Dalek2003

Many clubs in Europe do such as Dortmund, Sevilla, Ajax, Porto/Benfica, perhaps Monaco before too. However, in the PL, none in fairness.

 

But defining success is key too- because I think our ambitions purely lie in just staying in the PL and hoping to have that odd season or two here and there where we do finish in the top 10, or even somehow by chance in the top 8- then sell those stars off, and then rinse and repeat.

 

In that regard, whilst certainly cutting it fine in the last two seasons, we have been successful.

Totally agree. Although it is nerve racking to support a club that adopts this strategy and you have to think eventually that we will end up the wrong side of the cut off line.

The owner's ambitions extend to us scraping survival so he can park some cash here and boost his reputation in China. It's not surprising.

Makes perfect business sense. I remember saying some years ago, if you could guarantee survival ie 17th every year with the minimum outlay, then it would make good business sense.

It would cost a fortune to compete in the top half of the league and probably result in a budget deficit. You need a rich owner to do that. Alternatively, you keep selling the best players every year, which works well if you consistently unearth some hidden gems.

But PFC match should take priority? There are 200,00+ keen fans and the match will bring £14,926,098,237,888,888 into the local economy.

Surely the money from the TV coverage will go some way to reaching that figure? With so many people tuning in there are bound to be a rush of companies wanting to be seen sponsoring the game.

Alpine to update us?

Interesting reading. Let's see who we recruit and dispose of in this transfer window.

I would at least give him a preseason under Ralph despite what the wet tarts on here think I feel technically he is our most gifted player. If Ralph could make him a more team orientated player we could be onto a winner.

Boufal is a good dribbler but doesn't pass. When I was a lad we had a few of those on the playground...'ball hoggers'.

I’ve been searching for those fixtures too, without any success. Having been reliable told last December that they were going to happen. It was only this evening I realised I had been looking for those fixtures in the wrong place, the Championship!! Then I realised that of course we aren’t in the Championship and neither are Pompey....

Do keep up, they had a change of plan on the last day of the champion winners play off game and decided they didn't want to go up this year. They have the checkatrade trophy to defend.

Surprised to see that their star and ever present CD Matt Clark has left for Brighton. I was told he was going to be one for the future, a premier league player.

I suppose you can see it form his point of view, he couldn't wait forever to achieve his ambition. Although it must have been hard to leave one of the 'bigger' clubs in the third division. I suppose the opportunity of Brighton, a much bigger club was to much.

Not much use if you've only got Championship-standard floodlights, so those are getting replaced as well. Factless says they're iconic

Borrowing money again to make the 'improvements'. I expect it is all part of the plan to make themselves 'premiership ready' when they 'decide' it is the right time to go up.

Complete joke of a transfer, such a waste of funds.

Awful and to please a manager that was completely unsuitable for Premier League football. No way to disguise it.

The perfect business model is modest outlay allowing us 'just' to finish above the bottom three.

Has been successful for quite a few years now.

Imo we've been self sustaining since Kat took control , we've never really had any injections of cash !

Yes, and we have gone from a club with ambition for being regular top 10 to being content to 'stay up'.

I suspect we may be sold again in the not too distant future.

Aye, but no chance of your money back if you don't like the product.

but surely there are other streams of income if you had gone through your glass ceiling. You would sell out every game..well most, the ticket prices would go up as you wont have to slash them anymore or give away and of course merchandise streams may increase.

If only a small increase in revenue is a problem then you may as well stay where you are. Im sure I wont shed any tears if you don't go up.

Could they sell one of the other stands to Lidl therefore providing competition for Tesco? Three stands I am sure is the way to go, plus people could do their shopping and watch a bit of footie on the way out.

They didn’t even want promotion, they want to defend their checkatrade trophy (after boycotting the early rounds obviously). Much more important.

That was clearly the plan. Everyone was fooled into thinking they wanted promotion but it was simply a cover!

Surely they didn't need to go to Wembley again having won 'the (lower league) Cup again. And they have pulled off a crafty move being table to qualify to defend it again...etc

It looks very much like we will finish 16th as I predicted at the start of the season.

That will make it two in a row. Last season predicted 17th at the start of the season.

Let's hope Fulham beat Cardiff

Oh wow long misses open goal

Would you believe it!

Hope our confidence doesn't disappear.

It's not really a new thing it's been going on since the second half of the Puel season.

 

I would venture that going from defence containing peak Fonte and the likes of VVD or Toby A, Bertrand (at his best) and Clyne protected in front by Victor and/or Morgan a few years back.

To the likes of Hoedt, Stephens, Vest and Yoshida ( who I'm a big fan of but he was the back up and now he is the first choice) plus a less enthusiastic Bertrand and young right back protected by the players like Hoj, Lemina and JWP in midfield is just not as good.

 

Upfront we've never really replaced Lambert/ Pelle either so we are terrible at holding the ball up top to give us breathing space. The usual panicky long punts out of defence that often characterise our late game attempts at holding a lead just come straight back at us most of the time putting us under constant pressure.

 

I'd also point out our passing is pretty poor we give the ball away needlessly a lot. I know possession football is hated by most fans but late in a game defending a lead it would be good if we had midfielders capable of just playing keep ball to take the sting out of the game and relieve pressure on the back line.

 

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I agree and we have been fighting off relegation for over two years now. We get the weeby jeebies. I bet if we had 46 points (mid table safety) instead of 36 points we would have played with confidence and swagger after going up at Watford and beaten them. Watford could probably sense our brittle mind state and knew that if they pushed us hard there was a good chance we would crack. I'm pretty sure the opposition manager briefs the players...push on them in the last 10 minutes they are fragile and have a propensity to crack.

Ugh! Post from Redmond!

How unlucky was that?

Moving the ball around very, very well. Would like to get a second before half time as I have a feeling Watford could come out guns blazing in the second half.

Agreed. If we get a second we can ride out a storm

We need three imo,

Hope we don't defend deep