egg

Everything wrong about our spoiled/entitled fans right there. Someone challenges your forceful opinion and they're labelled a "complete bell". Classy. You then support you position that we should supplement our 35+ man squad (costing us six figure millions in transfer fees and about the same in wages year on year) with more players. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Then you argue that we should do that because you're "sure" (no doubt there then) that Gao can afford it. Have a little think about that - how can you be sure that he can afford it, and more to the point, as an owner of a business why should he be expected to put his hand in his pocket to buy the club (not himself) another player? What's in it for him? Will he get his money back? This naive thinking that owners can and should just put money into a club is pathetic. Of course he doesn't have to, but if he were on the fence, the current value of a lot of our recent acquisitions against the cost and wages is hardly gonna convince the fella that chucking cash at a player is a good investment for his money. We have to be run sensibly, and anyone with a modicum of sense can see that means shifting several off the books before we can spend proper money on new players.

What's to say that we didn't look for the defensive equivalent?

Spot on. I can't think of another club at our level who have been so wasteful.

Yep. I reckon there'll be a few departures and a surprise midfield arrival.

Frontier

Blimey. I only skimmed that but words that jumped out were "Please don’t peddle the sell to buy mantra the club conditioned the fans with. It’s clear we have dross to sell but we have space for a CB & defensive midfielder." I'll peddle the we need to sell to buy bit as I don't see it as mantra. I also haven't been conditioned. As a club we have, I'd hazard a guess, over 60 players on professional contracts. Of them 35 + are first team level. The wage bill is astronomical, and unsustainable. How on earth you equate that us having space for 2 new players I don't know. Its obvious that we need to reduce numbers before we can add more players and I cannot fathom how people can argue otherwise. On the Rohl/Bayern thing, a sensible interpretation is that he wants to be back in Germany and took a lesser job at a bigger club and is willing to climb the career pole there. A conspiracy nut may suggest that he's gone in as a "analyst" to do the ground work ahead of RH joining as boss next summer and they'll rekindle their dream team. Given that I'm no conspiracy nut, and that my feeling is that Ralph has nothing to prove in Germany and his next move will be Spurs when Poch eventually gets his Real Madrid move, I think this is a simple case of Rohl wanting to go home.

Crazy if true. He was our best player on Saturday.

He'll get kicked about in the championship, too good for league 1, but not good enough for the prem. It's a decent enough standard and he has enough flair and pace to do well in that league. Makes sense to me.

Great move for the lad. Not quite prem standard but not suited to the hustle and bustle of the championship. Good luck to him.

Quite. It seems that our fans think that we dictate the terms on which we offload players.

Who cares, we ain't got the player or getting the cash. Whether Pompey or Ipswich get a sell on makes no difference.

What's the suggestion, that Danny has been handling pre-season at another club ready for Ralph to fly in last minute and take the reins leaving us in the lurch?! There's nothing to see here. Danny has moved on and Ralph had a gammy leg which he got sorted before the season began. Relax and enjoy the fight for 11th place.

Broadly similar to my thinking. Leicester Everton, Watford and Wolves will all compete in that group beneath the top 6 and I fancy Leicester to come out on top and actually push the top 6. We'll be below that lot but points wise I fear closer to the team in 18th than 7th although relegation isn't a danger in my opinion.

So his qualities are that he's a weaker, slower, worse version of JWP?

That's the point. Verlaine talks about the club being in debt but refers to a debt that the owner apparently has. The 2 things are completely different.

I'm not sure whether you're a tedious troll or what. Decisions from last season are completely irrelevant to your stupid argument that we are weaker with Cedric/Hoedt/Vokins in place of Targett. We aren't.

Your point was that having them around makes our defence weaker than last season. I don't get your rationale one bit. We'll have to agree to disagree with your assessment. To my mind nobody could seriously argue that Cedric + Vokins + Hoedt in place of Targett make us weaker in defence. Very odd.

They make us stronger because we didn't have them during the second half of last season. Do you seriously say that having Cedric available as an option at RB or LB makes our defence weaker? Seriously? Do you also believe that having Hoedt as strength in depth/an alternative to Stephens makes us weaker than not having him? I suspect you agree with me and you're just trolling - nobody can seriously say that our defence is weaker now than it was at the end of last season.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Bertrand left of a back 3 with either Cedric or Vokins left wing back in some games. Not ideal but it gives extra quality, experience and pace back there.

Feck me, you're obtuse. We shipped Cedric out half way through last season so he was barely available for RH. He's a new player to RH this season. People (you I suspect if I could be bothered to look) slated Targett as not good enough. Cedric is no less able than Targett to cover Bertrand. He can cover RB also so unless you're arguing that him covering there ahead of Ramsey is not an upgrade then even you'd accept that RB has been strengthened. Vokins is a huge talent (and don't be a huge helmet again and ask me to define huge). Hoedt at least gives another option ahead of Stephens and injury cover so we're better placed. Our defence is better than it was for the latter half of last season.

Sophist, ha!! I have not stated any position as a "fact". Its you who refers to purported debt. Debt apparently taken by the owner in his personal capacity, but not secured against the club or its assets, is not germane to the club's overall financial position. You appear bright enough to understand the concept of 2 distinct entities, and that the club only has a debt issue when it a) has debt and b) cannot service it. I am in little doubt that the club has liquidity issues (re expansion at least), but I've seen or read nothing credible to point to the club itself having any debt concerns.

I agree that we're a long way from being comfortably top half, but how has out defence got weaker? We've lost Targett and gained Cedric (and Hoedt but that may not be a gain). Midfield / attack has gained Boufal, and up front we've added Adams and Djenepo. Looks like we've strengthened from front to back to me.

What's this debt you talk of? Back to the topic, if the kid is an upgrade then a loan makes sense, but any CB we sign surely has to be 1st team ready. A19y/o CB has to be very very good to step into a Premier league team.

Who gives a monkeys. He's had it.

Band