rallyboy

a very good summary Landford, and that's why I think that despite some vocal objectors, most of the fanbase are on the bus - still respectful of legends of Saints past, but supportive of the man who will stop at nothing to create future Saints legends. That spat is not a black and white argument, you don't have to take sides. In Nicola we trust - and as an example, his decision to sack Pardew will be judged in May by the table, not by knee-jerk ranting on here. I think he's made some mistakes but as I've said before, Cortese wants the club to succeed, and so do I.

so am I right in thinking we now have a 'banker' who has been linked to organised crime and whose fellow director and brother was shot by a hitman? And between them they couldn't afford Bournemouth? And the motoring industry was concerned over their own version of the FaPPT? Allied with one of Ridsdale's advisors, and a bloke who makes our own estate agent saviour look bigtime?!...... I just knew someone would get shot before this deal completed! With an arms dealer, money launderers and two branches of the Russian mafia involved, it should get really tasty now. Once again it's going to be like three old tramps fighting over one wet shoe - but this time they're tooled up - book front row seats now to avoid disappointment! Our entertainment aside - the FL should knock this one on the head right now, Lampitt has seen the same background info that we have, his former job leaves him in no doubt as to these people's likely intentions. A return to Cash + twintub. It's very obvious.

this might be a little gem that popped out of the News report on the Derby game..... The official declared attendance was listed as 14,555. The number of people actually in the ground was 12,882. That means that - a. nearly 1,700 season ticket holders have paid up but abandoned ship mid-season - a massive percentage. or b. they are giving the impression that the breakeven figure is being met when it clearly isn't. what's worse?..... I'm sure every club has a handful of empty season ticket seats listed on the attendance, but not at the rate of 10-20%.

no one can hijack the club name and organise events that to the casual observer appear to be officially sanctioned. A guest list of worthy participants doesn't make it official, any such affair should be organised with the club's approval, not as an aggressive action to raise headlines. Meeting Cortese and agreeing limits for the business he's in charge of would have been polite. If you then wanted to organise an unofficial event go at it as hard as you can within the limits he had set, knowing from day one that no one from the club would be present. As soon as this was exposed as a non Cortese-sanctioned event we all knew it was in trouble, why didn't the organisers? Yes Nicola is tough and occasionally wrong, but he is very predictable on image rights and there was never going to be a player at this unofficial event. Love you Matt, but let it go, don't keep feeding the Mail with non-stories.

nowhere near rich enough, they need someone to risk £50M to stand still and £150M if they want to seriously turn things round. The years of debt and ludicrous wages is crippling their future. A new owner needs to buy off so many people and service so much debt it's a non-starter - hence the lack of any interest in a year. The business just doesn't offer a return to justify the outlay. The only way it could work is with Prem money coming in - that was the only asset a year ago, that's when they should have taken what they could get, but Chanrai chose to gamble.

They have deliberately not developed the boxes - I think the club are worried that if you offer free parking with hospitality the guests will bring forty untaxed vehicles and stay for a month - especially troublesome when you don't own the car park and a child-maimer charges you for every space. But with the 'posh' seat you do get a match programme, pegs, commemorative horse brass, and the chance to 'grab' the man of the match. Great to see Avram's career going so well. He now knows that Karma isn't the name of his favourite Latvian crack addict.

it seems fairly clear that Haim is a pompey player and they owe him wages, it looks like a clumsy and illegal way to try and save money. Not sure I've ever heard of a player who doesn't know who he is contracted to play for. His loan is up, he returns. And you know you are in trouble when West Ham (who are happy to pay insane money to a sadly-fading Bridgey and 50 year old Robbie Keane) decide your player is too expensive. even now pompey can still outbid the maddest millionaires.

it's greedy footballers first in line for the cash so that means most of their parachute money rather than being utilised to stabilise a relegated club and give it infrastructure will be invested in chrome wheel trims, oversized baseball caps, shiny ear studs and tattoos. That's how they chose to spend it - the TV money is still going through the club, not into it.

is this the same reason they delayed the January payment to the legal firms and administrators? I can't see why AA would go without his cash if it was there. A neutral might suggest that it looks like cashflow is on a knife edge. If that is the case, how on earth are they going to pay this month?? If I were among the few, and I shudder at that thought, if I didn't see an apology from Lloyds backing the pompey version of events I would be very worried, the financial safety of the end of the season and end of contracts is a long way away for a company with no money. Time for another competitively-priced loan from the shark! - at a rate that will amount to the parachute income.

congratulations, did the same for my son a million years ago, we lost 4-2 that night, you have a far more interesting result to tell him about. Get a couple, get Ricky to sign them and then little Lambert Markus Cortese can enjoy them in years to come.

half the squad have wage issues, it was a bank error.......again. Funny how the bank hasn't come out and apologised or offered a version of events as any delay would be a PR disaster for their customer and they would want to support them by making a statement. Yet we have nothing. If we are playing Call my Bluff I will go for the 'waiting for Utaka fee to clear' version. Which is significant if cashflow is that poor.

guessing that their wagebill has gone a bit mad, are West Ham the new pompey? Avram has been splashing out again, following a disappointing semi. I know they too have the bestest fans and you can't take their spirit etc. Are they risking all to stay up?....

that short break in Egypt to relax and recharge batteries doesn't seem to have helped. They should have gone on another of those well-organised and useful US mini tours, paid for by taxpayers and creditors of course. Or perhaps just stayed at home and paid bills. And practiced defending. Or maybe recruited cheap players.

I guess they've delayed the first cva payments to make time to reduce the wagebill further. If Lampitt is attempting to meet the cva, (and there has been no indication yet that the club intend to address any debts), he desperately needs the forthcoming player clearout in the summer. He can then get the wagebill to a sensible level, though signing players on £3K a week will be difficult as this regime has already sanctioned £20K a week. Their rebuffed offers in the transfer window demonstrated that by already overpaying loanees etc, no one will take a paycut to come to a sinking ship. Who wants to take £5K a week knowing there are others in the squad on three, four or five times that? That would suggest the post-exodus starting squad for next season could be desperate journeymen unwanted by proper clubs, and kids, all on peanuts - plus a very miffed Lawrence and Kitson, and a grossly-overpaid middle-aged immobile Nigerian. Meanwhile further parachute payments will have to be utilised to cover the lack of transfer income - or is Chanrai going to chuck more money in the bottomless well?... Are they about £12M down on the proposed income from two windows? That leaves a whacking great hole in the cva figures! Getting the wages sustainable will be a start but Cotterill is close to cracking. His comment the other day that they need to remember that the club is a football club and not a bank means he has been told he has to cut costs and the squad will suffer. Lampitt can go either way in the summer - try and cut costs and address debt, or continue to sanction overpaid signings. The inactivity this week might indicate that it is finally reality check time - has the madness finally ended? No more big wages, no more expensive loanees, just a battle for club survival. To sum up - nothing has changed in a year - as it was in Feb 2010 - The only answer is still cash on the table, and lots of it. They must still be trading insolvently. The current manager still doesn't understand how a business works. Many of the fans don't understand how a business works. Creditors have got nothing, and they are still idiots. They still have the taxman on their backs. They still have tax evasion charges hanging around. They are still blaming previous owners, even though they are now one of them. An investigation still needs to take place. They are heading for a firesale/clearout in the summer. oh hang on, a couple of things have changed since Feb 2010 - a year ago they were fighting relegation, but it was from the division above with a life-saving cushion of four years of big money. And they could fill their little ground back then. If they get their act together I will look forward to Cotterill's rousing little speech on the pitch when they survive on the final day, glossing over the fact that they needed to go up, not stay up.... It'll be like carnival time, as if the prossie-botherer never left - the flags, the extra thumbs, the cheers - just drowned out by the sound of fifteen ferraris leaving the rented car park for the last time and taking the club's entire income with them. the few's 2011 doesn't look great on paper - and it was all gambled, and still being gambled for a solitary fa cup. At least Leeds aimed high.

Cotterill - 'we were the best team tonight in both halves, we were excellent - QPR know they've had a game tonight!'..... yes Steve, you really had the league leaders worried, they must be quite down after their comfortable 2-0 win. I preferred it when he slagged his own players off, at least you could believe that.

if the dim guy in the comedy balaclava spent less time fidgeting and pacing about, and more time talking to girls, his lawn would look a lot healthier. I know that racism and an inability to court the opposite sex tend to go hand in hand, but these little outcasts seem particularly happy to be surrounded by big hunky chaps....was that the original Village People lineup? Makes you wonder if it isn't more about the fetish outfits, and less about misguided politics peddled to the backward. Thanks for the link though, very funny!

I'm surprised at their inactivity yesterday - lack of funds has never stopped them before. This does have the look of surrender to the inevitable. A defeat tonight and the table looks even more uncomfortable - a heavy defeat and the dwindling gates will get even smaller. Meanwhile the wages are still too much and insolvent trading continues. Will Cotterill make his point by naming just three subs? He took a poor job and it's not changed since day one, he can't complain that his gamble on quality has not worked thus far - he knew the risks. Their business plan just doesn't make any sense either - throughout all this madness they seem to have learned nothing, and as for Lampitt, he looks clueless. I'm a bit worried, quite concerned about their future. Oh hang on, I've got over it already.

I'd be very surprised if they sign no one - that would be an indication that Chanrai has said enough is enough. If that's the case he is basically leaving the business to sort itself out. If nowt changes in the next few hours - How long before Cotterill verbally rips into the loan shark? Is Lampitt still there? As a leader driving the business out of admin and back into solvency he's a little squeaky mouse. Funny how Konchesky didn't fancy a massive paycut and a one way ticket to career oblivion - is this the first sign that the money has finally run out and crazy wages are a thing of the past? (other than for those already on insane contracts)

fair play to Utaka, he did his bit - one of their better deals. He financially raped them week in week out for three years, hung on like a leech and delivered very little, thanks for the memories son! I now await the image rights/bonus claim that he'll have to sue them over - get to the back of the queue!!

get in bed with Murdoch over a vulgar offer aimed at mean idiots?? I don't think so, we don't need to give away tickets and anyone who needs the Sun to inspire them to go to a game should be sat in their own enclosure away from real fans. That said it's a great opportunity for little clubs to try and improve their gates so fair play to Dagenham, Pompey etc.

Lampitt and Cotterill should be wheeler-dealering like Harry on a bonus scheme this week. Offloading high earners and cashing in before contracts rundown, raising cva funding and cashflow, and bringing in replacements. This transfer window will shape the immediate future of the club, and possibly the longterm (or very short). But they appear to be on holiday..........is that a little white flag I see?

it's taken more than a year but AA has found the right candidate to take over from Chanrai! - the clues are all there in that old court report.... he had squandered his money on "egocentric folly" and his offending merited an immediate custodial sentence. When he took on the chairmanship of Darlington FC, he famously said: "I'm dyslexic, backward, mentally deficient and I couldn't read or write. So I've got everything going for me as chairman of a football club." His reports were littered with phrases like mentally deficient, retarded and backward. He turned to safecracking during a career which he later conceded was so unsuccessful he would have earned more as a bus conductor. He nevertheless used his time in jail to teach himself to read and write, and in Lancashire's Kirkham Open Prison in 1964 he learnt from the accountants and solicitors incarcerated with him. The prosecuting counsel Christopher Knox explained that Reynolds used money from his company's legitimate directors' expenses account to fund his extravagance, and added that he treated HM Customs and Revenue with "cavalier contempt". If anything, he may well be overqualified.

if HMRC send their top lawyers Chuckle and Chuckle in again then that'll be the future points penalty dismissed as well! They would do really well to mess this one up but with their court case record you have to put your money on Shifty, Charity-Shafter and Skate getting them off the hook. If however the taxman manages to fight off this appeal, it could bode well for future grief....

Surely it's a mistake to admit that the quality over quantity policy was a deliberate gamble, better to pretend it was forced upon them? Especially when it is in reality an overpaid journeymen over quantity policy, and it looked deeply flawed on day one. Lampitt and Cotterill's heads are on the block, the jury will give their verdict in May. That masterplan didn't address debt, it extended the club's exposure to contract issues, it damaged the club's finances, and it was a very long shot if it was meant to be an automatic promotion bid. Nearly as bad as dressing up a cost-cutting exercise as total football or similar. With the money they are spending they need to go up, survival isn't enough of a return on the highest paid 11 in the division.

he was just being deliberately rude to an invited guest for dramatic effect - a bit like a four year old. He has every right to ignore the prayer, doesn't have to join in, but it appears he wanted to get his chubby little face in the paper so he walked out. And then back in. I would consider that act rather immature from an ordinary councillor but for someone who has put himself forward as part of the advisory group responsible for inter faith harmony in the city, the man is obviously an idiot. His action did nothing positive for anyone of any faith, it just made Portsmouth look like it has a problem with people who are different. It's still a city for local people.