sidthesquid

So am I. I didn't see what he did wrong - he seemed to fit effortlessly into the team & for a centre-back with barely a dozen league games to his name he seemed pretty confident to me. He may not have Jose's assurance yet, but I bet quite a few NPC clubs would like him in their starting elevens. Criticise when he plays poorly, but not because he's not quite at Fonte's level yet.

The point is Chainrai probably took the Lithuanian taxpayers for few mill via CSI, he still has the parachute payments and the only asset - Nottarf Krap - in his control, and some other wannabe (for whatever dubious reason) will chuck another mill or two to join the merry-go-round. (It's not a coincidence, either, that none of their many recent owners has been British.) The only issue really is whether the FL has the cojones to actually put a stop to the merry-go-round. Does anyone really think they have on the evidence so far?

I think it is entirely possible a new owner will appear. What I can predict with certainty is that it will not be a local businessman made good with the best interests of the club at heart. He will be either Russian or HK Chinese, with several links to at least one of the existing cast-list of chancers, with some shady money to churn, or an ego to massage, for whom Chainrai will give temporary 'ownership' in exchange for a high interest rate whilst he keeps control of the ground & the parachute payments. Ho will be on claiming the new owners are wealthy beyond reason, whiter than the driven slush and the FAPPT will once again live down to its tarnished reputation. Within days we will have proved otherwise, but he will refuse to accept it and meanwhile Poopey will suddenly be outbidding everyone again in another desperate push for the play-offs. Then, come the summer it will all unravel again & the whole process will repeat once more. I think this thread could reach 2000 pages, never mind 1000.

From the emiratestadium site. I think I love her already.... Anne December 30, 2011 at 8:04 am @Just an honest fan: Thank you very much for this information resource. Until now, I’ve been focusing more on compiling a broad overview of money laundering in the football sector. As a result, I’ve only looked at the Portsmouth case in a collateral way. But based on the information that you and others have provided me with here, I’m beginning to think that Portsmouth might turn out to be an ideal case study for these larger issues that I’m trying to highlight. I’ll definitely follow up on this. Again, thanks.

From the BBC Possession Southampton 52% Crystal Palace 48% Attempts on target Southampton 6 Crystal Palace 2 Attempts off target Southampton 2 Crystal Palace 3 Corners Southampton 6 Crystal Palace 1 Fouls Southampton 16 Crystal Palace 9 Yet again we seem to concede double the freekicks the opposition do despite having more of the ball and being on the offensive more. Are we dirty or was today's ref another w***er in black?

Funny game really. In some ways we won at a canter - Palace barely had a shot in anger - but the ten minutes after we scored and for about fifteen minutes early in the second half they looked surprisingly good and we looked surprisingly flustered. But job done (again) and move on. Having Schteve gave us a much better balance, do Prado was pants, apart from a couple of goals!!!, and when we click, the passing is beautiful to watch.

I always rated that Dany N'Guessan

I had heard about it on Outnumbered and wondered what it was. That one comment made me feel very old...... As for Owzat - what a brilliantly simple game. I used to play that all through school and it was so much more fun than revision. A friend & I had some epic series as adults, too.

Not exactly, because Palace were heading for admin & were desperate to sell players. I don't think he pushed for a move.

At least Bridgey has gone up in my estimation.

I presume that last line was being written ironically....

There is a huge difference between a professional in any job pursuing his career and ambitions and a mercenary looking for nothing more than a payday. If Rickie had gone to a decent Prem team that would be the former, if he'd gone to Leicester in the summer for the money, I think that would be mercenary. As for primadonnas, Cristiano Ronaldo was not a disruptive influence as far as I was aware, nor Balotelli (just a nutcase). Puncheon clearly is/was. It's about personality, not ability. The ideal player has both.

I think NA's emphasis on signing 'intelligent' players is a polite way of saying we won't sign @rseholes. I actually think that football has started to change again - because all teams have become so well organised and the emphasis is on keeping shape and closing down space rather than tackling, the game has become more and more about the right pass, finding space and getting the opposition out of position and less about physicality and raw skill/pace - and 'intelligence' and the ability to work as part of a unit is becoming more essential. Certainly Norwich & Swansea play tidy football without big stars or blistering pace and are holding their own in the Prem, and more teams are playing our way than the 'Big Sam' way in the NPC. So signing bright, committed 'team' players is the way forward rather than gifted mavericks with an attitude problem, and we are not the only club to have worked this out.

I get in from work to look at my favourite soap opera, get all excited at seeing half a page of new content has been added, then scroll down with a groan as I realise the Skates last hope to close this thread - by boring us into submission - has struck again. STILL, effing bleating on that somebody somewhere on here made the appalling gaffe of suggesting that Maradona might be manager and not 'ambassador'. FFS, that must be two years ago. Move on. And lines like - For the last couple of years I've said PFC has been the victim of criminal activity - just make me laugh. Yes, we all know that, but we have not serially tried to defend them until they are actually arrested and taken away, then complain that you were the unwitting victim. The only thing I do agree with him on is that I don't believe CSI intended to use the Skates as a money laundering vehicle. They were all too evidently doing that elsewhere. It was to buy respectability and a high profile for just such an eventuality as the one he faces now. Harder to bump off or be 'extradited' in the boot of a car when you are a public face. And despite the Skates' tarnished image locally, in the wider world they were an almost Prem team. And, as we have seen they were available on HP and a pretty limited investment. The five-year plan was about that because the money was never going to last any longer.

It seems to me that what we need is a bit of cover rather than direct replacements. Cover for Rickie, cover for Connolly/Barnard, cover for Chaplow seems about it.

At the start I'd have gladly taken a point, by the finish, a bit frustrated not to have won. But our class did show, and our bottle, and we will win more than we lose playing like that. As you say skates played like an away side hoping for a 0-0 and getting a lucky break, as they did at Burnley & yesterday, but that is no way to set up for a season and they looked seriously limited. Overall, glad it's out the way & we did ourselves justice in front of the TV, and top at Christmas - well, I'll take that, thanks very much. Nothing to fear in this league.

If they are in administration, how can the money raised by the sale of one of CSI's assets go to supporting another of their businesses? Surely it has to go into the pot to pay off the creditors. Is this AA bullsh1t, or are the convoluted wheels within wheels arrangements involving Chinny going to kick into play again?

It is always smoke and mirrors, isn't it? The ownership of the club is less than clear, even now, never mind the chain of inter-related loans and debts, and most of the links still wind their way back to Chainrai, who, as we know, was not unacquainted with the Gaydamaks. Sometimes it feels like the whole thing has been a huge money-churning scam right back to day one, hiding in clear sight as they all clean their cash and defraud the UK tax authorities, because it gets harder and harder to believe any innocent club could be that unlucky as to get such a long succession of potless billionaires passing ownership from one to the next. Ignoring my own bias, you do feel that the only way to stop it would be to have the poor thing destroyed so no-one can abuse it any more.

I also read it that without him & his money they don't have a pot to p1ss in (unless Chinny steps up again).

I can hear several ticking bombs - The forensic investigation The CVA payments Antonov doing a runner or being banged up Arry & Mandy in court Having to pay the wages next month The FL deciding whether they get docked points All those bombs might not all explode, but they'd be extremely fortunate if none of them did

As we have said on here, normal rules of good governance, legality, decency & sanity do not apply on Portsea Island. As further proof of the alternative universe down there beyond the M275, I was chatting to a non-footballing colleague based in Devon about the day the Skates rioted in their own town after beating us, not knowing he went to college in the dark city. 'That's nothing,' he said. Apparently they were holding a student party back in the eighties when a dozen or so ****ed-up local football fans gatecrashed. They went pretty meekly, but as soon as they were outside they started throwing bricks from a nearby skip (there's one on every street, I gather) smashing the windows and showering those inside in broken glass and house-bricks, hospitalising about half a dozen students, including girls. And guess what awful event had made them behave so insanely - it was the night they gained promotion to the old Div One. As I say, an alternative universe down there.

Not wishing to be libellous (and not based on any evidence at all), but maybe there was a reason why he left the FA & fitted in so seamlessly in the cesspit.

A perfect summary.

So in reality, income of £40.4 million, debt of £58 million. What would Mr Micawber say?

Thanks for that. I really don't have the time or the stamina to keep countering his trollish revisionism. You know some 'fact' is wrong but it is an old troll's trick to dress up made-up numbers as detailed statistics to baffle us lesser motals.