Wes Tender

I renewed my STs on Monday, parked across the road for free, unlimited parking. I've switched to the family stand from the Northam, taking young son along next season for his first Saints indoctrination, instead of adult son. For all this talk of having to renew your existing ST seats and then request a transfer, there was no need for that. The whole thing was arranged in about 5 minutes flat. No question of me paying any £10 fee to make the change either. But if you obviously feel strongly about the car parking charges, I assume that you have written to the club suggesting that there be some process in place so that those buying tickets or merchandise can have their car parking ticket validated? Or why don't you start a thread on here to see whether there is widespread support for such an idea? If there was, then there would be some pressure on the Club to consider it. But for myself, I see no problem with parking across the road for free.

Pompeyblue moron:- If you're anywhere near middle aged, it probably won't happen in your lifetime. You can hope that against all the odds you might draw us in a Cup match and cause an upset, as unlikely as that would be, but you sure as hell won't be playing us in the same division for many, many years to come. Start up a rivalry with Bournemouth and aim for something achievable and more realistic is my advice. You're not in our league anymore, literally and metaphorically.

One of the best games of football I have seen for many, many years. Real edge of the seat stuff every minute. For most of the first half, Japan's passing and ball retention was as good as most Brazil teams I've ever seen, indeed reminding me of Liverpool in their pomp. They dominated Italy totally and with better finishing could easily have been out of sight by half time. It is arguable that the scoreline might have had one goal fewer to each team, although the Japan penalty was more debateable, whereas the Italy penalty was down to crass incompetence by the referee, ball to hand all day long, no way that any player on the planet could have avoided it. Japan never let their heads drop when they went behind and could have stolen the point right up to the final whistle. Italy on the other hand were holding on desperately. I think we have witnessed a portent that Japan will within the next few years be a team at the very top of World football if they carry on building on these foundations.

There also comes a point when the teams who would command the most prestige have their full squad complement of players. Most of these teams are already stuffed with big name players and are just tinkering, fine tuning. Then as you say, it becomes more viable for players from abroad to look at teams like us if they have ambitions of playing in the Premiership in preference over the other European Leagues, which are not as big a draw as the Premiership.

It's good that our start is far easier than last season's and that should enable us to get some points on the board early on and build up a head of steam and gain some confidence. Whereas I looked at the fixture list last season and had some trepidation about most of the teams there, I find myself shrugging my shoulders at most of them now. For the first time since I've been a regular in the top flight watching Saints, I actually really feel confident that we could beat any of those teams on our day.

Nobody ever won anything playing kids

This guy is going to be be proved right as a minority voice who saw which way the wind is blowing here and made a reasoned judgement. In my opinion we will be there well before 5 years, so I don't believe it is as if he was making too outlandish a prediction. What would be really good, would be us getting above them at some stage of the plan. I suspect that they will improve, but at the moment they place too much reliance on Suarez's goals, much like Spurs did on Bale's and who knows whether those two will still be with those clubs next season?

As I don't accept that I am losing any argument with you, then Schopenhauer doesn't apply. In any event, you do realise, don't you, that these item numbers you quote are a satirical itemised interpretation of his treatise? Regarding some perspective, you have questioned why the tax revenue take had gone up when the top tax rates decreased. I have given you some simple explanations as to why in my opinion that occurred. One doesn't need to read massively boring tomes from left wing pseudo-intellectuals to draw the simple conclusion that people are less likely to avoid paying taxes that they consider to be fair. Nor does it take any great leap of imagination to realise that if they are taxed punitively, many of the brightest scientists and entrepreneurs will emigrate to other countries with what they consider to be fairer tax regimes, this being the so-called brain drain. OK, emigration also included the pop stars, film stars, etc, who became tax-exiles, but when the top tax rates came down substantially, then many returned to live here. I regret to inform you that I don't have the time or the inclination to dig for the statistics to prove my position, so if you wish to massage your ego, I invite you instead to provide the statistics to prove your position. I notice that you haven't yet managed to provide anything that shows that the assertion that the tax revenue increased following the reduction of the top tax rate is false. It is you who have attempted to further the scope of the debate beyond that to comment on the resultant increased gap between the highest earners and the lowest and to label it as inequality, when those on the left advocate inequality themselves by proposing that wealthier people should pay more tax because they can afford to. In reality of course, even if wealthier people paid exactly the same tax rate, they would still pay substantially more tax because of their higher taxable income. Although you denigrate my reliance on life experience in the forming of my opinions, I prefer that to the "hard evidence" that you call for. You obviously prefer to gain yours from books and statistics, when in reality books contain the opinions of individuals from one side of the political spectrum or another and are often based on selective statistical evidence that proves their position. As a cynic, I subscribe to the common opinion that there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

I don't need any lectures about how Britain has changed in the last 40 years, having lived through that timespan. I was 24, forty years ago, old enough and interested enough in current affairs at the time to have formed a reasoned opinion about things. Neither do I need to read those books that you have rather selectively chosen because they paint the picture that you want to look at. Ironically, they will no doubt be as representative of the views of the left as the views of the Adam Smith Institute will be of the right. I don't need to provide any evidence for the assertion in that article (made by Allister Heath, not me) that the tax revenue increased after the top tax rates were reduced. If you refute the assertion, then it is up to you to provide the evidence that the facts are wrong. I am making the assumption that the statistics have been based on statistical evidence provided by HMRC. Feel free to dispute that assumption if you can by telling me how else the figures were obtained and what the real position was. I'm afraid that Schopenhauer's 29 doesn't enter into it, much as you would like in your pseudo-intellectual arrogance to assume that you are winning the argument. Rather his number 36 applies to you.

I can assist your understanding of this concept, provided that you are open-minded enough to listen. It's quite simple really. When tax rates are punitive, as they were under the Wilson Labour government for example, wealthy individuals find ways of avoiding paying them. Some use creative accounting, move their money abroad to offshore tax havens, or indeed remove themselves abroad to places with lower taxation levels under what used to be called the brain drain. When the tax rates were lowered to a level deemed to be fair by these people, then they became far less likely to avoid paying them and many tax exiles returned to these shores. The end result was that top tax rates were lower, but the exchequer received a massive boost in taxation income.

I'm pleased that he is hungry to play and certainly he'd do a secure job substituting for Cork, Schneiderlin or Davis if they're not available, tiring, or carrying a knock in a game. But if he would prefer a loan out, how about reuniting him with Adkins at Reading?

The 2011/2012 season provides reason for some optimism. Spurs were 4th, Newcastle 5th and Chelsea 6th. Is there any particular reason that we couldn't do a Newcastle with the right signings? There are many factors that come into play next season which could affect the top places. Ferguson has retired, although Moyes has proven his ability with Everton, it remains to be seen how United will fare under him, although it is unthinkable that they won't be top three. Tottenham are totally reliant on Bale for their position. Without his goals, they would have had 22 points fewer. Liverpool, although lower in the table, were very reliant on the goals from Suarez too. How will Everton fare without Moyes? Although extremely unlikely that we could get into the top 4, 6/7th doesn't seem out of the question if we had a striker on fire and a tighter defence.

I agree with the OP. The poor defending made it look much better than it was. For all their flair and brilliance in attack, Brazil didn't have a defence to match.

That cannot be a portrait of Elizabeth. It is well known that she was a redhead.

The Skates have lined up Real Vallecano for one of their pre-season fixtures. http://www.portsmouth-mad.co.uk/news/tmnw/vallecano_lined_up_for_friendly_797375/index.shtml They had wanted a London Premiership team to visit, but were told that the likelihood would be that they would only field a development team, whereas Vallecano are likely to field a full strength team, realising no doubt that anything less would not be a match for a hastily assembled fourth division team. Vallecano are obviously well suited as an opponent for other reasons:- Although unlike the Skates' creditors, I don't believe that it is implicit that they will not get their money eventually.

Camel Toe?

What a sensible thing to do. It's what I do too, as there is usually no problem parking across the road or on the industrial estate near Freeborn's during the week, or on a single line close by on a weekend after the season has ended. But there are some on here who prefer to park in the stadium car park and then bleat about how hard done by they are when they have to pay if they are there for more than 15 minutes.

I detect the hand of Blackadder in there somewhere.

The thread got the response it deserved. Even now, defending your OP, you draw a conclusion that he proved not to be capable of managing in the Premiership before he had the chance to complete the season. Of course, had we avoided relegation, that would in itself be proof that he was capable of managing at this level. He had us at 15th when he left and Pochettino has us one place higher. Adkins had never managed a Premiership team before, but equally neither had Pochettino. You base your opinion on some early results where he and we were finding our feet playing a very difficult list of fixtures, missing a vital player (Cork). You form this opinion also on the basis of team selection and tactics where you have no inside knowledge of the reasons behind those decisions. Beyond that, it just seems that you felt the desperate need to start a thread because Adkins' chirpy positivity gets up your nose and you needed to explain to everybody how it had offended your inate sense of decorum. Professor: And neither will we know whether Adkins would have succeeded in getting results against Stoke, Sunderland, West Brom, Swansea, West Ham, Norwich, QPR, and Wigan. You make the assumption that just because we beat Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool under Pochettino, that Adkins would have been incapable of getting results where Pochettino failed.

Which is worse, Bransgrove? Putting the noses out of joint of a few ex-players/managers when they can't have any more freebies, or shafting charities, local businesses and the taxman? If you wish to toady up to the Skates and alienate the Saints, then carry on opening your big mouth and putting your foot deep inside it.

I find myself feeling a little sorry for you, that you feel embarassment at Adkins' positive, upbeat message to the Reading fans. As for you cringing at the thought of what other football fans around the country would be thinking about Reading, I very much doubt that most of them will give it a second thought. And when you talk about "a lot of us" turning against him, I seem to recall that he had a satisfaction percentage rating on this forum well into the 90s, so don't try and make out that it was a significant body of opinion. You were in a small minority then, and I have no reason to believe that you will be in a larger body of opinion here. As far as I'm aware, neither you nor those others you speak of have conclusive knowledge of the reasons for his team selections or for the tactical changes. As Reading are not competitors of ours this season, I wish Adkins every success. If anybody can get them back to the Premiership, he can.

All I know is that I hold the position of cynic in these matters. I have a lifetime's experience of the newspaper industry which has brought me to that cynicism, based on a succession of reported stories which has included incidents of bending the facts/distortion of the truth, wrong conclusions formed from the evidence they hold, half truths, as well as opinions dressed up as facts, not to mention downright lies. Ultimately their aim is to sell newspapers and it is a fact of human nature that the Red Top punters are more likely to be attracted to the more lurid or sensational stories, which encourages some embellishment of the truth in itself. I really can't be bothered to draw any conclusions as to which of that list applied to the Shaw story, but it is telling reading the defence of the Sun journo, that he felt the need to be so defensive. As one commentator suggested, methinks he doth protest too much.

Or maybe it's because Shaw was a boyhood fan of Chelsea and expressed a desire to play for them one day. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that that might be the reason why they would be favourites. I don't recall denying anywhere that Chelsea or any of these other clubs had expressed an interest in Shaw. But seemingly the papers have been guilty of premature ejaculation by giving the impression that he would be gone from here before the start of the season.

To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies, they would say that, wouldn't they? CB Fry: As would Man Utd, Arsenal, Tottenham and City But maybe in the real world, with luck that will be delayed for a season

So we people all realise that these are stories fed to the journalists by clubs wanting to buy those players, but the journalists themselves somehow fail to realise that they are being conned? Poor saps. They'll not be fooled the next time that somebody tries to pull the wool over their eyes by suggesting that certain clubs wish to buy certain players. Or will they? After all, it's their credibility that's on the line. What credibility, you may well ask.