Exiled in Texas

On the other hand.... you could look at is as loose £37m plus all future tax revenues from PFC, but safeguard £600m {made up figure} plus all future tax revenues from the rest of the league. Or take the smaller hit financially but look at the bigger picture longer term. [T27 - not picking on you directly - we just seem to the ones in the thread at the moment] I'm just not a big fan of protecting PFC because they are a football club or because they are "too big to fail" to quote a term from the recent banking turmoil.

Long term prison sentences for the guilty directors/chairmen would be a more appropriate and fair course of action. I would prefer both. Portsmouth will rise again in some form or other. Like any other company who goes bankrupt they can form a new company (slight name change/slight ownership change) and then try to re-establish their business. In the end the Portsmouth FC fans will get behind AFC Portsmouth (or whatever they get called). Might be a few places down the league but they'll be back in some guise.

Lovely comments there about a club like Plymouth, who showed us a massive amount of decency and respect in April. Plymouth is more west of London than south.

I love the argument.....it's not fair on the fans....blah blah blah What's not fair is that the rest of the country has to make up the tax shortfall because these twunts decided to try and cheat the tax man and not pay what they owe. Sure it's only about 75p per person in the UK.....but imagine if there was some guy in the street collecting money to pay Pompeys tax bill. Would you give a quid? Or 5 quid if you've wife/kids etc. Now see if you care about their fans. Let them go bankrupt.....they wouldn't help me if the tax man came after me. We all have to exercise fiscal responsibility in our personal lives....when not them.

Amazing that they were in the group of death and playing BR, CI and PT and they expected to win?? Other than the PT game they did quite well.

"Crowd vs PSV" sounds like one of the crazy Japanese games where they let a few hundred kids play football vs a real team. I can just imagine the NO team trying to make some plays against PSV, and getting ticked that the other 13,000 kept stealing the ball

Our new Argentine scout http://movies.universal-pictures-international-germany.de/evita/images/10_64.jpeg

You credit Chris for Sol being good enough now? I don't think it was a case of Sol not being good enough 4 years ago - but not being worth the money that he wanted.

Gotcha - read it the wrong way to what you intended. Agree that Liverpool will spend and put out a stronger team. just not sure which way that will be taking their balance sheet. At some point you have to live within your means. We are a good example of realising that a little too late. The question is.....are we ahead of the move to fiscal responsibility and can we turn that to our advantage

Surely if Liverpool have to strengthen to be worth 800M, then you have to factor in the additional costs required to get there. No point spending an additional 200M to be worth 800M if your debt levels etc are now up to 900M. Hind sight and all that......but we may well be better off than many clubs due to Ashleys earlier forray into fiscal responsibility rather than continuing to play FM with a real club.

US sports show how this should be managed with their limited rosters and callup/send down processes. Limit the squad size and only allow registered squad players to play. Other players not in 1st team squad would be reserve players. Then have process where if you want to bring a player in.....then a player must go. Baseball/NFL/NHL has this process....so that teams that want to send a player down to their Minors (Reserves) must pass waivers where any other team can claim that player (contract and all). Only once a player clears waivers then can they get put into minor league team. They have "options' for youngsters so that they can get called up/sent down without going through waivers based either on age or a set number of options. If you had a fixed squad size then Citeh (for example) would have to release a player like Bellers if they wanted to sign Milner. The fixed roster size would perhaps also persuade players to join realistic clubs where they can make the roster rather than just jump into the bloated ranks of Citeh/Chelsea and never see the field. Fighting for the 25th spot migt make them realise that they would be better off elsewhere.

I f****** love the silly summer season

Shame about the shield/patch thing ruining the shirt. Was amazed that they got a Carroll 9 shirt up so soon.....at least that's what the name looks like from here.

Well you can hardly call them the "spares" and expect people to come and watch.

But exactly how good is Huntelaar now? Not playing much for a Milan attack that was misfiring, and didn't see much if any playing time for Holland. Still probably out of our reach but... If you had to splash on one player (expensive but fits the required profile)......would you go for Huntelaar?

There was no way Webb could win in this game. Dismiss Van Bommel and De Jong in the first half and the worlds reaction would have been how the referee ruined the game. Had he only sent off one of them, then the game would have turned into a defensive game with the dutch parking the bus in front of the goal and just the occaisional hoofs up to Robben. (See Barca vs Inter CL Semi for what that might have looked like). Webb make one genuine mistake - missing the corner and awarding the goal kick. The rest all comes down to incidents of ITOOTR and how he tried to keep the final played as a final should be. Believe me no referee wants to insert himself into a game, it's the players who should take responsibility for it. No cards are given - they are earned.

VI the US is the lilkely candidate for this reason - Big economy and population - and soccer has a very wide base of players starting off in the sport, but the drop out rate is high and for those that stay, there is the question of how their talent is developed. I suspect that they are developing players to win games at ages 12 or 14 rather than winning WC at 24. The issue is that the clubs are a "pay to play" deal where you want to win now, rather than loose games now but develop as players for later. And it won't be the MLS that hold back the players - the good ones will to Europe, while the average will play MLS. And with TV showing leage games from England, Italy, Spain and Germany there is plenty for fans to watch high-quality soccer, while still going to the odd MLS game for the live game. I'd say that if it were to happen, that the USA would be the one, but being good enough to win it is one thing.....actually winning it is another. So I say no - it won't happen in my lifetime.

Depends on whether it gets anywhere or if it's just passing for passing sake. Barca vs Inter in CL Semi was very ineffective because it never progressed. It was lots of posession but only at 35yrds out and never penetrating. Sideways passing. However the more usual Barca incisive passing is very entertaining and to be admired. I just didn't see much of that during the Spain games this WC.

Pig Farmer (Litterally Pig Raiser)

The part that he is sitting on

Referees already struggle to get the fouls and handling calls right, which they do most of the time but it still leaves some missed or miss called. This would be putting too much emphasis on "ITOOTR - In The Opinion Of The Referee" Giving a referee the ability to award a goal when one wasn't scored - or requiring him to award one if the situation was right would turn into a huge mess. It's bad enough with all the players crowding the referees about decisions etc (yellow not red etc, last man etc). Imagine the scene at every hand ball in the area. This is a one-in-a-million occurance and you would be creating 999,999 problems to solve one.

Great comment from Jurgy Lowww in that Guardian article " "I've had a scenario in my mind for months: this is the kind of football I want to play at the World Cup. We've been aiming for that. I didn't just want to impose some tactics on the players. Rather, this is what I wanted to do, and I selected the players around that."

Julio Cesar's stupid baggy clown shorts that come down below his knees. Oh, and wearing a turtle neck and short sleeves.

Oh a penalty you say, yeah sorry you're right a pen is much worse then a certian goal.. As for a sending off, it only makes a difference earlier in the game, late in the game its 100% too a teams advantage to handle on the line if the ball would otherwise go in, they get a second chance with a keeper in the way to try to save the pen and the only punishement they get is that player missing the next match, meanwhile the opposition get no reward what so ever. What if this situation had been in the last 30 seconds of regular play. PK given, missed and now into Extra-Time. BUT now Uraguay are playing the additional 30 minutes with 10 men. Surely the fact that he denied a "Sure goal" is the same and he saved the match is the same, but now there are 30 mins more to play a man down. What if Suaraz was their main penalty taker? And red carding him and removing a 100% PK taker and making a "chris Waddle" take a PK surely changes the equation? I don;t see how you can define the parameters of granting a goal when it didn't cross the line.

If Ghana has scored it would have been a footnote to the world cup but nothing else. He committed a foul, was caught, was punished, opportunity was handed to Ghana. And they blew it. If Ghana score, then nothing would have been said.