david in sweden

without ... L & L, Chappers and Fonte, we didn't even look like a team...It's unfair to criticise Holmes' performance. He didn't come on until 55 mins. and the damage was done by then...and SDR wasn't better either. He looked good in the Forest game and would have scored had it not been for a class save by Lee Camp who kept out three good efforts in the last 5 minutes. He has made a long way back. He's been on the bench for the last 10 games but only got on in 4 of those - 2 of which were only for a few minutes. It takes time to get back form and this is the worst run of form we've had in a couple of seasons. Unfair to single him out...

...and to those of you out there who criticised me, and a dozen or so others when we wanted more players bought in during August, and you all said NO .. (it would upset the current players) .....tonight you saw the reason why. No Barnard, No Fonte, No Lambert, No Chaplow, No Lallana, = No team and No promotion ..unless we flash the cheque book before the 31st.

we keep them, of course. Jaidi is retiring this season and as for Seaborne ...? who knows if he'll play again ?

Criticise... NO ! , but he may have missed a few things... He signed Jos to cover for Jadhi.. then Seaborne had his " accident " now with Fonte not recovering so quickly as anticipated - I'd look for 2 CB's I wish he'd bought in a loan striker in November, Lambert was still fit, but we lost points because there was no-one for him to bond with (or, do I mean "gell".) we may have got Lee coming, but we still need a " Hooper " or a "Rhodes "....to be secure.

When we started pre-season, Aaron Martin was fourth choice CB.. ...NOW he's the only one who's fit ! .... answer YES ! (thank goodness we signed Jos when we did.....)

hope your lift home didn't leave before the end !!!

You can be sure of that . We know Lee is coming but I expect 3 more this week (unless there is another loan on the cards later on - from somewhere)

Leicester started at 100mph - and never let up. They were better than us in nearly every area and we did look tired ! we never looked a threat and never looked like we could turn it around. VERY DISAPPOINTING. Analyse it tomorrow Nigel, put it to bed and get the cheque book out tomorrow morning. too many key players out for too long...now it's Lallana and Hooiveld, injured too. As of now, Martin is our only fit central defender.....

agree with all those EXCEPT ..Charlie George (sorry) but Lawrie McMenemy bought him for a hefty £400,000 in 1978 when he still had an injury and it was 8 months before he was anywhere near match-fit again. He did show some touches of class but never to the standard that made him an Arsenal legend. When he finally left in 1981 he had played a mere 52 games and scored 14 times. An expensive case of " what might have been .." .

his record wasn't that bad (elsewhere) and he was already a Tunisian international when he came in 2004. However, at this time we were still in the Svensson /Lunderkvam era and beginning to look a bit leaky at the back. He never got a first team start and left again soon afterwards and returned to France. After changing clubs a few time he's been with LENS in the French ligue 1, and has played over 100 games at CH.

well....ask you ask. He looked good at Oxford where he started with 13 goals from 45 starts, but he was never cut out for the Premiership level (Div.1 then). He had a " rather unusual style of running "(if you can imagine a frog taking large paces,) and this once led to a classic piece of video where he played on a wet pitch at the Dell, slipped and fell over several times - yet still managed to retain possession of the ball !- unlike Wright his SFC career was short - only 19 games scoring 4 times. He moved onto Brentford and later Mansfield where he found his real level and scored at a fair rate, until he retired in 1989, but not before getting a Wembley game when Mansfield won the Associate Members Cup . Can't remember what that was... perhaps a forerunner to the JPT ? After leaving football, he joined the police force.

To be fair..it's difficult for anyone who signs for Pompey to know if ..they might one day ....also have the chance to play for SFC...and to know the history of the rivalry that exists between us. Until the last 20 years or so ...very few players actually played for both clubs. The most famous ....in my late father's words..was the tall, rotund (OK he was fat )..CF Billy " Farmer " Haines . He played for Pompey in the mid 1920's scored 119 in 165 games before moving to the Dell in 1928 where he scored 47 in 70 games ..retiring from League football in 1932. He didn't have much pace but apparantly had power and placement in his armoury and ....took penalties ...without a run-up. There really hasn't been so many well-known players who had careers at both clubs, although a number of ex-Saints did play for them near the end of their careers; incl. Channon, Ball and Ron Davies. Very few players since have moved from Pompey to So'ton with success and amongst them are Alan McLaughlin and Nigel Quashie, although even Peter Crouch played for both clubs though not moving between the two (Crouch came via A.Villa). Quite a few youngsters we've had in past days either grew up in the " Portsmouth area" ...or played junior football for Pompey.....and so it's a bit tough to criticise youth players who join one, or the other. (Both Bobby Stokes and Alex OC grew up in the shadow of the Pompey club.) If there were a promising youngster in the Pompey set-up, it would be both foolish and unfair to ignore him giving him a chance in " our Academy ".

Ah, so I guess you're totally against the idea, then ?

Best thing that can happen. He's been out for nearly 9 months, apart from 3 or 4 twenty min. sub.apps. -- and then he got injured again. His goal-scoring record ..has all been in L1, if he really is going to make a comeback this season, he needs a month or two in an L2 / Conference side, and bang in a few hat-tricks to help him get his form back. After all, by the time he gets properly fit again, we could be in the Premiership... and he'll have missed the whole season in CCC.

Quite obviously ..if it's a long-term injury, but those "training injuries " are usually kept quiet until kick-off time - aren't they? Was it known in advance who was going to play in goal in that fateful Blackpool game ?.....or was everyone as surprised as me to see Bart appear instead of KD?

...perhaps hiding in a wardrobe in the dressing rooms ..?.....or sleeping on a camp bed in Cortese's office ?

well I'm sure they try to, but when items like this pop-up it's not a strategy that we can exploit anymore - is it ? (I mean why didn't we tell Hitler our Normandy invasion plans from the beginning?). I mean ...Why bother keeping the team selection secret... when you can tell the world in advance. Might it have something to do with tactics? If you think it really doesn't matter if they know our team in advance - why not twitter to Nigel Pearson now, then you can be sure everyone knows ! I'm sure he has plans to try and neutralise the Lallana threat..now he won't have to bother . GREAT POST ! (I don't think) maybe Keith Legg had the right idea!

oh ! ..that was GROSS ! A double breach of the Trade Desciptions Act. Shearer was valued at (a record £3.4 million) but the deal soured by us buying David Speedie and Kerry Dixon for around £1.5 million and in the end Speedie stayed only 7 weeks - playing only 12 games and 0 goals. Kerry Dixon was only a little better. He stayed only 4 months played 11 games - 1 goal. To say we got shafted ...was an understatement. Both players were past their prime, unfit and not the least bit interested in playing for us.

no! .. the 27 years has to include the old Div.1 because the Premiership was only formed in 1992.

over 300 games and 173 goals in a 7 year period. 1955-1962 . His record later overtaken by strike partner George O'Brien. Derek Reeves name still stands with the club record of 46 goals in 1959-60. (39 in the League and 4 goals in the FA Cup massacre of Div.1 side Man.City AWAY - January 1960). Quite remarkable in that he scored those 39 in 29 of the 46 League games. His scoring consistancy was awesome. He scored in 6 consecutive games TWICE that season,and had a purple patch of 11 in 5 games in Sept/Oct ..incl.2 hat-tricks., and scored 4 in a game v. Swindon.

well ALMOST ...go back and read the thread about Micky Evans.

Yes of course, his remarkably short career helped us survive in Div.1 (1996-97).¨ Whilst we all recall Marian Pahars' part in the Great Escape of 1998-99, it was Micky Evans contribution at the end of 1996-97 that helped keep us up in Graham Souness' one season as Saints manager. Signed in March 97 (you could still sign then) he played only 8 games + 4 sub.apps - but scored 4 goals - (including two goals coming off the bench in a 3-1 win at Notts Forest), all of which earned us valuable points, and we managed to stay up by just one point. Souness left in the summer(having already signed the young Kevin Davies (later Bolton) - but with Egil Ostenstad and David Hirst also on the books, new manager Dave Jones saw Micky as surplus to requirements, and we recouped the 750K fee when he moved to West Brom, but he eventually returned to his native Plymouth (where we bought him from in the first place), and ended his 500 game career as an Argyle legend. Without Micky Evans' short, but extremely valuable career..Saints would have been relegated 9 years before they eventually went down (2005).

well - not quite ...In that deal we saw Trevor Hebberd, a good local product move the other way, and Oxford got an additional £80,000. I seem to recall at the time, Wright was valued at £110K. It was a good deal when you consider he was capped for England 16 times whilst with Saints before moving to Derby for a then club record fee of £760,000 (5 years later). ***I think it was undervaluing Hebberd somewhat, who had been 5 years with the club from an apprentice and played 82 games + 31 subs. He was one of the squad but McMenemy considered that he wasn't " hungry enough " to be a permanent fixture. Trevor later played 260 games for Oxford before moving onto Derby , a handful of games at Pompey, later Chesterfield and was still playing for Lincoln in 1995 (aged 37) ..before moving on to non-league Grantham. A pro. career spanning 19 years and over 500 games.