rallyboy

you may not have seen the local stuff Phil but Storrie has admitted that the club nearly went under a couple of times recently, he added that he is very grateful to the creditors for being so understanding. Without wanting to drag the debate back to our own inglorious and tiresome recent history, can we assume that Storrie's flexibility and attitude toward, and dealings with the banks, was slightly more realistic than that displayed by our own representative at the crucial time? When you compare the figures, they were very quick to drop us - or is it the fact that if you owe a bank £5M you have a problem, but if you owe them £30M they have a problem?

he's been a dim boy on this one. No legal problem for the publishers, just the guy who has confessed to the offence, and it is an offence. Having said that if they couldn't convict the keeper who blatantly dived over and around three Everton goal attempts in quick succession all those years ago then there is no point in trying any players on lesser charges. Unless it's Eduardo of course - he can be banged up while all the worse offenders are left to dive freely. 'Portly keeper with poor judgement fails to get ball and allows shrewd player to fall over him shock'.

I love a good reality check as much as the next Saints fan but I think we are getting them every Saturday and often midweek as well at the moment so I am all checked up for reality ta.

hopefully post-deadline it will dawn on Saga that no one else wanted him, so if he wants to prove himself as an international quality striker, the job starts now. Decent squad on paper, some just need to get back on track.

time to worry is when Pardew does nothing before the window closes because he believes he has a full squad, I expect him to address some issues. We are getting there, but it's a long haul - and after the Boro/Villa/Everton/Leeds etc etc games of recent years, can anyone say they were genuinely surprised in the last 15 secs yesterday? In the old days we would have lost from that position - things are looking up!

I thought Al Fahim had already secured the final under the roof of the new, FIFA-funded, 180,000 seater harbourfront stadium, hotel and leisure complex? Tickets still available in the Nugent Stand, or go crazy and have hospitality in the Redknapp Suite - seems a good idea at the time but overpriced and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Cascarino claiming to be French now?! If the French want to broker a big money transfer to a glamour club for any of our players that's fine by me, but them muttering in the corner isn't helpful. The player is either in demand or he's staying put and showing what he's made of. As for the Polish coach saying the Saga needs to be playing at a higher level, I think the Poles must have delusions of grandeur, they are one of the footballing pygmies of Europe and should be happy with players from any level of the professional game.

the ice cream seller's jobs for next week - 1. Buy two failed Championship players before the window shuts. 2. Hold awkward meeting with Standard Bank to explain why the debt hasn't been cleared. 3. Hold even more awkward meeting with Barclays to stop them serving a winding up order. 4. Put out press release talking of new stadium, and how the club will be the biggest in the world. 5. Interview the 6,000 hardcore fans individually to gauge opinion. 6. Sack Storrie. 7. Settle with Hydra investors out of court. 8. Secure £100M of investment. 9. Be photographed on a digger holding a scarf. 10. Deal with writs from rival consortium. 11. Get rid of the machine guns left in the board room. 12. Pick up Diego from the airport. 13. Agree terms with the Barcelona and Real Madrid squads. 14. Order pies for the next home game. 15. Order advertising banners to cover empty seating areas. 16. Buy extra cornets for the van, looks like a hot week. 17. Ring Storrie and find out where the rest of the cash went. 18. Buy some lucky heather. 19. Diet. 20. Call Mark Fry.

what is it with Pardew and his new fangled ideas??!! He signed the best goalscorer in the division and now he's trying to bring in a winger proven at this level, what are those two ever likely to achieve between them? We need more Dutch input, it's the only way - JP and MW got us out of the Championship at the first attempt and I'm quite confident they could easily get us out of Lg One.

Storrie's main messages are aimed at the people he fears most, the banks that want their money next week. He keeps telling them that things are nearly in place and he is now talking about funding being available in January. Methinks he is still buying time while hunting investment. If he has this quality takeover up his sleeve, why isn't funding available now? If you were buying a club you would want to halt the slide asap and would draw up a pre-takeover agreement on immediate funding to protect your investment from relegation. It's now getting odder than our takeover fiasco. Next 48 hours, Friday, they can't even come up with original deadlines for activity. Might be worth measuring up Al Fahim for a statue because at the moment it looks like his 'look at me, I own a football club' routine may have caused their business terminal damage.

Roll up, it's two-for-one week at Pardew's Pole Centre - buy two strikers, get the lazier one free! (WARNING - their values are more likely to go down than up, all Saints strikers are pre-owned, living on past glories, sold as seen on very old Youtube clips, and likely to demand unjustifiable wages - No refunds)

more likely to be busy showing potential tenants a flat in Barnet... If the bloke appears tonight and slaps a few million on the table they are sorted. If we start hearing about due diligence and fpp test delays then the cavalry has ridden into town on a wheezy donkey.

looking back on the cheery days of those last two home games last season, it could be suggested that the turnout and enthusiasm shown by the fans supporting that awful team was a factor in convincing our new owner that the club was a worthwhile investment. I am still disappointed that the people who had revelled in Prem football couldn't be arsed in that hour of need. For those who did show, we saw some rubbish, but it wasn't a wasted effort.

I fear that the ruddy-cheeked whizzkid might consider the financial arrangements down the road slightly too precarious even by his standards, and he certainly wouldn't want to go into a consortium with peasants like a sweating swarthy ice cream vendor and a second hand car dealer. Maybe he should lead the newlook buyout and bring in Chris Boardman or Ben Ainslie as director of football? It's worth getting his advice, he's the man for a crisis, and if you haven't got one he could make it happen for you fairly quickly.

none of us know what the Barclays debt is exactly but I seem to recall them being prepared to wind up similar companies when it got to £5M. If they follow that trend it's all over in nine days time, and Gaydamak's desperate asset-stripping is his only payback - and illegal. Is Peter 'Story' still undermining other bidders to make a fast buck for himself or has he settled for his atronomical wages? What a mess, and we should know as we have watched one long drawn out train crash already. ''But we are in the Prem!!'' yes, it's the ONLY value in the business, lose it at your peril. If Sky had trading problems at 9am tomorrow, Pompey would be in administration by lunchtime.

Some simpletons still believe that the recent transfer money in has been going to the club. Like the massive wages, it is all going out of the game, the club debts are still significant, all that has changed is the diminishing value of the business. The wage bill looks better than it did but the family silver has gone, there is little value left, other than the potential to generate Sky money, if indeed Sky continue at their current levels. If that halts, the business is getting on for worthless - some bits of land (worth less at the mo), and a shaky infrastructure? We fell from grace, so have Newcastle, Norwich, Derby etc, but the difference is we all have value beyond our league status. Prem survival is the only way the business known as PFC can be viable - so, I still believe they may have just ten days to save the club from a huge plummet.....

you've got to be pretty depressed to drown your sorrows with yoghurt. Do all of our former managers spiral into addiction? Is Lawrie in a park fighting Chris Nichol over a bottle of floor polish? Rupert looks a bit ruddy cheeked himself, is that the glow that says meths and financial incompetence?

You don't put a consortium together in a couple of weeks (unless you live with your mum). So Storrie has been working on something for a while.... That means it was not in his interests to see the fake Dr complete. One could suggest it was in Storrie's interests to undermine and slow the process. So has he been not just misleading fans but stalling the takeover as well, for his own personal gain? Mr Storrie and a cobbled together band of saviours are all looking for power and profit. But it remains very simple, they need one decisive voice with £200M to throw at it, it is the only way they can move forward, it doesn't matter what is said, it's money on the table time! Who would look after the £27M debt without a HUGE slice of the club in return? Al Fahim may have stalled on his funding but the profits from buying a fifth or sixth of the club aren't worth the risk. Liebherr wouldn't have bought half a club, he would lose control and profit potential, Pompey are in the last chance saloon and clutching at straws. Therefore even with a Story consortium takeover of several big-hitters, I see no bright future for them. The only indication that things are looking up will be someone delivering vast funds in the next ten days. If that doesn't happen I think we will see them soon.

I don't know what's funnier, the sight of all the empty seats as the wheels pop off the caravan bandwagon or a sweaty fat man dressed as an ice cream seller sat politely next to the man who has been slagging him off all week, both watching an awful team go down to a comedy goal in a living museum of 1960's football stadia. This season has great comic potential, I do hope they don't turn the corner too soon. I don't wish them out of business, just administration, financial meltdown and to be well adrift long before Christmas followed by an agonising slide through three or four divisions in front of that fanbase of 3,000 hardy souls. Then gain if Maradona is on his way that might not happen, and as the sweaty ice cream seller says, 'it's all on course still........and would you like sauce with that, and if you need to rent a flat in Barnet I have a fellow billionaire who can help you.' I'm sure it will be fine, what can go wrong?

For a mo I thought it was a thread about Portsmouth and their new pay-as-he-plays loanee - Exodus Continues.

one little tip from history, when she has told him and says to you, 'he's okay, he's accepted it, he won't don't anything' - he will! Be ready to be thumped, at any time. It might work out, it might not, but life will be exciting/depressing for a while. And don't be sidetracked by some of the rather odd suggestions proposed by some of the Fred West Appreciation Society members of the forum.

Pretty much as expected with the time Pardew has had to assemble a squad, maybe a reality check for the few who thought we were going to storm this league from a minus position. I thought our season would be a slow burner that would take off in about two or three months, nothing has changed that opinion. No panic. ....Different story if we are still playing like that in March.

seems like 100 years ago now and more amusing from that distance. Maybe Wotte wasn't malicious and undermining, just no good? If it was Call My Bluff I would go for JP's version of events, but who cares other than them?!

I thought Storrie's attack on Al Fahim was a bombshell as was Hart's admission that he had never thought the takeover would happen - the national media has missed it thus far. (for those who didn't hear it, when asked if they could have got an audio link to the non-Dr for his comments, Storrie said that the time for talking was over and he should either complete the takeover or forget it - a strong way to address the man who could be your boss tomorrow) I thought his scathing comments about Redknapp and Spurs were for the benefit of the fans, his actions don't tie up with his claim that he was fed up with Spurs and nearly reported them for tapping up. He tells the fans he won't put up with any messing (as Rupert did many moons ago, 'yobbos' etc) and then bangs out Crouch to his mate at a £3M discount, because he claims Crouch said he wouldn't go anywhere else.... His comment that 'tapping up goes on all the time and everyone is doing it' must have also caused a ripple of panic in the club legal dept, and some interest from the Prem should they hear it. I would have said the forum was an eye-opener for Pompey fans who think the future is bright. And as an aside, I am sure he is a nice chap and great with youth development but Hart sounded like a muttering bloke with no inspirational strength at all - tell me pfc, have I got him wrong? He doesn't sound like the man you would want alongside you in a trench, and that's where you are heading. We tried appointing a great youth coach, it didn't really work out as we hoped. There are lessons from history and Pompey have missed all of them.

It may seem like a dream from our current position and it could take ten years but I believe that one day we will return to have our own independent radio station AND catering that is the envy of the Premiership - Liebherr and Pardew must focus their every waking hour on these two goals, I must have original quotes, and our progress through the divisions won't be complete unless accompanied by lamb cutlets served on a bed of asparagus.