rallyboy

Just heard some mad stuff on Solent. Barker wants to thin out his squad, he says he has 28 players and that is way too many. Get with the programme Richie boy, send out those youngsters, make excuses, then plead for special help from the nasty league. That after Jervis has said that his problems with international clearance might have been ironed out if he had been trying to sign for a big club. He has gone off template!

Take That shouldn't have reformed, it was never going to be the same again. That picture reminds me of the Kop on one of those great European nights, or perhaps one of the Old Firm games. Massive.

That's not a newspaper article that's an advert. Please chuck a grand into a black hole, we'll give you a sheet of A4 in return. And if you were shafted by us last time, take it out of the £13M that will come flooding into the city tomorrow.

That bandstand picture - I'm not stupid but I just don't understand it. What are they doing, and why? Who thought it was a good idea? It's all wrong - from the fairground stuffed animals made from stolen and murdered cats to the topless dancer who isn't allowed inside the performance area. And why is there so much misery and confusion on the faces of all? Is this a picture of punishment time taken inside some perverted prison? It's just wrong on every level.

If that was our big 'meltdown' I thought it was rubbish. No firesale, no children losing limbs, no money-laundering, no one shot in the street nor pensioners robbed. We didn't even get charged with tax-evasion. Some hysterical fans did lose the plot and the media demonstrated how little understanding of our finances they have, but overall it was rubbish. We'd better have a decent crisis in the summer to entertain our neighbours or I shall demand a refund from the bedwetting tabloids.

Quick, the nutters are out, hide! Or just keep off the main board... Come on in, you're safe here, we've seen every bonkers conspiracy theory about potential ownership and funding, or lack of it, before, so nothing surprises us. Make yourself at home. Actually don't, you could be off to Moneyfields at very short notice. We're all doomed! Though some of us are less doomed than others.

I do hope we're not going to be asked to take sides between Cortese and the family. I never really got to grips with the whole Matt v Nicola, which one to invite to barbecues issue. So I think I might wait for some facts before getting too excited/worried.

The main problem with any skate insults over Cortese is that they've been telling us for five years how damaging he is for the club. But if they want to do a U-Turn if it suits then that's cool. I had all the same stuff about Nige - he wasn't up to getting us out of the championship, what a terrible manager he was, how he wasn't the guy for us, and then how bad it was that he was leaving. And the myth-peddling skate over the road assured me four years ago that Cortese had sold the club and had left, so I've heard it all before. It's a tired old desperate path of misinformation that they tread - and perhaps it's one paved with a hint of.....what's the word, jealousy?

Avram's hoping for another cup run that goes beyond a semi. The rest of you need to calm down. Think of something like league tables, or Martin Keown's sister.

Come on, you know the script by now. Just like one of Avram's business contacts in Amsterdam, they will overstretch themselves in the window. They will ignore their own wagecap and do anything to ensure survival. Unwise contracts will be given to fragile donkeys, these bits of paper will cause problems after the parachute payments have ended - but it will be enough to keep them in the football league and it only leaves a problem for tomorrow - the day that never comes. And then the annoying bit. The current suicidal close-encounter with disaster will be written out of history. Rather than a spotlight being turned on the mismanagement at ALL levels within the club, their survival will be hailed as a great escape, it will be peddled to the few as an achievement on a par with past glories, a launchpad for the bestest plucky promotion push next season. All of it roared on by the amazing travelling blue army who can take either 2,003 or 2,365 (depending on which local media figure is accurate) to a local derby one hour away. Let's remember that sleepygiant Coventry took 7,000 to an away game, little Leeds take more than that to the opening of an envelope, even struggling West Ham would fill Oxford's ground. If the few now realise that their beloved lowly pompey is just a League Two minnow, then that is a decent away following. But if they are still claiming to be the best fans in world football, supporting a bigger club than Celtic, Barcelona, Boca Juniors, Poznan and Liverpool, then it all looks a little bit sad. In fact it looks ridiculous.

perhaps the sight of moneypenny in a swimsuit just confirmed to Tom Daley what the rest of us already knew about him.

I must have missed Chelsea going into administration because they couldn't pay the bills, when did that happen? Someone needs to go directly to accountancy school for beginners - do not pass go, and definitely do not help yourself to £200. It is 2014 for god's sake - with technology and progress, in this day and age there is no reason why anyone should still confuse clubs that service debt, with those that steal from dying children. I thought that level of ignorance over basic business principles had been stamped out along with scurvy and the plague.

Ryan Taylor for sale, sold as seen - spares or repair.

apologies to whoever mentioned it a while back but I've just started reading the latest Secret Footballer. I know it was referenced and I don't think it got much discusssion at the time - but, if we are assuming that it is Kitson, I didn't realise how much stuff he says about pompey. He despises them, and their chairman for getting up in the director's box and singing along with terrace abuse, he had to threaten them with legal action about his money because they kept trying to beat them down, and threatened them with media coverage on 'other matters', and makes the claim in the book that the new owners basically misled the public and took cash off them. It is quite an eye-opener and supports a few Nutjob theories about players being bullied and abused while the champagne still flowed upstairs. So bombshell news - pompey don't come out of it terribly well.

She'll make a splash alright, if she doesn't get harpooned by a boat full of Japanese fishermen first. Her coming in off a ten metre board could signal the end for Tipner and other low-lying flood-threatened areas of the city. She does appear to be drifting rapidly from a job in politics to an obsession with 'look at me, look at me, look at me!'

Hello, remember when we hounded you out of the club, booed you, called you greedy, attacked you on Twitter, forced you into a public statement of support for the Trust, then booed you again when you came back? Well forget the wages we owe you, we'll be trying to reduce that agreed figure sometime soon anyway, but could you give us £900 please towards our drinks bill? And we only take cash.

It's like a football revolution. First they talk about setting up this scouting network thing, now they're offering financial advice. The rest of football must be reeling at these new ideas.

why should we care what other people think, have we gone all sensitive? Remember, we are the south coast club, the club that papers refused to name and made cartoons about. We treated our previous manager so badly everyone hated us and wanted us relegated. For a week. Now the world is supporting Clattenberg against us? Good luck with that lost cause, you'd be better off petitioning for a Jimmy Savile statue. On current form, Clattenberg's a whistling accident waiting to happen, anyone who wants to stand in his corner is welcome to. Soi f^ck what anyone else thinks, we've offloaded a crap referee off our backs for a bit and have pointed a spotlight at him and Lallana. I'm pretty sure I know which one of those two will drop a clanger first and leave his supporters looking bloody stupid. And don't bother to troll me with fake defence of a consistently inconsistent crap ref who has had three shockers against us in a year, I don't bite. No really, don't bother.

I thought they didn't have a pot? They're doing better than I thought.

sorry - I had a funny five minutes there, probably due to jealousy. They are massive, solvent, attractive to potential transfer targets, fan-owned and debt-free - in fact the future is bluer than Sam Allardyce's postmatch team talk.

Someone down there needs to stand up and say, we are not a massive club, pub teams went further in the cup, we are in a relegation battle with Torquay and Northampton, and if we fail, our new rivals will be Eastleigh. Let's stop pretending that we are a big club, let's stop claiming to be signing big players from under other club's noses, let's just accept where we are and get on with it. So let's pay bills, avoid high wages and stabilise the club in League Two, where we currently belong. Then perhaps we can build towards a promotion, make some progress within a sound financial model, and earn back a bit of respect from other clubs - which is currently still running at zero. Will it be McInnes? Maybe Hall? Someone needs to say it.

Nice to see that they are still bolstering the mighty blue army by swooping to snatch stars away from rivals and landing big name signings through their extensive scouting network that works hand-in-glove with their fellow giants Man Utd and Chelsea. That version of events impresses the few so much more than the truth - and distracts from the unanswered financial questions, and the sly shift of power in the shareholding. hello Mr Moyes, that latest litter that you just dumped from your academy, could we have the runt please? They need a reality check. Small potless club fails to attract quality, has to sign players no one else wants. The End.

The ref made a mistake, as they sometimes do. At that point he can either tell the player to shut up and just jog away, or he can try to be clever and address the player in a derogatory manner. Clattenberg chose to escalate the situation. Saints in turn have chosen to escalate it further. Osvaldo recently made a mistake, he has been punished, I hear no complaints. Clattenberg made two mistakes in ten seconds, yet we are being asked to allow him to continue without reprimand. The Respect campaign must be a two-way street if it is to have any hope. Many of us will have played at various levels and we've seen good and bad refs. Some are inconsistent, some we disagree with but can understand why they make certain decisions. As players we make mistakes, so we don't expect perfect officials. I've found it very difficult to argue with a ref who waves you away and jogs off. But if a ref came looking for me as Clattenberg did, and addressed me in a derogatory way, I'd be quite happy to stand there and discuss it with him/her for the rest of the 90mins.

This is not about two men having a disagreement and needing to man up. It is about a ref who has made three big calls in a year that cost us points, and in other situations could have relegated a club. No he doesn't have to justify his mistakes, though some refs have rung managers and apologised after such calls. But once he has made a mistake, he shouldn't try to start an argument with a player by leading his reply with insults, however mild they might seem in the cold light of day. I don't believe he was responding to an abusive approach, if he was he has a card he could use - and that's what a good ref would have done if they considered Lallana's approach as abuse. His job is to ref the game to an acceptable level. From the quality and inconsistency of his performances of late, he needs to concentrate 100% on reffing, as he is falling short, and is certainly not good enough to showboat with clever remarks as well. If nothing else, hopefully we will have got him off our games for a while. But it's swings and roundabouts...****** By my reckoning I believe we have got away with about two decisions this year, but had calls go against us in nine games. It's time the club stood up and asked how much longer we have to put up with it so I believe the complaint is justified, and I have no worries about opposition supporters moaning, they know what he is like, they have TV. As for Lineker, he has no clue what went on as he will have been fed a MotD version of events in the style of the one-sided humiliating hammering that we took at Old Trafford. I suspect it is a justified complaint and should have been investigated, not dismissed out of hand as that doesn't help anyone, Clattenberg included. Without proper investigation, the ref has not been cleared.

Details, facts, decimal points in wrong places, blah, blah, blah - what is up with you people? Always obsessed with the little things that don't matter.