Wullie

If he behaves himself, he'll be able to apply for parole at the halfway stage. Being a footballer won't get him any special treatment before that though. Depends what happens in his trial too of course.

Hope this was arranged before the arseholes smashed up Manchester, otherwise it seems even more stupid.

I don't see what good sacking him is going to do us other than on moral grounds. You'd hope (!) that we've already put something in his contract so he's not getting paid while he's in chokey so at the end of the day, we'd be letting a £6m Premiership midfielder go and letting someone else have him for fuck all before the season even starts. Barton's not been great for us despite looking a decent player in the last few games but even so can we really afford to do that? If we can flog him when he's out for close to what we paid, great. Otherwise we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot. Worth remembering that in the last ten years we've had both a jailbird and someone with a conviction for affray play for us and they've both been pretty popular. What Barton's done is disgraceful by the sounds of it, especially when he did it on bail in the knowledge that NUFC had put their trust in him, but the fact is that we've not got the squad or maybe the resources to write him off at the moment.

The taxi business was well over a year ago, i think it's fair to say that's no longer a concern.

What two offences are they, rich? As far as i know, the dabo trial is all he has left to face.

Sick of inviting the old firm down.

He's still got an abh trial to come yet, don't forget.

Should just give us a bye to the final of this one too tbh. If we played in the Champions League final on the Moon, we'd sell out. There is a problem though with the selection of stadium. I can understand that preparations need to made in plenty of time but perhaps this could be done before the semi final stage from a shortlist of suitable stadiums depending on who the four are, so no matter who goes through, the travel times/costs aren't ridiculous.

While I think on, having the semis at Wembley is ludicrous. Apart from the fact that it's a total pain in the arse, it takes away from the magic. What was wrong with Old Trafford and Villa Park? Even the Millennium Stadium I'd happily traipse to for a semi, just not the place where you're having the final - might as well play every game there if that's the case.

Sick of hearing about this like.

I think when people said "hang on a minute, why should these toffee nosed arseholes be given ticket priority to the Cup Final ahead of real fans" their response was that the FA Cup Final was an event for everybody, not just the two teams involved. To that I say - fucking bollocks.

Detestable club.

To be fair to the lads, I've never heard of them.

I think Oba has a fine record all things considered.

Some of you need to have a word with yourselves. It's alan oliver ffs. We might not sign this bloke but what he says is neither here nor there. You might as well ask the cat.

Not like the journal and the chronicle to totally contradict each other from the other side of the office within three hours.

I wonder if Ramos scrapes through Keegan's bins as well. He's probably shagging his wife to top it all off, the scrounging Spanish git.

At least we seem to be solidly linked with a number of players who won't come cheap. This link seems to have at least some mileage in it, we know we've bid £20m for Modric and we know we're seriously looking at Gomis and/or Diane, neither of whom will cost peanuts. Bodes well and doesn't exactly provide much backing for some of the scaremongering the press have been doing.

Don't know if you realise this, but many don't so I'll say it anyway. The Sunday Sun is NOTHING to do with the Sun. It's a local paper run by the same company as the Journal and the Chronicle. Still gets stuff wrong (what rag doesn't?) but it's more reliable than the stirrers at the Sun. IIRC the Sunday Sun broke the Rooney bid story when no-one else had a clue.

Haven't read too much of the thread but I think we'd be mad to let him go.

Aye, along with Diane, Gomis, Emerton, Evans, Kleberson and word on the grapevine is they're apparently looking to break the world transfer record for Shearer from Blackburn.

If they looked like they appreciated it, I wouldn't mind them winning it but it's just pissed me off immensely, no better than the big four's "just another trophy" attitude. I never again want to hear about the "passion" of Portsmouth fans.

"The celebrations will go on for a long long time" - what, some gentle flag waving and polite applause? Is this were NUFC, it'd be fucking pandemonium. For two clubs who might never get this chance again, the atmosphere has been absolutely pitiful and I genuinely can't get over the Pompey fans. They don't even look arsed.

Glad we didn't sign Campbell like, Roeder got that one spot on.