the Skates were 100K behind in their payments for Halford, then he cannot play until they cough up. This would punish clubs if they went bust at any time of the season. Imagine going bust in October, and all of your new signings are sat in the stand.

Clerks - Kevin Smith Discovered it the night England lost 1.0 to Italy and Matt got subbed. Cheered me right up. Or if you are having some sort of mid life crisis - Grosse Point Blank

Trevor Birch said that the club is losing £8M a year at the moment. 8/12 = 750K per month. 2 games per month at £25 a ticket ( being generous ) = > 750K / 25 = 30,000 divide by 2 matches equals 15,000 extra punters per home game needed to break even. If we accept the original break even figure of 14,000 for home games, this means that they need crowds of 29,000 in a 21K stadium just to make ends meet. Clearly this is all the fault of HRMC/FA/PL/FL .....

Many reasons. 1 - I have no respect for the players. ( see my OP) 2 - Never been overly patriotic anyway 3 - Don't rate HR as a coach 4 - Don't rate HR as a human being 5 - Don't like the way the UK media deify HR 6 - Couldn't put up with HR moaning that he can't pick Bale and Modric for England and so is down to the bare bones .... Why France or Spain ? France, cos I live here. Spain, because the football is so sexy, it should be rated 18.

It's not just the Redknap case, there have been so many court case in the last few years that it now seem that the Jury trial system is redundant. Why don't they just get rid of the jury, ignore the evidence and instead just compare the billable rates of the Defence and Prosecution QC's. Whoever charges more is the winner. Back to HR now, and if he gets the England job, I will switch to watching France or Spain. As it is, I already feel so disconnected from it that I watch it just to see the few players that are still grounded ( Jagleika, Cahill, Parker, Milner, Hart), the rest of them are so detached from reality that they think they are the best in the world, just because they are paid more than everyone else.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/campaigns/passion-for-portsmouth/news/pressure_mounts_for_administrator_to_meet_worried_pompey_fans_1_3464786 Latest from the News. Fans demanding a meeting with AA, perhaps for autographs. It also goes on to say that Cala wan'ts to buy the Debebture on the Skates from Portpin, so he can take over the club without going throught the FPP test. The comedy just goes on and on.

To beat teams that press, you need to move the ball quickly, or be ultra confident of keeping possesion when surrounded, like Swansea against Arsenal. For example : - One touch passing so the chasing pack can't keep up. Switching the ball accurately and quickly from side to side, so the chasing pack can't keep up. Having someone who can keep the ball glued to his feet under presure (AL) Having outlets up front that you can hit early ( Lambert) Having someone quick who will chase up the channels ( as long as they stay onside). Pace on its own is not going to do it, although I do agree that we are short of it. Last night, once we started slwing down the passing and taking extra touches, we had no chance.

The problem the only assets that the Skates have as a club are the player registrations, the golden share and the parachute payments. If they get liquidated, then there is no way to use these assets to pay of the creditors, so they may limp on. However, it is coming to the point where the secured creditors are owed more than the remaining parachute payments. Also the player contracts are probably more of a liability than the transfer value of the squad. All that is keeping them alive is the distant hope that the CVA will get some of the parachute payments, so on that basis I think they will be there until the summer of 2014.

I would have liked to see an orthodox 4 in the middle, maybe by doubling up full backs. Not to botherred about this match, but it would have been a good chance to practice going for a clean sheet away, the way West Ham and Boro do it.

Bart had a schocker. Lets hope KD is fit next week, or that Bart gets the flu and we get a loan in. SDR was worse, terrible decision making, and awful crosiing.

Foleys coach to Bristol City in the early 80's. Someone wanted the skylight open at the back, the people on the back seat wanted it closed. Result ? The skylight was last seen flying off the A36 and we came home with someone sat on the roof, and snow coming in the back. Freezing. Wadsworth runs it a close second though.

Apart from Vokes, I can't see any players that moved during the loan window that are good enough to start for Saints at the moment, and even he would only start if Ricky was injured. Lets just hope Chappers and Rickie are quick healers. Otherwise, Cork to CH, Fonte as Sweeper, Gully in the Frank Worthington role, and play like 1984.

The admission that Antonov put £10.8 Million into PFC, made by one of his fellow directors and repeated by AA, is a startling one. Not only does it point to insolvency in the business, as it is all gone by new year, but also the fact that it was Antonovs money. I'm not sure how that will impact the deliberations on points deductions by the FL, as it could be interpreted as PFC being a massive drain on CSI, and so look more like the cause of the administration than the Crazy Golf tournament was, for instance. More importantly, the Goverments of Lithuania and Latvia are convinced that Antonov has stolen millions from their countries. They may well regard that £10m as theirs, and ask for it back.

So, according to AA. the Skates have enough money to get them through to January. Then they have a few options to save themselves. 1 - The transfer window opens, and they can raise some cash, and get rid of the high earners. All good, excluding the fact that they can't get rid of TBH on a free transfer, Kanu was probably born on they day they won the league and it has been well documented that they offered better terms for Lawrence/Kitson/Norris/Varney than other clubs in the division. We couldn't shift Rasiak in similar circumstances. Saints raised millions from the sale of young players like Bale,Surnam,Dyer, Jones and McGoldrick, the Skates have got Joel Ward, or a few others like Pearce and EH that they still owe money on. 2 - The sale of half season tickets ( don't laugh), there is space for 8,000 of them. 3 - A buyer emerges, who will pay of Chinrai (17m), CSI/Latvia/Lithuania (10.5m), CVA (20m) and then fix the clock. 4 - Chinrai takes over, to charge more interest on his loans. 5 - AA loads all of the Skates' debts onto the mini golf game company, and the Skates sign Beckham at the end of the transfer window. My money is on option 5.

Someone just had a trxt read out on the Radcliffe and Macconie show on 6 music : - "Goodbye Ken Rusell, You burned down Portsmouth Pier while filming Tommy, That's good enough for me! " Brilliant epitath

As I have said before, the diffrrence between the SFC and PFC admins is that were caught doing 23 mph in a 20mph zone, whilst the skates were caught doing 120 mph ( probably texting the fishmongers at the same time). Not quite the same, and not the same punishment in the courts. There are degrees of malpractice in everything. We got off lightly for what happened, 10 points cost us the play offs, but they got off scot free as they were more than 9 points adrift at the bottom, so it didn't even cut the prize money from sky.

The Skates gave away 2000 tickets to servicemen on Saturday, as part of rememberance week. Nice gesture, but just masks how poor their gates really are.

France 4 has the FA cup. When we played united last year, they had 3 games back to back from 1 pm. Also, no Clive Tylsley commentating, which is a great bonus.

I used to work for Lloyds, and accumulated a few shares in my time, which I kept hold of, as I knew that directors bonuses were linked to 'shareholder returns'. buzzwords for share price and dividends. Since I left, the board failed to do any proper due dillegenge on the Hbos takover, missing £15,000,000,000 of bad debts that ws on the books, the share price has fallen by 90%, and there has been no dividend for 3 years. The genius CEO who oversaw this still received a £2 million bonus last year. There are a few things that could be done to curb this. - No bonuses to directors if no dividends are paid to shareholders that year. - The cost of any redundancy payments caused by downsizing should be taken from the bonus pot. This might make them think twice about chucking people on the scrapheap, just to get a shortime boost to the shareprice.

Initially, I thought that the article was refering to the fact that Reading and Doncaster now get bigger home gates than they do. Instead, it is a fun packed trip around Fantasy Island, where Saints stuggled through the 80's ( finished second, Uefa cup place etc), where Russian Bankers ( hem, hem) can loan themselves millions to build a new ground , and that if you build it they will come. They think that millions will pour in from corporate hospitality if the build new stands. Saints Coprarate clients were the first ones into the lifeboats after relegation, so the idea that IBM and Vospers will be queing up to buy boxes at Fratton ( with hot water in the ladies loo) is just laughable. However, their current gates do make it possilbe to knock down the North Stand, to begin turning the ground and still accomadate all of their home support in the two remaining home stands.

It was good, although I had the solent commentary on, in case the feed went, which was 5 seconds ahead, so I knew Feilding would save the Guly shot. The feed broke up for the last 15 minutes, any techies out their have any ideas why. Could it be my line speed slowing down, or does the feed build up a lot of temporary internet files that gradually slow down the buffering ?

It was Tony Currie that he marked in the Semi Final against Leeds, not Trevor Francis. Francis played for Brum in our 5.2 win at St Andrews in an early round. Not sure if Manny played in that one.

Brighton are almost as dirty as the Skates. We are not only the top team south of the Thames at the moment, but the cleanest too !