St Marco

Also if by 5pm they have not paid up then you have to wonder a few things. Like this Jacobs guy. He has said a lot over the past week or so. He has tried to make things appear as if they had now secured a longterm loan, will have paid the people owed money by today, will have the embargo lifted today because "there would be no reason to keep it on us", Grant has a few players he would like to bring in, won't need to sell players, the HRMC case is wrong etc etc. If they can't pay the additional £3m to pay to the PL to lift the embargo then you have to assume the club had no longterm loan, will have not paid people they owe money too, will not have the embargo lifted because there would be obvious reason to keep it on them, Grant would not be able to bring any players he liked in, they will need to sell to stay alive and chances are if he was wrong about all that then he will be wrong at the HRMC case...... Translated the past week he has done nothing but lie.

A very big day today for Portsmouth then. They have until 5pm today to pay the clubs they owe money too or the PL will have to use their slice to pay some of their debts. They owe clubs more then £7m aparently (£10m+). So they will have to make up the difference. If they don't do that i think we can expect to see the PL adopt a very different attitude towards Portsmouth. If they don't pay up then they have no option but to keep the embargo on the club. Which means O Hara goes. If Lens don't get what they are owed from the Belhadj deal they will recall Dindane and sell him to someone else. Add to that Jacobs admitted on radio he has actually never met the owner before means nobody has a clear idea of what is going on. Then in a couple of weeks you have the court case and the next wages due. In all honesty you have to say if the PL have to help them today then chances are Portsmouth will be in admin before the month is out.

We have a huge squad of players, with new signings and rumours of more to come some people will obviously need to go. So who do you think should be let go? I think it is time we got rid of Saga Wotten Holmes Forecast Lancashire Patterson Pullis Molyneux Gillett And then in the summer obviously Jaidi and Perry. If the other youngsters are at the same standard as Lancashire,Patterson etc then add them to the list too. If you look at our overall squad we have sort of 2 teams. What remains of the gash from last season and those brought in this season.

jesus christ this is hard. I have no idea how to get the 3rd key from the secret bit with the chess looking board thingy.....

Actually were in a very strong financial position right now. No debts and lot's of assets i.e stadium, training ground etc. If Markus got to the point where he thought he was putting in too much money and wanted out then like i said prior to going into admin (which i got shot down for) someone will buy us. Saints will only go out of business if we get to a similar situation as Portsmouth. At that point it is more important who is running the club. If you have people who take out a **** load of loans that are un-realistic to the level of the club then your going to get screwed one day. Where as if you run the club as a business i.e spend a bit when it is needed not just because you can then your be ok. While i am happy to see us spending money on decent players again in the grand scheme of things it is actually very little. £1m on Lambert, £800k on Fonte with additions and around £400k on Hammond. The rest were loans or free's etc.. So say we spent around £3m on 3-4 players that is not that much at all. Nothing to worry about. It is when we start spending £10m on 1 player who is not very good when you need to worry. Saints are a big club in this league, we have far more resources then most of the clubs in this league regardless to having a billionaire owner. I just see it as using those resources. Where as in the last couple of years we have not been able to do that due to the out of control stadium debt etc.. We are living within our means i think right now.

If you took a lot of the prem teams and bunged them in division three i doubt many would get the sort of attendances teams like us and Leeds have been getting. I for one am very proud of our attendances.

I think we are probably going to lose Lallana in the summer and possibly Morgan too. If we can get rid of a lot of our old squad now or in the summer and replace with some decent people; then i think we will probably win the league next year. If you look at the whole squad now we have a vast amount of players who need to be moved on or who will be too old next season. About 10 players or so. That is nearly half the squad. If we replace them with players who are not injured every week and can do a job were be fine. I always expected promotion next season. I don't think were out of it this year, still a long way to go. But i think if you take Norwich,Leeds and Charlton out of the league next year and add the likes of Peterborough,Plymouth and S****horpe then we must be huge favourites.

Yeah but the problem with Wotte is if you check his record he has actually got around 75% of his clubs relegated. So while i can understand some people think he had a bad deal with the way the club was etc i just think he did a crap job. He had well over half a season in charge and left us more points away from safety then Jan did. If we were expecting someone to do **** then we might as well have left Jan in charge too. Or better yet, give someone connected to the club a chance. That is just my opinion of course. Some might feel totally different and think he did well, tried his best and so on. I don't.

Got us relegated... Or do we praise people for that these day's?

awesome

They had 15k people watch their game against Steaua last month. And their last home game before that they had an almighty.....1000 people. Don't sound very big to me.

No doubt he will do just as well as he has at his previous jobs. Which is ****.

Wern't we like the 10th biggest attendance on boxing day or something? The biggest crowd outside the PL? So i guess it depends on your definition of a big club. For a club to be getting 20k a week in division 3 is pretty amazing. The Saints job is a pretty good one. One of the better ones out there. Going to a club higher up with less resources just creates more pressure. Where as there is no pressure here. Most people realise where we were and are slowly getting back to where we should be. It is inevitable other clubs will want him, that is a sign of all good managers. But i can't see him leaving anytime soon.

Do the Portsmouth forums have a takeover type thread as long as this one? With the self proclaimed best fans in the world you would expect in to be a few hundred more pages....

The Jacobs guy said on radio that "they should of been paid this afternoon" Translated "were still coming up with the latest excuse" They say they have the money now so you would expect it to have been done today. That is if they are not talking crap again!

If they think their squad is worth £50m like in that article then no wonder they are in the ****

Thought our performance at Leeds was very good personally. Colchester we had a good half and they had a good half. I would not be too down hearted by those results. Leeds are us a year in the future and Colchester are a very organised well disciplined team. If we play like that against the majority of teams in this league were win most of them. We have actually only lost 3 games out of the last 20 or so. I'm sure 4 months ago if someone said that we would all be very happy with it

Reading a lot of other clubs forums it would seem a lot of them want Pompey thrown out and have little sympathy for them. So we got 1hr until the wages have to be paid or will have to wait tomorrow for them. Reading Storrie's messages today i noticed he said nearly everytime "As far as i am aware they will be paid today". So if they don't get paid then i think it is safe to assume he has no clue what the chuckle brothers are doing, maybe they leave him out of the loop.

Interesting that Storrie does not share the same view as Jacobs http://www.football.co.uk/portsmouth/storrie_fears_more_player_sales_300775.shtml If they have this money in the accounts that will secure "the longterm future which will provide a big cash injection" then why does Storrie fear they will have to sell more players this month? It also seems where he say's "They thought they were in a strong position to replace bank finance and bring in a major new investor that was going to come in and be involved. "But those two things have not happened and, although they are working on doing that, time is catching up with them in terms of the debts and the money that is needed to run a Premier League football side." which to me sounds like they still have not got anything sorted....

That is 100% spot on and is what i was trying to say. The PL have acted like total chumps and are just to blame. They should of had a good knowledge of how the finances were going to be paid long before they even sat down to look at the fit and proper test with the first guy let alone the 2nd one. They ****ed up big time, not once but twice. And now they are trying to cover their ass by making it sound like Pompey have got a good deal! What they care about is the "prestige" of the brand remaining in tact. They could not give a fook about Portsmouth or the fans. If it drags on they will get relegated and then they will be fed to the wolves. All of which the PL will say they tried to help them. By doing what exactly?

As i said above, there method of getting themselves out will lead them to a far worse situation. For Pompey to survive they need to do as every other club/company has done and realise the game is up. You can't continue that way. Look at Leeds. They did what Pompey did. They had their punishment, and now they are on the up again.

From a business perspective. If a resturant came in and said we make £10,000 a month, but we lose £15,000 a month. We need a loan of £50,000 to keep us going until we come up with an idea to make more money. The chances are they would be declined. Simply because unless they come up with a way to make more money they are going to go under, thus meaning the bank loses the investment they put in. In Portsmouth's case it is the same thing. They are technically taking out more loans to pay off their other loans. Their outgoings are obviously a lot higher then their income. Any loan they get will keep them running until the excess has again been wiped out. If your bleading money it is just a matter of time until the blood runs out as they say. The only way Portsmouth will get out of this situation is by some rich billionaire coming in and clearing the debts or re-structuring them to a point where the income is higher then the outcome. The chances of a rich billionaire taking over Portsmouth before going into admin is next to zero. Point being by getting further and further into debt makes you an even worse prospect for bank loans. If they think you can't pay it back they will call the money in. Which is what is happening.

So i'm getting the impression you think it is fine to get yourself in **** loads of debt and when it comes to paying your own staff a simple case of pay them when you pay them rule is fine? Do you not think that maybe they should of realised what was going to happen when they got to the 20m in debt mark? If not then how about the 40m mark? The club "tried to live the dream" now it is time to face the reality.

Is Mark Jacobs the guy who Storie said would be giving a statement yesterday about the finances. And then when asked about the statement by the press he said "what statement?". I will believe it when i see it. If what this guy was saying was true then wages will be sorted tomorrow due to having "short term and long term funds" in place. I think like others have said they have most likely sold Kaboul and someone else. Thinking that money will help ease the amount of people asking for their money. When they get to the court case and have to show their finances and how it keeps the company afloat etc.. that is when the game will be up. I don't think they quite grasp how severely the HRMC can fook you up if you are not playing by the rules.

Look at it this way. The wages for december were supposed to be paid on xmas eve right. That was 2 weeks ago. In that time we have had 2 excuses that were obviously bull**** i.e file not opening and the one why they were not initially paid etc.. So let's say the wages are paid on friday. 16 days after they were supposed to be paid. Does that amount of time not make you think something is slightly wrong? So where you say i have the hump i think you misunderstand the point. The point is they haven't a clue what they are doing and haven't a clue when things will be sorted. They are bumbling along hoping things will improve and the PL are going along with it. The PL are not helping Portsmouth contrary to your belief they are actually only helping themselves by trying to limit damage to the brand. One they are trying hard to maintain. By doing what the PL are doing then they are taking a very serious precident. One that could come back to bite them on the ass. In the future when Pompey go into admin (most likely when the HRMC court case starts) and that landmark 1st team in the PL go into admin then how will the PL behave? If then say another club i.e Hull struggle to pay their wages will the PL adopt the same attitude they have now or will they come down hard on that team? Chances are they will not treat them the same as the landscape will have changed. That Gordon guy of the PFA makes a really great point about you can understand clubs needing protecting in the lower leagues as they don't have the financial income a PL team get's. But not paying your players in the PL with all the money they make is very worrying. I for one don't want Pompey to go under. But what i do want is for the rules that apply to all other companies to apply to every PL team. Thus far that is obviously not the case.