Wes Tender

Where did I mention him either? But who do you credit with the fact that we are debt free and able to go after players that we couldn't afford before then? Unless you can point to our financial wellbeing coming from some Spanish lottery win that I dodn't know about, I'd suggest that it is down to the wealth of our owner, Markus Liebherr. It isn't Cortese's wealth; he is merely the facilitator on ML's behalf.

What, a fairly mental tax?

You can't just eradicate all of those plus points by ignoring the fact that they only became possible because of the wealth of our owner, without also acknowledging that it is because of it that most fans are ecstatic and grateful to him for choosing us to invest in. Hence the whole purpose of the thread.

You say that you are playing Devil's Advocate and seek concrete evidence that justifies the accolade that everything is slick and professional. But playing Devil's Advocate the other way around, half of the examples you have given yourself could be turned around to support that argument. For instance, numbers 1 and 8. They gave the impression that their offer was put on the back burner by Fry because of the intervention of Pinnacle and ML seemingly faced a rival bid fronted by a Club legend and accordingly backed off a bit. But if you prefer to believe that he waited until the opportunity was there to get a reduced priced, then is that not astute and professional nous? Likewise the situation regarding the signing of players. There might also be an element there of keeping agents or rival clubs sweating so that our bid price is reduced, but certainly when a rabbit like Richardson is pulled out of the hat, ML & Cortese have received plaudits for the way that they have gone about things. Number 7? So what? For some cup matches, stands or corners might be closed if attendances are lower. So some ST holders are upset because of that. Where I am in Block 42, I have always accepted that for some Cup matches, rival fans might have my seat. Other points you make are largely a matter for conjecture or speculation, such as 2, 5, 9 and 10. You confirm as much by your use of reportedly or allegedly. So where you ask for CONCRETE examples of what they have done that is notably slick and professional, you yourself have not furnished concrete examples to refute that premise, or at least not many. Personally I don't find much to disagree with in Nick's list. Do you?

I seem to recall figures of around 17000 being bandied about as break even, just before we went into administration. If those figures had any substance, then we have exceeded attendancies and probably covered the transfers in and increased wages by extra income from the JPT and offloading some of the higher earners that were on our books a year ago.

Not so. Like anything else, the value can be a figure for accountancy purposes, but more realistically it is the sum that somebody is prepared to pay for it. Is your assertion that we are being run at a hefty loss based on facts, or is it purely conjecture on your part? If factual, then no doubt you will happily furnish us with the evidence. And then again, define "hefty". One man's "hefty" is another man's "meagre"

I don't see much sycophantic nonsense on this thread. Mostly I see people expressing gratitude to our owner for buying us when we were in dire straits and some sober reflection of what might have been had he not bought us.

But SaintRichmond, it was a simile for a Premiership club.

Akin - like, similar to. It was a simile.

It appears to be you who has a poor grasp of the English language judging by your punctuation and grammar. If you were also capable of better comprehension, you would realise that I only chided you for lack of good grace and the tone of your comments. Where did I say that you had complained about anything? Neither did I infer that nobody else would have taken us over, but at least by acknowledging that it was unlikely that anybody else would have been as wealthy as ML, you presumably are somehow grateful that it was him, even if grudgingly for some reason.

If you can't be magnanimous about it, perhaps better not to have bothered contributing. Your reaction is akin to a kid being given an ice cream and complaining that there is no chocolate Flake. Whatever the ins and outs about it, just take a moment to ponder what might have been had he not come in to take us over. There wasn't exactly a long queue of people falling over themselves to take up this marvellous investment opportunity, so have the good grace to be thankful that ML was prepared to step forward.

Heartfelt thanks to you and Nicola. Having a football club that we can be proud of is very important to this city. The level of pride we feel and the respect that we have earned as a club would not have happened to this extent without your timely arrival when things seemed bleak.

Good use of terminology saying that you doubt that we will, rather than doubt that we can. That sort of money is small change to Markus Liebherr, the sort of amount he might find down the side of his armchair. But thankfully he isn't the type to flash the cash unecessarily when players sufficiently good enough for getting us promoted out of this division and even the one above, can be picked up for less than that. Arguably though, it would require more than that to entice us to let Lambert go elsewhere, so from that perspective we already have players of that value but did not have to pay out that sum for them. And I'm content to believe that both Lambert and Barnard will outscore Tudgay.

That's nothing to the pure comedy value of the article in The News I just read. http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/frattonlatest/Fratton-faithful-prove-they-are.6404663.jp The bestest fans in the World or at least in the land. I wonder how many they have to sell to reach their break even level on their running costs.

It's a typo. It should have read promo.

A great signing and a further statement of intent signing from our rivals with an offer that they couldn't refuse, a player who made the league one team of the year to boot. Another one with experience of being a captain too. Just when it was becoming a bit squeaky bum time that the pre-season was about to start without some key players, here is the rabbit pulled out of the hat to calm the nerves and assure us that everything is bubbling along nicely under the surface. I guess that we have not yet become accustomed to the modus operandi of Cortese, who very astutely plays his cards close to his chest until it is a done deal. It is always lovely to read the reaction on the rival fans' sites to gauge their reaction as to how good the player is and in that respect he seems to be very much their loss and our gain. Now expectations rise again that there might be more to come just to finish off the fine-tuning that will complete the team.

I suggest that you read and contribute to this one which covers exactly the same ground. http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?23559-Where-are-all-these-signings-then

You must be a really clued up individual to know for a fact the demographics of where all the Saints fans live to enable you to state categorically that the vast majority of them live more than £3 petrol / bus/ train journey away from the stadium. I'd be interested in knowing from where you managed to obtain these demographic figures and perhaps you would kindly share the analysis of them with us. Naturally we would also want further break downs of the figures so that we can appreciate the number of those who travel together, either in a family group or with friends, as they can make a saving by making one booking for several, as has already been pointed out. While you are about it, please kindly also furnish the basis of how you arrived at your estimate of the 95% of casual buyers who wouldn't be likely to attend 6 games in a row. Is this based on a survey of the habits of your chums, or were the figures derived from something more tangible?

DBP wrong? Tell me it ain't true

No doubt as he has an answer for everything, he'll be able to answer this one too, Dav. As somebody else pointed out, there are about half a dozen matches for which tickets are available, so it shouldn't be beyond the wit of somebody as intelligent as him to do the maths and make the saving, should it? Speaking for myself though, I realised that the obvious solution was to renew my ST before 30th June to get the best deal and avoid these booking fees at the same time

Does my memory fail me, or did we play a pre-season match at St. Mary's a few years back against Le Havre? Presumably that was just a pre-season game rather than Ted Bates Trophy?

So you never attend matches then? If not, then you're excused, although your superfan status has taken rather a knock and I won't accept your assertions that you know what the ordinary fan thinks and that you have powers of prediction as to what attendances the Skates and us will have next season. However, if you do in fact attend matches at St Mary's then it ought not to have escaped your attention that most often on match days, the ticket office is actually open and one can purchase tickets for either the game later that day, or indeed for a forthcoming game. I think that it has been established to the satisfaction of most on here that if a ticket is bought from the ticket office, the £3 booking fee does not apply, so the most expensive seat in the non-corporate part of the stadium in the centre would be £25, yes?

Why don't you email the club and ask for one? Simple

It was only a matter of time before your spouting forth without any concrete evidence led to you contradicting yourself, but you have managed to do it on two fronts. Firstly, you ignore the special anniversary shirt. So there we have a commemoration of our history going back to our very roots and a foregoing of additional revenue that could have been generated by having a sponsor tied up with it. Secondly, if it proves true that we will not be playing the Ted Bates trophy match, then we will be foregoing the revenue that we might have generated from ticket sales too. As for your assertion as to what the fan base would put up with and the numbers of them, I'd be interested in how you arrive at it. Are you elected as the representive mouth-piece for the the fan base, or do you just have a natural ability to know instinctively what everybody wants or would do?

Robert Green. But then he dropped it and it trickled over the line. But the Uruguayan Referee didn't allow it. Seriously though, Forlan has had a great impact on the tournament and is one of the few talented ball players to be able to keep his spot kicks from ballooning into row Q