rallyboy

I'm still not sure about Cotterill's definition of 'quality'. Another defeat at QPR and Chanrai's dream of an immediate return is dead in the water, then he's onto plan B, and I bet it doesn't involve big investment. The business don't look too pretty for a new owner right now either. But they are a good barometer of the world economy, there is every indication that we are heading for a double dip.

if a player feels the manager doesn't rate him and the crowd has got on his back he has two choices - a. Play really well for himself and the team, then score and run to the crowd/dugout for a pointed celebration that says 'you were wrong'. or b. Put little effort in, refuse to travel, sulk and leave. Having had great support from the fans since his return, a neutral might observe that Puncheon seems to have dismally failed the attitude test. he doesn't look mentally strong enough for what we are trying to achieve. byebye

Lampitt had a look at your list and made a few calls - Chanrai says your sixsome is off but he can finance you in a mud-wrestle with Jo Brand and Vanessa Feltz.

it's nice to have a dream!

sounds like the peasants are revolting. Fair play to them for the attendance - I take it Leeds brought 6,000 down, or was it kids with extra thumbs get in for a quid? Have they managed to raise the transfer income shortfall for the cva yet - with the failed summer firesale isn't it about £12M by now? They need to call Man City to get that sort of money. Could be a busy week as they desperately do deals to meet their promises to creditors. Lampitt must be worried sick that the club hasn't sold enough players to be able to meet the debts. Or maybe they just won't bother.

my immediate reaction was penalty, I was astonished when the ref booked Barnard, I thought perhaps I missed something but I didn't, the ref did. We were awful, the ref was awful, the chips were nice. Just had a better view of the first goal on tv, VERY poor defending - not the first time we have conceded through hesitation. Football defending lesson one - If in doubt in your own box frickin hoof it.

I did both in the last three years to different levels. My favourite is when you are hopping down the stairs and you just brush your heel on a step and the pain goes straight up through the ankle. Good news and bad news - you will play again, but it might be different... I did my left one and I used to be okay with that foot, since then it is like there is no flow through the joint, it's quite rigid, maybe through protecting it. Rather than hitting a shot I tend to swing that leg like a fence post with a lump on the end and hope it goes somewhere (see Puncheon coaching manual on finishing) The last one I did was really weak but there are some excellent supports, the velcro and lace up ones, they are great when you first go back to playing. Main lesson I learned from some physio was about stretching and maintaining strength around it. Meanwhile, sit and watch the telly with your whole foot and ankle in a bowl of cold water, that relieved pressure on mine, cold and hot stimulates the healing as well. Three to four months out depending on damage, if it's worse than that, missing football will be the least of your worries. good luck.

just seen the stuff about protest tomorrow before the Leeds game. As football fans united I can't see they'll achieve anything as there is nothing to protest about. A loan shark took their club as payment for debts incurred by their great adventures that they all lapped up. Protesters won't make him leave or announce plans, he doesn't care what they do. A mass walkout would get his attention but I doubt it would change anything, they have left it too late. The time for protest was when the insanity started, not after it. If we signed Beckham tomorrow on £100K a week there would be huge unrest among 90% of intelligent supporters realising that it was unsustainable, we wouldn't all be running down the road trying to catch a glimpse of a former spice girl, we'd be asking Nicola what he was up to. But maybe that wisdom just comes post-admin.

personally I think we should take any advantage we can against opposition of any quality. If that means Tranmere spend all week working on systems to reduce the effectiveness of a player who won't even be there or are caught out when someone they thought was injured appears, that suits me fine. If that gives them a fright when the team sheet appears even better. And yes we should be good enough, but let's not take anything for granted, let's do everything right in the build up. I'm sure man Utd won't be taken us for granted and just rolling up on the day for a kickabout. The Cortese/Adkins quiet and professional approach is refreshing. It means that when you hear rumours about signings/injuries you can be pretty sure they are made up.

I'm not sure that 'really good administrators' have their actions described as bordering on criminal by judges or get fined for failing to inform creditors of vital information. Yes he has been good for pompey, and with their history of convicted fraudsters, alleged money laundering by arms dealers on the run and ownership by an international loan shark he was made for them. This gig was his destiny. So far he's made it out of the bank into the getaway car, but he still needs to cross the border....

calling all experts - is it standard practice to exit administration but fail to start cva? If not the FL could take a dim view of this and define pompey as still being in an administration state, thus being liable for a points penalty come August, because just like pompey the FL can do whatever they want. AA used admin to protect the club, now he seems to be in a noman's land that doesn't cost the club a penny and continues to delay a return to solvent trading. He took seven years at Swindon, I'm not sure pompey ever intend to start this cva. Has Chanrai moved the first payment back to coincide with a parachute payment? If so it might just demonstrate how little he intends to put into the remains of this company. Most creditors will have to take that on the chin but presumably the taxman will eventually wheel out their legal experts Chuckle and Chucklel to sort it out.

more like Cotterill vows to keep doing the best he can with the hand of cards he carefully selected from the pack and gave himself! while the damage to the finances from wages is funny we really need a couple of players to leave them before the window closes and the remaining games could be interesting. I'm happy to play them in the championship next season or just to take their place. If we fail to go up I would reluctantly accept their relegation as a poor booby prize. But if they were to start next season above us still........well let's not even consider that doomsday scenario....

something for old blokes - Peter Wells - great keeper.

re their quality over quantity plans I'm not sure that I fully agree with their definition of the word quality yet. If they wanted local moves and massive paycuts, half of their team wouldn't be first choice with us or Brighton. Sonko anyone?

Sell Nugent for £500K and save £600K in wages, also pay someone £500K to take Utaka - it's cheaper in the long run. So much deadwood for such a small squad... And how poor must a Man Utd loanee be if Sir Alex doesn't send him to Peterborough? Prem wages, hardly played - off to Fratton it is! Do they want to buy my daughter's KA, 100K miles, 22 careful owners - £75,000?

I have little sympathy for Cotterill as the job he has today was clearly defined the day he accepted it. If he believed false promises from owners with a history of failing to support managers that is his mistake - as is slagging off one of your young players - unacceptable behaviour. He sounds close to implosion. That said, I have to thank them for cheering me up when I came out of St Marys. The wage policy they've adopted is draining money from the club at an alarming rate, and the slide down the table is destroying Chanrai's plan of a speedy payday - I'm not sure that 2011 will be remembered as a great year for the few.

you have to feel for pompey legend Avram - if he pays you enough. He's discovered once again that football is hard and having a semi isn't really enough when push comes to shove... Following the old prossie-botherer's little celebrations on our pitch it was nice that Pardew played a major part in getting him sacked. But you can't take his spirit!

anothersaint rips Ho a new one and officially owns him! I cannot believe that anyone who has posted all of that can be serious - Ho is on a wind-up, a very complex one that he spends hours on, but the stuff on this page will forever be held up as evidence that Ho is having a laugh and has fooled us into thinking he was a blue few member in denial. I knew his street cred was shot to bits but he is just taking the mick, he can't be a delusional fantasist of that level. I'll do him a favour and assume he's just looking for people to bite when he posts nonesense. Come clean Ho, admit it and we'll accept that you fooled us for a while!.....we thought you were a football fan, the jokes on us. or shall we just refer you to page 728 everytime you post?

that traffic back from Brighton must have been horrendous! Thank goodness he's returned to explain why his local club for local people isn't in fact a gathering of convicted crooks, tax-dodging cheats, money launderering charity-abusers and grossly overpaid mediocre players - and they're not supported by sister-bothering carnival folk with no understanding of how the sporting, legal, financial and business worlds operate beyond the dodgy tarmac their home is parked upon. Quiet everyone, let's hear some more wisdom from the contributor whose ITK claims lost him all credibility about 700 pages ago....it might start with an insult to cover the fact that the following argument may well be a whole new version of history.

the article confuses it by mentioning sell on clauses - looks more like Harry gave them an interest-free loan as a Begovic deposit tied to the Kaboul deal, and they sold him and trousered it. So by loaning money and through transfer activity, Spurs did more than any other club to help them try to avoid admin, thus reducing the chances of a full investigation into where the money went. And let's remember how Redknapp supported his old mate by claiming Storrie showed him pompey contracts long after he'd left. Odd, but it all makes sense if you can imagine what they might gain. Ching Ching - a Harry trans£er target from the far east or a sound often heard in motorway services and behind stands?

That's their main problem, they overpay everyone - apart from creditors! The players won't get the same money elsewhere, Hughes has to decide on whether he wants to play football or earn money. Most go for the latter - see S.Wright-Phillips etc. No need for Hughes to do anything, he can just sit there and take his money, then get a move in the summer on lesser wages. No point in us looking at anyone there as we couldn't match their spending, not many outside the Prem top three could - or will. Most clubs are astonished at pompey's generosity and their pioneering work in raising ordinary players' wages. There's Blackpool halfway up the Prem with a massive income, bringing in players like Hammill on presumably about £10K a week - they, Wigan, West Brom, Wolves, none can compete with post-admin pompey on wages. Funnily it's only uncle Avram and his mates offering Bridge £90K a week who are just as bonkers. That's your dream player auction - pompey and West Ham trying to get Pulis off us..... Didn't the FA and FL ever wonder how pompey can outbid just about anyone?

so £16K a week Halford is back then - that's an extra £50K a week with Haim's wages - every week! - to put in context, that's the income from 4,000 x £25 of each fortnightly home attendance, or the amount we paid to buy Chaplow. I know all clubs will push the rules as far as possible and I would want Saints to do that if it were within the spirit of the game BUT I can't remember another club putting in a false appeal against their own admission of guilt, losing it, sending the player back to his own club to serve the extra game where he wasn't wanted, then miraculously re-signing him a week later. If you intend to do that my tip would be don't admit in the press that he deserved the red card prior to appeal - makes you look like a club trying to cheat the system to gain an advantage. And for stattos everywhere, I reckon their home gate income is covering no more than six wages - with football creditors having first shout on the bulk of tv income I'm not sure where the rest of them are getting paid from.....so in cashflow terms it's quite ironic, forget recent history, this is the season when they desperately need a cup run.

Was there a few weeks back, there are some cheap hotels but it's a lottery on quality, Eurostar was good, saves messing about with travel from the airports that pretend to be near Paris - you can get some cheap ES deals if you book well ahead I think. Mind the dog muck, its everywhere!

stop talking sense Gemmell and get back to skate-bothering on the News site! pompey made the decision to abandon youth policy and utilise cheap transfers often from abroad, cheap transfers accompanied by ludicrous wages and lengthy contracts. It meant that massive Prem money didn't go into the club, it just went through it. Not rocket science, but those at the helm weren't building a club, they were lining their own pockets - and little has changed. There was no forward planning down there, and they now find that the future they were ignoring is here.

I thought parachutes were over four years now?....if they've got that wrong can we take any heart from their belief that AA won't be investigating his own behaviour? All the decent questions were ignored. And I'd like to know how they're meeting their day to day running costs - shirt buttons?