afar

Wow that could be huge. Thank god for Warnock

Maybe they can give Nicolas Bedner some tips, I've got Arsenal's game on atm, his missed about 3 or 4 absolute sitters.

Wow bit of a surprise Doncaster spanking Bristol City 5-2 at Bristol. Probably one of our toughest games left I thought was Bristol away.

I'm not nsure a draw isn't the best result there, Swansea are on a bit of a roll and could easily overhaul Forest who seem to be struggling for form atm.

Have they took the pen yet ? F5ing like crazy here

I never wish injury on any player but I got to say LOL when I read this story on the beeb this morning.

Thats the thing though isnt it? We were running up substantial year on year losses and had run out of ways to generate money. If nothing had changed (ie a new owner or if Fred had got outside investment) then we could well be where Portsmouth are now You are missing the crucial point, we had the potential to get back in the black, if we achieved success on the pitch, there was room for revenue expansion. For Pompey there was never a chance in hell of them being able to get into any kind of profitable state, even if they went on to champions league qulaification, they just didn't have the fan base, or structure in place to sustain it. I'm not saying we were anywhere near that responsible but our situation is or was the same as pompey's.

It's amazing how opinions change, Ambrose when he was with us, looked nothing more than average. O'hara a couple of years ago a white heart lane looked woefully out of depth when we beat them 4-1. I'm not convinced about either player, but will admit that they both fit the Hughton profile.

Couple of points: Brummie's crap about NUFC fans in glass houses. As Teasy said it's not the same at as as portsmouth. Pompey were way and above out of control, they have no fan base, it's tiny, they have a crappy ground with no corporate facilities. Success on the pitch, to whatever degree would never have made that club a profitable business. They were solely reliant on their rich benefactor. When he lost interest, they were always in the shit. Even if they wiped out their debt now, they would still not be able to pay their bloody bills. Compare that with Newcastle, we sustained a high wage bill, too high of course for a number of years, but we had the ability through our fan base, corporate facilities and marketing to pay for that had we achieved success on the pitch. We have never filled for administration or have been issued wind up orders by HMRC. Even after going down, we regularily pull in crowds 5 - 10 thousand more than fighting for CL place Aston Villa. Ironically, if we go up this year, we could be one of the most healthy football clubs in the PL from a financial point of view. So I'm not really getting the Glass Houses line really ?? If anything I would be worried if I were a Villa fan, they do not have the loyal fan base to sustain their wage bill, they've been spending big for a few years now and Randy Lerner, is not the white knight he's painted as by the Villa fans, his mismanagement of the Cleveland Browns is a huge concern in the NFL and the Browns difficulties could quiet easily come back and bite Villa in the arse very soon. They are where they are right now, down to one person, Martin O'Neil, who is a fantastic manager, if he were to leave for whatever reason, I would be very concerned if I were a Villa fan. I will agree though that football in general has been out of control in terms of financial responsibilities and the dificulties Pompey and West Ham and others are going through should be a wake up call to all clubs. The other point: Just read the rumours page on the Beeb and according to the Mirror (so we can probably take this with a pinch of salt), the premiership is preparing to bail pompey out with 32 million !! TBH that would make me very angry if true.

It's a clever move, by holding the price at the current levels for the early birds, before we have secured promotion. The club is hoping to head off any exodus of season ticket holders should we not get promoted this season. The key line is really, that this offer is for a limited time only.

Great result, we needed an away way, shame about West brom beating derby but Leicester over Forest is fantastic.

The point I was making, was not comparing recruitment of youngsters between the two games, but more the general effort and importance that put into scouting before committing to bringing a player to your club. Scouting seems an after thought for a lot of clubs in our game, detailed scouting to them is a manager going to watch a player play more than once, that's a world apart from the effort and resources put in to recruiting someone for the NFL, they know virtually everything about a player, from his background, character, intelligence to length of his arms, speed over 40 yards and how much he can bench press, along with of course his ability to play. There are some players in our past and I'm thinking of the Luque's, Xisco's, Maric's and Boumsong's of this worlds, who with a little more detailed scouting may have helped prevent us from wasting millions. What I would like to see us do, is to understand that recruitment is not limited to the transfer windows, we should be identifying and scouting our recruits for this summer, right now, I'm sure we've got a few scouts out there looking, but it always seems to be a half hearted attempt. A couple of scouts just doesn't cut it, we need to build up our scouting network.

no doubt everton and spurs could say the same about us re traqnsfer targets and offering stupid wages. Not really as we aren't a historically small club attempting to punch above our weight. We are a historically big club that theoretically should be able to compete with the best in England but due to incompetent management has ended up in the 2nd tier of English football. we arent an historically big club. until 1993 we were a yo-yo club with very passionate suppost. and since 2004 have been a club on the drop and living on the minor glories of the recent past. LOL, sure, we've got no history whatsover, never won owt, never had any big crowds ever, until KK came.

Starting today is the NFL scouting combine, it's amazing how much effort goes into the whole scouting process and puts the effort our teams put in , in our football, into shade, this is taken from the Miami Herald: "INDIANAPOLIS -- When the line began to form early Wednesday morning at Clarian Hospital in downtown Indianapolis, Cal offensive tackle Mike Tepper made sure he was at the front of it. The earlier the arrival, he figured, the shorter the wait. At 7:30 a.m., he would be the first to step into a small room, where a doctor sat behind a table with Tepper's MRI results on the right and his x-rays on the left. ``Have you ever been injured?'' the doctor asked. It was the first question for the first draft hopeful on the first day of the NFL Scouting Combine. This week, a total of 329 former college football players will endure countless questions and tests. They will be poked and prodded. They will be quizzed on their intelligence and questioned about their pasts. For five hours Wednesday, Tepper was herded to six stations. Those behind him would likely take even longer to finish. THOROUGH INVESTIGATION ``Blood, urine, MRI, x-rays,'' Tepper said. ``They take it all. Oxygen levels, your blood count. Everything. They'll sit you down with the doctor, and anything you say that you've injured, you're getting it checked out. Simple as that.'' Sounds, um, real simple. The medical evaluations, which are filed into a mainframe and sent to all 32 NFL teams, are only the first part of the process. Perhaps even more diligent than most teams, the Dolphins already have their staff ready to go in Indianapolis as they get ready for an enormously important draft. As important as this year's draft might be, these analytical studies aren't all that new. After Stu Weinstein, the Dolphins' director of security, found out in 1995 that he could interview each prospect as part of his thorough background checks, he has attended every year since. As a result, whenever Miami drafts a player in April, the team will know exactly what it is getting. The point: This isn't just about athleticism. It's about everything. Throughout the week, those 329 prospects will go through a series of workouts -- from running to weightlifting to vertical jumps -- that will test their speed, flexibility and overall agility. But teams treat each draft pick as a major investment."

Good Post UV, there's a lot of truth in there. I will however question you on the statement that we won't be better off, if we go back up. The fact is we had a lot of dead wood in our squad, the likes of Martins for example would still be sucking money out of the club and contributing very little, had we not been relegated. Going down has also put value onto previously unsaleable assets, like Nolan, Smith and Colocinni. I agree investment is still needed, even to just ensure that we don't become the yo-yo club you talk about. It'll be a crucial summer and may need some tough decisions to be made. If Ashley is brave enough to make them and gets enough of them right then he will have the "opportunity" and that word is the key, to build a sustainable, even profitable football club that can again challenge at the top of the league. Obviously with Ashley, you really never know what he'll do, logic has not really been his thing.

As Exiled says the problem is not in them being able to selling their assets but in registration rules. There is no way in hell the PL or FIFA are able to bypass the laws of the land and block the selling of assets (players) by the the clubs. They can however implement a system that does not allow buyers to register those players with the league they administer. It would be interesting though to see someone like Pompey challenge that through EU law of free movement of goods and people. Football is a special case in some laws, but you never know they could win a case the makes transfer windows illegal, that would really open up a hornets nest. I doubt though pompey have the time and money necessary to pursue that course of action. Oh and the other isssue they have is finding a buyer for these players, they need the money right now, most clubs have spent their budgets now for the year and pompey don't have that many really saleable assets. Can't see too many clubs being prepared to pay them up front for players they may not be able to register until next season.

Just another attempt at some ham fisted PR. I think the situation is and has always been pretty clear, go back up and we've got a good financial base to build from, stay down for another season and we are screwed. I think that was the issue in the summer for potential buyers, I don't think any of them were confident in our ability enough to get straight back up to invest the required amount. Hopefully there will be one or two of them kicking themselves at the end of this season. I don't claim to be any financial expert so I'm going to stay clear of the money debate but I will point out a couple of things. Along with the loss in TV money we lost a lot of money through advertising and corporate income by going down. They would also have had to shell out "loyalty" bonuses for players such as Owen, Martins, Beye, and possibly Viduka, who either served their full contracts or were sold without putting in a formal transfer request. The club of course had to pay KK off too, not as much as had been feared however. To counter that there's a lot of debate about us not receiving all the money at once for the sales we made in the summer, however we forget about payments still due to us for players we sold prior to that, Milner, Zog, Given and even still perhaps the likes of Parker and Dyer. There are more matches in the championship, and although match day income has gone down, due to smaller crowds, it was around 48,000 last year, this year it'll be around 40 - 43,000. 926,000 people watched the league games at SJP last season, somewhere between 920,000 and 980,000 will see league games this year, so income form matches remains around the same if not more because there are fewer season ticket holders and more paying per match (season ticket holder pay less per match ticket than those paying on the day of course). Should we be appreciative of Ashley's efforts here ? Well as others have said it was he who put us in the mess in the first place, he has been however prepared to sustain a short term loss but that is more surely with a the long term in mind, if not he would have been happy to let us slide into admin or sell the club to the highest bidder. At the end of the day though it's his business, as much as we have an emotional connection to NUFC, it's he who will be financially liable for the mistakes he's made not us. In order for him to make money from this business venture he has to keep the fans happy, that costs money, but he has to balance that with keeping costs under control. The hope has to be that he's learned that the football business does not operate like other businesses, who knows this relegation may have proved a blessing in disguise, as if we go up next year Ashley has a unique opportunity to push forward with a sustainable business model. I think he gambled by sticking to his valuation of the club in the summer, he could have probably shifted it for less money but he saw that if he held out and we did bounce back up, he would be in a much healthier position. Hopefully, and I don't say this for his sake, his gamble will have paid off.

Well he's still a figure of hate for the majority of NUFC fans, however there has been a softening of the fan base stance on him, partly because of the results this season, but most significantly because of the January transfer window. The concensus is that the Jan window was a good one for the club, they bought the right players for the right positions, they were the right age and got them at the right price. I think there is a definate sign that the club is healing itself, whether that's through damn good luck or good planning is debatable. But the crowds have held up, even at the lower level, the wages are under control, a lot of deadwood has gobne, more will be pruned in the summer. If we go up, we've got a big rebuilding job still on our hands but we are coming at it from a good base. Conversely though if we don't go up the club will be in huge danger of spiralling irreversibly downward. Ashley popularity has improved, he's still not however accepted as anyone remotely worthy of controlling the club, by the bulk of the supporters however if he can get us back up first and then on to challenging for Europe again, toon fans are as fickle as any other supporters and they'll be happy to go along for the ride. The question really is, is he up for the challenge, if he's not then the club will be sold at the first opportunity next season.

True, but Pompey's fate is still not decided, they could be wound up or just go into admin like Leeds, at the end of the day though, there will still be a football club there, probably playing Championshiop football next year.

Surely you can see there's a bit of a difference between getting relegated and being in court facing a winding up order, though? I pissed my pants the last time Birmingham got relegated, it made my season. I wouldn't want them to go out of business, though. Did you read my whole comment ? Or did you only just read the first part. I saw countless messages on forums from supporters hoping Ashley "finishes off the job", I don't recall too many people feeling sorry for the fans of NUFC who went through hell last year. No, I read it all. I just cut out the bits I wasn't replying to rather than requote the entire thing. QUite ironic that you're going on about these people you saw begging Ashley to "finish the job off", but now you're actually sinking to their level yourself. I reiterate, going through a winding up petition is a different type of hell to being relegated. Given that you've just described that as "hell", I don't know what that makes this season for them. Still, as you say, they can just reform and start off in the Hampshire And District Paperboys League or some such, it's no big deal after all. Incidentally, I can't believe you're citing Wimbledon and MK Dons as something even remotely positive, that's a first. I don't disagree that Portsmouth fans have been through just as much and probably more hell than we did last year. But when's all said and done, the worst I think that'll happen to them is that they'll go into admin, be relegated from the PL and have to start a new in the championship. To that I still say "so what", they've punched above their weight for a while now, they lived irresponsibly beyond their means, thinking everything would be fine because the had a rich sugar daddy, the fans were happy to go along for the ride, never questioned the situation and enjoyed a lot of success, winning a cup competition is something the majority of NUFC fans on this forum, have never seen in their lives. It's all turned pear shape now, but really it only returns them to reality. As for the MK Dons Wimbledon, thing, at the time it was devasting for the literally hundreds of Wimbledon fans, but from an owners point of view it was understandable that they moved to a bigger market and got their own stadium. It's worked out postively for the people of Milton Keynes, because they have their own football league club now and it's beginning to work out for the old Wimbledon fans who's new team is about where they have been for the majority of their existence, back at their own home, in Wimbledon. Will they win FA Cups again orfight at the top of the PL ? No probably not, but really with their fan base that was punching hugely above their weight.

A entirely new club being setup with a different name, no history, different ground and not even in league Football will hardly be much solace to Portsmouth fans. Didn't make a blind bit of difference to Middlesboro fans, in fact they came out of it much healthier, as did Leeds. Portsmouth won't go out of existence, I don't know why people keep saying that. The company may be absolved but something will rise up out of it's ashes, mark my words.

Surely you can see there's a bit of a difference between getting relegated and being in court facing a winding up order, though? I pissed my pants the last time Birmingham got relegated, it made my season. I wouldn't want them to go out of business, though. Did you read my whole comment ? Or did you only just read the first part. I saw countless messages on forums from supporters hoping Ashley "finishes off the job", I don't recall too many people feeling sorry for the fans of NUFC who went through hell last year.

What people need to a grip on is that there will still be a team in Portsmouth, it won't just disappear, just because the current Portsmouth Football Club is about to go bust (which I hugely doubt will happen). The smoggies are a prime example of this, they went out of business and a new club was formed that took it's place. Leeds too, went into administration with huge debts, were bought out by the bearded fool of a chairman and now are making a profit. Wimbledon's move to Milton Keys is another example in slightly different circumstances of a club that was not there anymore but AFC Wimbledon was born and are now only a step or two away from football league status. Football clubs endure, they do not just go away, Portsmouth will be around, most probably not playing Premiership football, but really do their fans deserve that above fans of clubs such as Newcastle, Leeds, Notts Forest, Sheff Utd and West Brom ? They deserve a football club yes and they'll still bloody have one, despite their current plight, what level they'll be playing at is open to debate, but I'd be happy to go on record as saying there will be a Portsmouth in the Championship next year.

I have no idea where this thread has been or is headed, since I've not really read it but if it's about Ashley then: I've been suspicous about him longer than most on here but at the same time always been prepared to give him the opportunity to prove us wrong. I'm still prepared to do that, he's fucked up countless times now, and to many probably doesn't deserve anymore second chances so I can understand others that will never forgive him. Above everything else what we can not afford is another off season of instability, whatever division we are playing in there will be a lot of work needed to the playing staff and hopefully management. What we can not afford is distractions in the ownership situation. If he does sell, I hope it's done out of the public eye and quickly, if he decides to hang around, I'm ok with that as long as he commits to improving our fortunes and bring us back to where we were, a few years ago.

If they Loved their club that much they would turn up, they may not have as many supporters as us, but they have way less seats to fill too.