S-Clarke

WTF @ the bompey keeper for the first goal? Abysmal.

He will be under even more pressure if/when we sign Gaston. I cannot see Cortese pulling of a transfer like that and accepting a season of struggle. I just hope NA proves himself to be one of the best English managers, and becomes the big name that Cortese so clearly craves.

I don't think it's going to be a radical formation change, but likely to be someone dropped that shocks us and one of the young lads given a chance. We could end up with Paulo in goal, maybe Ward-Prowse in midfield...

Tello, crikey. Well we're after a winger, but jeez - the level we're after is incredible.

I think a lot of this has understandably got lost in translation, but my jist on it is that we agreed a fee with a few bits to sort. I.e how it's paid. For bologna to then see the player speaking as if it was done they got rightly annoyed. So they paused it. It also allows the club to swing the exit in the face of the player, rather than the club looking like its selling off its talent - to their fans they now look like the victim. So in essence gastons comments were ill timed and slightly unprofessional, but bologna used this development to their advantage. There is no way back for Gaston now, so it's up to the chairman to look like he's trying to get the best possible deal he can. I think it will all be resolved rather quickly next week. As I say, that's just my take on the numerous articles all over the place but I don't think it's too far from the truth.

I don't know, there's something funny about it that I can't put my finger on.

Looked very good. Big, strong and technically sound to say the least. I still think we want better than him though.

Quite excited now. Can't wait to see us line up at the Ethiad tomorrow, I think we'll give a good account of ourselves and that's all we can really demand from tomorrow - go down fighting. It just feels like it was only yesterday that we were preparing to go to Dagenham, Yeovil, Wycombe...and the likes of Lambert, Lallana, Davis, Fonte, Morgan - who have been all the way - now get their chance up against the best tomorrow. I bet they are absolutely buzzing for it, and they all deserve it. p.s - Lallana on the titles of MOTD, quality.

Wow, 2 days. Blimey. Hold the back pages, transfer off - it's taken longer than 48 hours!!!!!!!!!!!

Jesus hypo, what a silly thing to say.

Not sure. Adkins seemed fairly content with Shaw and Fox y/day. Although we could be after a CB who can also play LB...in an emergency.

According to Nixon, the tale regarding the (i assume) CB we're after is in the printed version of the people tomorrow. And it will ''WOW'' us. but it will be hard to do.

He could tell him that we're playing in our blue away kit.

Charlie Weyman?

Newcastle carrying on from where they left off, very impressive in the 2nd half. Spurs looked decent, but lacked a killer edge (i.e Modric). Arsenal also seem to be selling everyone again, Song is now off to Barca for £15m.

Bompey have got themselves a decent little team there, they should score bags of goals with their forwards.

Possibly a little optimistic! What I was really getting at is that there's more chance of him demanding that sort of fee, as opposed to Fletcher and Zamora who will only sell for a loss. They'll never get £15m back, where we'd have a chance of doing so and possibly more as he has a lot of time on his side.

I think it's just the agent and player who have caused the confusion, I reckon we were pretty close until he bloody well blabbed - idiot! I still stand by the belief that there are only minor things to sort as we're not far off money wise.

Phillips will leave.

Basically, there is a transfer committee. NA will have made it clear the positions that he needs to strengthen. He would have provided a list of targets, which would have included Clyne, Davis, Rodriguez - and they have been sorted. But having a transfer committee also gives you the scope to offer alternative options to the manager in the position that he wants to strengthen in. For example, if he said he wanted Matt Jarvis and Wolves said they wanted 11m+, the scouts and NC went away and found out that we had a chance for Gaston at 12m...then that would obviously be presented as the better option. I don't think it's being done behind Nigel's back, I just think we're using all our available resources to make sure we source the best possible players we can.

Contracted to them, signed a long-term deal. Basically he's telling Phillips to pipe down and honour his contract, when to be honest he's got no chance. I expect him to move early next week and I'd expect more moans and hard done by comments from Holloway next week. I don't have a problem fighting for your own player at all, we would do the same. but I hate the way Holloway does it, it's done in a way where he sounds so hard done by and everything is so bad for him. He's a plucky little manager who thrives on being ''hard done by'' and doing things ''against the odds'', he is at a club which suits him down to the ground, he'd fail miserably at any big club - (look at Leicester for e.g)

We seem to be operating at the other end. Good young players, with big resale value for decent prices, let's be honest. This is the day and age when we're talking £15/16m being demanded for Steve Fletcher, 60k p/w on Zamora. Both bog standard average players. Nothing special. Yet £15m could get you one of the best young players around at the moment, with a resale value that will most likely be in the 30-40m's if he performs for us.

That's absolutely cringe worthy. Christ, what an embarrassment that is!

They'll be ok this season, and to be honest they haven't spend a great deal in comparison. They've screwed away more on wages than anything, the likes of SWP, Dyer, Zamora.....I like to think we're aiming for players quite a bit higher up the ladder than them.

Absolutely. We'd be seen totally differently by everyone. Agents, players, opposition. In our current position Ramirez is a player we don't really have any right to go for, let's be honest, but it shows that all this talk by Adkins about Europe and ambition isn't just talk, which is important. Alot of clubs talk the talk but never really invest, because at the end of the day you need good footballers to achieve good things.