afar

1. What fans ? They can't even fill their tiny shitty stadium for PL games, we get double their numbers in the division below. For me they've done nothing to help their club. 2., 3. & 4. Couldn't give a s*** really. That's a really parochial, f***-you-jack approach to fans of another club, the sort of s*** you'd expect to hear from Tim Lovejoy or any other of the witless Sky media tarts who have no concept of what it is like to support an unfashionable club. Who gives a f*** if they fill their stadium or if it is a tip or not? They're fans like you and me are, and through no fault of their own their club is going to s***. I don't see the relevance of your attendances to Portsmouth's situation, either. It'd be interesting to see how many tickets they'd have had to sell to overcome 131m pounds spaffed on wages by their clueless owner and CEO over three years. Incidentally, it is quite depressing to hear that from the fan of another club which has also felt the downside of a clueless owner of late. I didn't see any outpouring of love for us when we went down last season, people were positively giddy with the thought that we may go bust. Portsmouth fans need to show that they want their club to survive, not being able to fill that tiny ground (and it bloody is tiny) does not show that. I fell more sympathy for clubs whose's fans actually give a shit, such as Leeds, and I quite honestly don't give a Rats arse about a team on the south coast of England.

I read the Ronnie gill online last night, it said that they have four home games on the trot coming up, at least two of them are very winnable. They get a 2 or 3 wins from those games and they are well on their way to safety, there is so much dross down there this season, you can't see enough of them pulling results out of the bag to suck the dirty mackems into it. What will be intersting is next season, will they stick with Bruce, if so will the owner trust him with the same sort of money he gave him last year ? Will they be able to hang onto Bent and Jones ?

1. What fans ? They can't even fill their tiny shitty stadium for PL games, we get double their numbers in the division below. For me they've done nothing to help their club. 2., 3. & 4. Couldn't give a shit really.

It could be done, but incredibly complex, you have to factor in cost of living, strength of league and currency exchange fluxations. Everyone thinks Salary caps are pretty simple, just put a figure, say 25 million a year, but you have to also factor in bonuses and loyality fees. Injuries may also come into play. The NFL's player cap is incredibly complex and you would need a even more complex system to fairly implement throughout multiple leagues.

I know nothing about the way MLS works, but what you describe is not the way things work in the NFL. Not sure this idea will work, as someone else said, the danger is that the PL would be weaken considerably. The only way to get wages under control is through a salary cap, but that won't work if the PL imposed one on unilaterally, again this would just weaken the league. Imposing a Europe wide cap, would be incredibly complex and almost impossible. Costs absolutely need to get under control, but while we still have teams like Real Madrid and Man City out there, there's very little that can be done, the only way I can see for football to get anywhere near the regulation that the NFL is able to impose, through salary caps and trade restrictions, is the set up of the European Super League.

Would take a draw from this one but we really need to start winning again away from home before it becomes a mental issue.

Huge result for us, 6 points clear of Brom, 5 pts with a game in hand over Forest now. We need to fix our away form but looking good atm, I'm sure there'll be plenty more twists and turns though.

I thought that against us, one of the dirtiest teams in the league, allowed to get away with it by a soft ref. They've got some good players but they cover up their diffencencies at that back by being bloody cynical.

Just shocking that really, for a team as good as they are, with one of the bnest managers around. Those fans don't deserve that team.

Wow just read Ferguson's comments on the beeb, reckons 3-0 massively flattered us and the ref was our 12th man. Does he have a right to grumble ? When I read the match reports doesn't sound like it.

Yeah I didn't mention that, good point, the draft does protects all the teams, giving them all a fair crack at the talent out there. Sorry we've kind of hijacked this thread, apologies to Jeff Vetere Great point on the Blackout rule, it's a really great idea, ensures that TV coverage does not adversely effect crowd attendances. Also for those who don't know how the TV coverage works in the NFL. All 4 of the big stations, CBS, FOX, ABC and NBC show Live NFL games throughout the season. ABC (owned by Disney who also own ESPN), show one game on a Monday night, NBC show one game a week on a Sunday Night. All the rest of the games are shown live at 1pm or 4pm EST on a Sunday, split between FOX and CBS. The market areas for teams are defined and the games are shown in the market areas, subject to the blackout ruling. For example if Miami played Dallas in Miami then that game will be shown live in South Florida, Dallas and other market areas for those teams, as long as the threshold of tickets has been sold in Miami, Dallas people would still see the game if the thershold had not been reached but South Florida folks wouldn't. While in Pheonix, they would get the Cardinals game at the Packers or something that meets their market needs. I don't know why that same situation can't work in the UK, if I live in Newcastle I would rather see Newcastle at Bolton than Man Utd Versus Arsenal.

We've gained 2.03 points per game atm, that projects to 93 pts by the end of the season, if we keep up that rate. That should be more than good enough for promotion, the champions last year only got 90 pts, the year before even less than that.

Dominating the stats on the Beeb site atm, which is encouraging, 59% - 41%, 7 shots on to 3 and 10 corners to 1.

Hmmm, we really can not afford to lose this one. I draw is minimum we need.

From the BBC site: "That point took them back to the top of the table by virtue of the fact that West Brom were involved in the FA Cup. " That pisses me off, the fact that West Brom had played a game more than us, being the reason why they were top of the table in the first place doesn't get mentioned ??

Exiled you are absolutely right, that the cap wouldn't work if only applied to the prem. And right again about the difficulties in setting a cap for UEFA wide. In some countries it is possible to get by on a lower level than in the prem. The PL is extremely competitive, although we have the established teams, those teams can't coast past the weaker ones like they can in other nations. So you need a bigger squad to cope with the demands, bigger squad means the salary cap is stretched more. The way the NFL cap currently works is extremely complex, I have really no idea how to explain it, it's not just a case of here's a figure that you can't go above. There's stuff like guarenteed money versus bonuses and effects on your cap if you cut players. My team the Dolphins recently hired a person whose sole job is to manage the salary cap. A UEFA salary cap would need to probably be even more complex than this. I think if we ever get to that European Super League, then ideas like Salary caps and Drafts can a should be considered, but I don't think there is a realistic way they would work with all the competing leagues we have around Europe.

But to counter that, in football we have a situation that exists now where players are in essence more powerful than the clubs, they wield way too much power. As you rightly say that's not the case in NFL, and the power firmly lies with the clubs. Personally as a supporter I would prefer that my club is not dictated to by the player, as a player of course I would prefer the situation we have in football. I don't agree with the statement that the draft system is a joke at all. It helps build a much more level playing field, allowing the worse teams to have the pick of the best prospects, while the better teams have fewer options. From the player's standpoint it's not too bad also, the college to nfl draft system, allows a lot of kids (not just the ones that get drafted) to have the opportunity to go to colege which they would not have had had they not excelled in sports. This isn't so important for the ones that go on to be big stars in the NFL, but those that don't make it to the professional game get the opportunity to get a college degree, helping their prospects in life outside the game. There's a great story this year of a guy called Myron Rolle, who went to Florida State, he excelled academically there, he was due to go into the draft last year but got the opportunity to study for a year at Oxford through a scholarship he won for his academic studies, he took it and with it took a year out of American Football, he's back for this year's draft. Like I said above the players also make a ton of money, Matthew Stafford last year's #1 pick signed on for $41.7 million gaurenteed with a possibility of making $78 million over his 6 year contract !! That's for a kid who had never played a single game of pro football. There are few to no complaints from the players about which team they land on, like I said, there is not that attachment to teams that we have in our sport, nor is there a decade on decade dominant teams. Look at this years Super Bowl winners (they call themselves world champions, which is so indicative of the insular nature of most americans, still they are probably right since no one outside of their country and Canada, which is a crappier version, plays the game) they've never won it before in their history, didn't even make the playoffs last year and had me pretty much of a joke of a team for much of the 80's. Oh and a player does have options, he can refuse to sign a contract, he will have to sit out the year, unless the team waives their rights, but he can re-enter the draft the following year. But again it rarely happens, they are largely happy just to make the NFL. These are young players who've never played the game for money. From the outside the draft system looks odd and unfair to the players, but when you take a deep interest in it you understand how intriguing it is and the possibilities for your team, the players are treated fairly but the power if definately in the hands of the owners. In our football we use players very much as commodities that we buy and sell, however the commodities have a say in where they go. The concept is slightly different in American sports, in the NFL to get the player you want from another team you have to either wait for him to finish his current contract and try to sign him as a free agent, or makes trades with the other team to get him, you can trade players or draft picks or a combination of both. The teams are always (although that may change in 2010) working within the confines of a salry cap, you have to really balance your needs with what you can afford. In our football it's possible for teams like Manure, Barcelona and Real Madrid to stockpile the best players, even reserves at these clubs make more than first teamers at alot of other clubs. That can't happen in the NFL. Having said all that, there are lots of issues with the NFL, it's very rigid, probably would violate a lot of EU laws for free movement, if it were ever to have a franchise based in London which is a distinct possibility in the near future. We can teach them a few things that we do better in our game, there season only lasts for 3 months and is 16 games, could you imagine paying $1000 for a season ticket which equates to 8 games ! Although the fans are very passionate about their teams, there is not the connection that exists with the public that exists in our game. And it really shouldn't take 3 bloody hours to play a 60 minute game. There are things though we can learn from them, such as the way they market their game, the TV deals and I think the way they try to give everyone the opportunity to be competetive.

Funnily enough in 2010 we've played 4 out of the top 6 (of course we can't play ourselves, so just Forest we haven't faced) and not lost once, 1 win and 3 draws, since 2 of those draws came away from home, that's really pretty damn good. Also with Forest losing again today, Swansea and Cardiff could easily catch them, things looking a lot better than they did with 10 mins to go in this one.

He told the interviewer to piss off ? Wow.

You can't make a statement like that and discount that game. It's like a lottery winner saying if you discount the time I won 5 million on the lottery, I've never had any luck in the lottery. You're point though is right, we've been struggling for form for much of the year, and just 2 wins thus far is poor return for a team chasin promotion, our fixture list though does get a little better for the rest of the month, important that we capitalise on it now.

Good point, from a tough fixture, sounds like they played shit, but it doesn't matter as long as we got a result. We've got a few "easier" fixtures coming up now, we need to win these games now and press on.

I was just typing more kneejerktastic rants at how I fucking hate this bunch of gutless pricks when I see the page count on the thread, go up by 3 pages in about a second, that can only mean one thing, lets just hang on to this, no more fucks up.

Sadly I see it as two things. Over-paid arrogance that they can turn up and win or because Hughton is very negative and scared of playing anything but longball away from home. The points gap to an non playoff place is huge, even we can't cock that up, but not a cat in hell's chance of us winning the playoffs after throwing away the lead we had, just won't happen, our only hope for promotion now lies in Forest melting like we seem to be right now.

Just woke up, doesn't sound like we are likely to pull this one back. Oh well looks like 2 defeats on the bounce, we're in trouble now, it's just typical of this stupid bloody football club to throw away a lead like we had at christmas time, the playoffs will be a bloody nightmare.

Bob Stokoe gave them there best moment in the last 40 years or so, Lawrie McMenemy gave them there lowest, who knows what Steve Bruce will do, but I would love to see him preside over another low point in their history, as long as we go back up.