instinct

Its disappointing as he sounded quality, but trust Pardews judgement on this

Because teams that go up having won their leagues convincingly tend to do well in the next league. Leeds took 4 years to get to where they are now. Then again to even get in the playoffs we would have to have league winning form so it wouldn't make too much of a difference.

Don't forget we're only 4 points clear of the relegation zone at the moment... just to put things in perspective. I'd rather take the league by storm next season than creep up this season, we would be better prepared for championship imo

I think we have better chances now than at the start of the transfer window, hopefully will stop shipping so many goals, we're having no problems scoring them at mo. Need some cover for lambert though, would like to see us sign another striker.

If we look at what we have he probably is better than a lot of what we've got... Fonte and Jaidi are our best central pair but I'm sure Seaborne is better than Lancashire and that young one from Eastleigh. Given some of Thomas's performances he could well be better than him too. Against Perry, Seaborne is 10 years younger and has potential. Exeter seem sad to lose him too. Add to that Jaidi is injured for the next few weeks and he could be vital. I still hope we sign Ward in addition though, we really do ship too many goals.

Its weird that neither this rumour or the stock one have appeared in any newspapers... all we have is supposedly ITK info

I think its got to be Ward or Pericard, more likely Ward as Pericard has been doing ok

A post on f365 forum: The theory is that Sasha Gaydamak is still indirectly in charge of the club (using it for money laundering) and is basically withdrawing the vast majority of income from player sales, TV revenue, gate receipts etc into his own accounts, whilst using loans to pay for day-to-day expenses, thus building up the debt. This will go on until the club inevitably enters administration and in most likelihood folds completely. A few things to consider – - Despite all the player sales over the past year or so (Diarra, Muntari, Johnson, Defoe, Crouch, Distin, Kranjcar, Mendes) bringing in around £80m in income, plus the Sky money, ticket sales and other revenues, which must total around £150m, there is still no sign that the debt situation has changed – we’re still struggling to pay basic expenses such as the player salaries, this despite now having one of the lowest wage bills in the league. Were our debts really that big to begin with? Unlikely. - Pretty much every business Sasha Gaydamak has ever owned has gone into liquidation. - Ali Al-Faraj is still a complete unknown. He was a supposed “billionaire”, yet no-one had ever heard of him, even in his homeland of Saudi Arabia. He is yet to turn up to any games (not even Man Utd at home, despite word going around that he would attend) which was originally put down to permit issues, yet his “brother” has attended some games. No-one is quite sure who he is or where he got his money from, and all that has been released of him is this one photo: Is this man in the photo Ali Al-Faraj, or just some random Arab being used as a smokescreen for Gaydamak’s cash cow scheme? Is Ali Al-Faraj even a real person, or is he completely made-up? And if he isn’t a real person, how the f**k did he pass the FA’s Fit and Proper Person Test?! Keep in mind that Al-Faraj reportedly didn’t spend a penny on buying the club; all he did was take over the clubs debts. In theory I could have done that – all I’d need to do is fool the FA into thinking that I had the financial clout required to run a football club. And as we all know, the FA are useless bunch of tossers anyway. - Two men called Balram Chainrai and Levi Kushnir loaned us £15m in September to help with costs. These two men co-founded a company called Ameris Holdings, who sold 65% of shares to Sasha Gaydamak’s father Arcadi (who has an arrest warrant out for him in France for arms dealing during the Angolan civil war. He’s been sentenced to six years but is now hiding back in Russia as they have no extradition treaty with France) Anyway, Arcadi used to be owner of Beitar Jerusalem *****il July this year) but ran into some problems with Israeli law and had his account frozen. His business partners Chainrai and Kushnir sued Arcadi for failing to buy the rest of the shares of their company Ameris Holdings as was apparently agreed, and were awarded £16m from Arcadi’s frozen accounts. They then lend Pompey £15m for apparently no reason at all…. seems like a good way of transferring cash from one frozen bank account to another active one, no? - Another face currently hanging around the club is someone called Danny Azougy, who has been brought in as a financial advisor. He is an Israeli lawyer/accountant and multi-time convicted fraudster you used to work for, yep, Arcadi Gaydamak. Quote: “Disgraced lawyer Daniel Azougy is controlling the club’s finances, despite a string of convictions for fraud dating back eight years. He was found guilty of FOUR counts of embezzling client funds in Israel in 2002. He was sentenced to five months in prison – but did not spend any time behind bars as he was allowed to do his time in community service instead. Azougy was also banned from practising law by the Israeli Bar Association for FOURTEEN YEARS. Then in March this year, Fratton Park’s new finance man was sentenced to two months’ community service and a year’s probation – and fined £25,000 – for a securities fraud resulting from a dodgy share transfer back in 1999.Azougy was found to have lied to the Israeli Stock Exchange bosses over the deal. He got off with a light sentence because the offence happened 10 years earlier.” Azougy specialises in liquidation and was appointed by Arcadi to deal with the asset stripping of Beitar Jerusalem towards the end of his reign. And here he is again, no doubt appointed by the same person to do a similar job. - Two other names, Roni Mana and Yoram Yosepov, have been linked as potential investors to the club. They denied it, but admitted on record that they are acting as “business advisors” to Ali Al-Faraj and claimed they persuaded him to appoint Avram Grant as manager. Type the name ‘Roni Mana’ into Google along with Gaydamak and you’ll see, unsurprisingly, they have quite a history of dealings too. The first result says Mana “has been the middleman in all of Gaydamak's recent business transactions”. It’s clear that the people being deployed by the club are Gaydamak’s people, not Al-Faraj’s, if he even exists. - Where does Al-Fahim fit into this? Well, my theory is that he intended to buy the club back in May and had a serious backer lined up (probably Thaksin Shinawatra as reported) but that went down the pan. Once it became clear Al Fahim didn’t have anywhere near the required financial means on his own, and after he failed to attract other investors to pay off the remainder of Sasha’s demands, Sasha went with Plan B – Al-Faraj the mirage – and decided to rape the club for everything he could. He clearly doesn’t give a sh*t whether the club survives or goes bust, and why should he? Al-Fahim is left sat there as a non-executive chairman, owning 10% of a worthless company, with no money and no decision making authority like the useless fat ***** that he is. So there you have it. Clearly there’s a lot of dodgy stuff going on. I’m 100% sure the Gaydamak’s are still in charge, and as they have no invested interest in keeping the club afloat, I really can’t see a happy ending to it all. No investors are going to want to buy the club – not when you consider the current league placing, shocking infrastructure and (somehow still) massive level of debt. Now the winding up order has been set, the end seems to be nigh. The club is getting f**ked up the arse and I honestly reckon we’ll be out of business in the coming months. Possibly administration as early as next month. Bottom line is, Pompey look fooked.

he's out of contract in the summer so southend may want to sell him now rather than lose for free in summer http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/8424112.stm "Southend's Lee Barnard has scored 16 goals already this season (14 in League One), but he is out of contract in the summer and looks unlikely to sign an extension, despite an offer from Southend. If you were our manager Steve Tilson or chairman Ron Martin, would you accept offers for him in January and earn some vital funds for hard-up Southend or would you keep him until the summer and risk losing him for nothing!? We are hovering in mid-table but the loss of Barnard's goals in January could see us slip into a relegation battle. What would you do? Jason Jay, England Sell him. He has scored 16 goals by mid-December and Southend are in mid-table. If they were in the top six, I would say keep him but he is unlikely to have another three months like he has just had and, even if he does, they are unlikely to be challenging for promotion - they are too inconsistent. I do not think relegation will be an issue either, so they might as well cash in. It obviously depends on what kind of offers they get but, if he is not going to sign his contract, then they may as well let him go. He is actually one of the players who has benefited from Southend's financial difficulties as he might not have got his chance otherwise - he was not first-choice before. Southend striker Lee Barnard Barnard joined Southend from Spurs in January 2008 Lee is a good finisher and a busy striker but it has taken him a while to adjust to the lower divisions after leaving Tottenham a couple of years ago. You see it happen all the time when players leave bigger clubs - sometimes they think they are better than they are and it is a bit of a rude awakening for them to drop down a couple of levels. It has taken him a little while to find his feet because he is in the big bad world of the Football League and he is not protected in a little bubble like he was at Spurs. Some young players who are released by big clubs go under and you never hear of them again but some, like Barnard, come through. He has seen one side of the game when he was growing up but knows it is different now. He has knuckled down, got his chance at Southend and taken it - good luck to him. Could he hack it in the Championship? We don't know. It would be a gamble to sign him but, generally, if you are a good player in a certain division then you will not be out of your depth in the division above. "

trotman was a quality defender, won everything in the air and would have been a good prospect for the future, hope there is still a chance we can snap him up

I'll be happy to finish within 10 points of the playoffs

Thats ridiculous. He should be getting at least £50 million.

Skandia

Bit of info on him here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2009/12/the_other_rooney.html We do need another striker for when Conolley isn't fit

I was at the game and I swear he got booked twice... and should have been booked a third time for play-acting before saints equaliser

I went to watch Northampton play at Aldershot last night. They were a poor team, very slow and poor technically. Akinfenwa and Gutteridge looked like the only vaguely dangerous players. Their right back Rogers is sketchy and Lallana should have a field day against him. Can't see them posing much of a threat to Saints tbh, can't wait till sat!

he looks so good cause he's playing in league 1! he has improved quite a bit too. wotton looks like he's found his level in league 1 too

That 3-1 was amazing, think Jim Magilton got a couple

Saints 6 Man U 3 Getting Le Tiss's autograph on a programme for my 12th bday

Thanks for trying Le Tiss!

Fair play

I heard Chorely on Sky Sports News, saying it was Lowe's fault. I liked that.

Whats wrong with that; doesn't means he's retarded or anything

im so glad Lowe is gone from our club, bring on next season!!

This.