ikri

However, most other clubs have overspent just as much, they've just used better financial management to handle their debts. Wouldn't that suggest that most other clubs haven't overspent? If they've spent within their means to repay their debts then that's not really overspending. What Portsmouth did was spend far beyond their ability to ever repay, even if they'd managed to get into the Champion's League their earnings wouldn't have covered their expenditure. They might point to their plans for a new stadium, but they've not been filling their current one so it's debatable that they'd have been able to meet their best possible income projections. Yeah, fair point. I think there will be other clubs where the debt levels turn out to be unsustainable though, Pompey are just the first and worst example. Liverpool are the first that spring to mind, take away their Champion's League money and they'll struggle (probably to the point that they'd be forced to sell Torres & Gerrard and without them in the team earlier this season they looked woeful). Aston Villa & Wigan owe fortunes but have rich backers, West Ham are right on the edge & relegation would probably see them in administration, Hull have already said that without the Premiership cash they'd go broke almost overnight. I think that there are only 5-6 clubs in the Premiership who have incomes that currently exceed their outgoings.

However, most other clubs have overspent just as much, they've just used better financial management to handle their debts. Wouldn't that suggest that most other clubs haven't overspent? If they've spent within their means to repay their debts then that's not really overspending. What Portsmouth did was spend far beyond their ability to ever repay, even if they'd managed to get into the Champion's League their earnings wouldn't have covered their expenditure. They might point to their plans for a new stadium, but they've not been filling their current one so it's debatable that they'd have been able to meet their best possible income projections.

actually felt sorry for their sub keeper by the end, not sure if he managed a real save

That seems to rely on Allardyce keeping the team in the Premiership. The team that was playing in the couple of months before he was sacked was woeful. It was demoralised, they had no idea what to do with the ball when we had it, they seemed incapable of creating chances and their heads dropped if they conceded, there was no backup plan for how to play if they were behind. It took Keegan 8 games to turn it around and get them winning again. I have absolutely no doubts that had we kept Allardyce we'd have been relegated that season.

I've been more commited to clapped out bangers with 6 months left on the MOT. Sadly, we'll only know the truth of that statement (Llambias' statement, not your statement) in the summer, if he doesn't put the club on the market again and does provide some additional cash for building the squad then it'll be proved true otherwise it'll just be Llambias talking crap again. If he does attempt to sell the club again, I doubt it'll be anywhere near as public as the last couple of attempts and I doubt he'll use Seymour Pierce again. He'll probably try to find a buyer on his own or wait for someone to approach him directly. Llambias does more damage to Ashley's reputation at the club than he does to help it. If Ashley is serious about the club one of the first things he should be looking at is putting in place a real MD who understands football rather than relying on one of his mates.

Would be a stupid move, most teams would just end up with two big target men who never leave the 6 yard box waiting for the ball to be hoofed through to them. Defending teams would have to leave 2-3 defenders back at all times to counter them. You wouldn't end up with more free-flowing attractive football, you'd end up with Fat Sam-style hoofball.

From The Times So, even after going into administration they need to find £7 million sharpish or they'll still be wound up and if they debt figures are true then it looks like they've been trading insolvent for some time now which could mean a criminal case should they be wound up.

Can't see how they can challenge that without the other clubs protesting. Worth a try since every time the Premiership have considered deducting points from a team they've either bottled it or the deduction has been removed.

That's my take on it too. Transfer fees were settling down around 2003 and would have probably dropped down a bit if Chelsea had gone under (they were rumoured to be 2-3 weeks from going into administration in the summer of 2003) but the moment Abramovich appeared and Chelsea started paying out even larger wages and higher transfer fees the system was screwed since the other clubs had to offer similar wages to keep up. They ended up buying players they didn't need and paying them a fortune, why would a player turn down Chelsea's bench if they're offering double what they could get playing for someone else's first team? The moment the market begins to dip again, with even Chelsea backing off on transfer fees, along come the Abu Dhabi lot and start it all up again at Man City. Nothing is going to be fixed until either UEFA pass the new rules on European competition entry conditions or a Champion's League club goes into administration.

Stopped reading there. We were losing money hand over fist before Ashley took over, take a look at the accounts filed under FFS. Have a look on football-finances.org.uk to see where we were heading at the time.

Going off some of the estimated wages: Butt - 40k Colo - 80k Smith - 60k Barton - 65k Jonas - 50k Nolan - 40k Shola - 25k Enrique - 50k R Taylor - 25k No idea if we're paying all or part of Xisco's wages whilst he's out on loan, but he's apparently on 40k. That's £435,000 per week for those players alone (assuming that we're not paying any of Xisco's wages at the moment), not including any bonus payments they're due. The wages of those players alone nearly reaches the £500,000 weekly mark and whilst most of them have performed well this season it's extremely hard to justify those wages in this league (most of them weren't exactly justifying their wages in the Premiership either).

Good article, lots of good info. A lot is now going to depend on whether or not Portsmouth are able to sell players which a few clubs and managers have already complained about (they don't want relegation or European places potentially decided by a player sold outside the transfer window). If they can't sell the players then even with the parachute payments being paid early they'll still have to pay those players and won't have a positive cash flow until the close season which would mean they'd still be haemorrhaging cash and would still have trouble paying their creditors. Basically, they'd still be in administration over the summer and would potentially be looking at a 24 point deduction at the start of next season (9 point deduction carried over from this season and an extra 15 points for not having a CVA). Add to that the fact that Chainrai now owns the freehold to Fratton Park and Sasha Gaydamak owns the offices that the club use they could be looking at starting next season without a stadium and without offices. They may have left it too late for administration to help them.

unless a new buyer is found. Having said that, I'd be surprised if they do find one. I'm getting sick of this now tbf. EDIT: Can't go bust now due to some law with regards to going into administration. The administrator will be put in charge of getting as much money to those of whom the club is in debt. Basically, administration - relegation - summer firesale - probably not coming straight back up, perhaps even going down again. Can they actually go into administration though? Would HMRC not be able to block the move until their hearing is completed on Monday? Is this just a ploy by Portsmouth to get HMRC to back off? Threaten administration where the HMRC know they'll get bugger all to try & for HMRC to negotiate some payment terms with the club.

There were some rumours that the FA might reinstate Southampton in the FA Cup if Portsmouth go bust, probably because they've already sold the TV rights to the game.

I believe that one of their major lenders is South African, might just be them.

I don't believe he has the respect of the players because that's the best option. Either Hughton is telling the players not to bother looking before passing the ball, not to bother running into space and to keep hoofing the ball to the heavily defended forward as often as possible away from home, or the players aren't listening to him, or they're deciding what to do themselves. If Hughton is telling the team that this is the best way to play football then I'd rather not even keep him as a coach next season since he'd be unqualified to coach a kids team. If they're not listening to him then it's up to Hughton to impose himself properly. I'd be less worried about the player's fitness if it was just Nicky older than the hills Butt, but we're talking about players like 27 year old Nolan who should be at their physical peak and should not look like they've just got in from a night out on the piss. Maybe there is an issue with the other coaching staff not doing their job properly, but that again is Hughton's responsibility. If his coaches aren't doing their job then he needs to replace them or start looking after the player's fitness himself. I don't have any agenda to speak of, I just don't believe that Hughton has shown anything to suggest that he's good enough for us in the long run

Which teacher did you prefer at school? The teacher who let you did whatever you want & never even attempted to discipline people or the teacher who told you to shut up & get on with your work? Whilst I don't necessarily want a disciplinarian manager (we've tried that with Souness), I do want a manager who knows what they're doing and who has enough respect from the players that when they're told to do something, they do it instead of forming a committee to decide among themselves what to do. I don't really care what the players want, some of the more senior players have woeful fitness levels that don't seem to be being addressed, we still have players making the most fundamental errors during games (not bothering to look up before passing), too many players still have less movement than a traffic cone. These are really basic parts of the game that haven't been addressed since last season and don't look like they'll ever be addressed by Hughton because he's too willing to let the players get away with doing the absolute minimum necessary. I have no problems with Hughton as a coach and will congratulate him for his efforts to get us promoted at the end of the season, but I want a manager next season, not a friendly coach.

4 go up from League One, then another four go up from League Two to League One, etc.

Except that might bias players to try to score themselves when a team mate was in a far better position. Easier to just base it on a win, possibly give a smaller bonus for a draw.

No idea if they were friends or not, but they were both at Sampdoria at the same time.

I'm pretty sure the courts are less concerned about their ability to pay their outstanding tax debts now, they're more concerned that the club is trading insolvent. If the court believes that their assets are less than their liabilities then simply selling some of those assets (at a knock down price) isn't going to help them at all, in fact it'll hurt them more than if they kept the players. I don't believe that selling the players is anything more than an attempt by the current owner to recoup as much money as possible before winding up the club (or potentially they need the cash to pay wages this month in which case they're utterly fucked). They could have avoided all of this by going into administration before Christmas, sure they'd have lost 9 points and most of their players but since that's the best that's going to happen to them anyway what have they achieved by not doing so?

That's a bit too abstract but the idea itself wouldn't be too bad tbh. Probably 10.000 a week and then a certain bonus per win/goal scored/assist/clean sheet ... Only problem would be that I could hardly see any player wanting to play for us under such "hard" conditions. Thats what it is now, if you believe the papers. Lovenkrands is o £15k with the rest made up of performance bonus (Appearances, goals, etc). Seems sensible... almost too sensible. We still hate Mike Ashley, right? Perhaps that’s why Hughton doesn’t start him ;-) All clubs pay players a basic wage plus bonuses, Ashley didn’t invent the idea. So what is it we’re meant to be admiring here... paying a championship standard player 15kpw basic? Until very recently the club was more than willing to pay Championship standard players (Smith, Barton, Nolan, Butt, etc.) huge wages and bonuses Aye, but that’s a question of judgement not policy. Look at the impact the signing of KK had. He was over 30 on big wages and was getting a cut of gate receipts, but he was one of the best value signings the club has ever made. Ashley - knows the cost of everything and the value of nowt? I think the best I can say about Ashley is that he probably understands the cost that overpaid, disinterested, crap players have on the club. Whether he understands the value of a high quality manager or a top midfielder regardless of their age is another matter.

I'm not sure that being thrust into the CL with an inferior set of players is necessarily beneficial. Lets just have the same four teams every year then. Nobody else even try. And forget the extra 20m quid or whatever it is, that's not beneficial at all really. Once you take into account additional sponsorship, corporate tickets/events & merchandising, etc. the figure is probably closer to £40m-£50m. The Champion's League has already created a massive distortion to the Premiership, adding even more benefits no one except the TV companies. Football would be far better off returning to the old Champion's Cup, UEFA Cup & Cup Winners Cup competitions.

That's a bit too abstract but the idea itself wouldn't be too bad tbh. Probably 10.000 a week and then a certain bonus per win/goal scored/assist/clean sheet ... Only problem would be that I could hardly see any player wanting to play for us under such "hard" conditions. Thats what it is now, if you believe the papers. Lovenkrands is o £15k with the rest made up of performance bonus (Appearances, goals, etc). Seems sensible... almost too sensible. We still hate Mike Ashley, right? Perhaps that’s why Hughton doesn’t start him ;-) All clubs pay players a basic wage plus bonuses, Ashley didn’t invent the idea. So what is it we’re meant to be admiring here... paying a championship standard player 15kpw basic? Until very recently the club was more than willing to pay Championship standard players (Smith, Barton, Nolan, Butt, etc.) huge wages and bonuses

So this is Ashley returning to The System, the one that caused Keegan to quit but with an added pay cap. Thought the new pay cap was common knowledge anyway? There were loads of stories last month about how the club weren't prepared to pay anyone over £30k per week any more.