ikri

Carroll is one of the worst target men I can remember seeing for us, utter drivel. Either cross the ball to his head whilst he's in the box or there's no point in having him on the pitch at all. The less said about Butt & Nolan the better, they'd struggle to find space if you shoved them out of a rocket half way to the moon.

Just a guess, but so far they're just really struggling to keep up with their debts but haven't actually defaulted on any. That may change with the HMRC court hearing. If, like Notts County, they end up with 28 days to pay or face being wound up they'll have to find the money very quickly. Failure to pay up at that point won't just mean administration, Portsmouth FC will cease to exist as a business. I've no idea if at that point another buyer could come in and allow the club to continue or whether they'd have to start again from scratch. If they're facing an imminent winding-up petition then calling in the administrators might be their last hope.

Sometimes, clubs get special dispensation to sell players outside a transfer window, but that generally only applies when a club goes into administration after the transfer deadline has passed. Solako claimed that Newcastle were too far north for him. I remember reading an interview with a South African talking about the Solako transfer who had joked that you couldn't claim anywhere was too far north if you could travel there in under two days.

I can see Bin Laden being named next pope before Southampton & Portsmouth agree to a ground share.

No offence to Cardiff fans but that's insane. Option a) Pay the tax you owe and avoid the club being wound up, or Option b) Spend £3m on players and watch as the club ceases to exist in a month. I find it pretty disgusting that so many clubs have apparently ignored the need to pay tax, I can't think of any other business or individual who would get away with not paying their taxes so why should football clubs get away with it.

Nice pass by Routledge for Ranger's goal & a very good finish.

Sounded like a crap performance though with players injured and others covering them playing our of their normal positions it was always likely to be scrappy. That said, I don't think I heard Nolan's name mentioned once in the last 30 minutes and the only time I remember hearing Smith's name was when he was fouling someone. The central midfield has been the weakest link in the team for the last 5 years now and it's getting worse. Either Nolan plays just off the front one or two or he shouldn't play at all. Up front, if Carroll's playing then we need to get crosses in from around the byline or we shouldn't bother at all. He's just not good enough at flicking the ball on to a team mate, or cushioning the ball down before passing it. Add to that his lack of pace and it means that he's a passenger for us most of the time (I should add that it's a shame that no one tried to turn him into a centre half a couple of years ago as he generally deals with his defensive duties very well).

Wonder if Palace could be tempted by a loan offer, pay his wages for the rest of the season, the administrators might be interested.

No idea, but he seems to have confused Jonas with a weeble he's 6 foot 3 but falls over!

Think it just means that the deadline for submitting the paperwork to the FA is later than if it was a long term loan or transfer.

Would be amusing considering the similar circumstances to when we originally signed him

Have a read of The Telegraph article I posted here today: - http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,67082.0.html It says "Uefa's proposals have been backed by the influential European Club Association, but there remain misgivings in the English top flight." If the only misgivings are from the Premiership I'd imagine it could still get pushed through. Richard Scudamore's protests get weaker when clubs like Portsmouth and West Ham are in 'his' league. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Club_Association Can't think why Scudamore & the 14 Premiership clubs that would be affected by the changes are against the proposals.

Considering the changes to European competitions that UEFA are talking about, I'd avoid a leveraged buyout like the plague. Unless the repayment rates on the loans are extremely, unrealistically, low then we'd fall foul of the new rules and be denied entry to Europe. I know that most people's first reaction is going to be don't be stupid, Europe? We'll be lucky to avoid relegation but when 14 of the 20 current Premiership teams would also fall foul of the proposed UEFA legislation all you'd really need to get a European spot is an income greater than your debt repayment rates something that we'd probably achieve should we gain promotion now that the wage bill is apparently close to being under control. Unless NUST can find the money to buy the club, or unless there's a moneybags type rich buyer willing to buy the club without incurring any debts then frankly we're better off with Ashley than without (if he'd just realise it and deal with the club properly like hiring a good manager, etc.).

we did, shearer was the first player on 20k a week in this country Boro were first when they signed Fabrizio Ravanelli. He had no interest in joining them but Juve had accepted their offer, he said he'd join if they paid him £40,000 per week, a wage that at that time was at least £10000 higher than anyone else was earning (even Man Utd had a £30000 p/w wage cap at that time). He knew that a club like Boro were in no position to pay any player that amount of money so he assumed that he'd never have to join them. Unfortunately for him, Boro said yes and agreed to his wages. True, we did pay Shearer a lot of money, but Ravanelli was the catalyst for the mid 90's wage boom.

I think that he'd claimed to have some mysterious US backer(s) who would only reveal themselves once the takeover had completed. In hindsight, I expect that his backer(s) were probably a bank willing to loan him enough cash to buy the club in the same way the Glazers bought Man Utd.

yup, talk about kicking pompey when they are down. you'd think after them paying him an astronimical wage in the first place he'd waive anything like that seeing how bad a state the club is in Or, he's getting his claim in now before administrators are appointed since he'd be lucky to get 10% of what he's owed i the club goes into administration, but this way he might be able to jump to near the top of the list of creditors when the club does implode. Are actual footballers not classed as protected football creditors? Damned if I know, I'd have assumed that he was simply classed as an employee & therefore right at the bottom of the creditors list. What he's doing makes sense if you assume that Portsmouth are going to the wall no matter what else happens now, there'll probably be a few more claims like this from other players & creditors as everyone rushes to secure what they're owed before the whole place collapses.

yup, talk about kicking pompey when they are down. you'd think after them paying him an astronimical wage in the first place he'd waive anything like that seeing how bad a state the club is in Or, he's getting his claim in now before administrators are appointed since he'd be lucky to get 10% of what he's owed i the club goes into administration, but this way he might be able to jump to near the top of the list of creditors when the club does implode.

Personally, I'm more worried about seeing Nolan wearing a skin-tight top

What game was he at?

Crap ref tonight, we could have easily had 3 penalties on a different night, West Brom were lucky to finish the game with 11 players on the pitch. Our midfield really need to try looking for team mates instead of just passing the ball to where they hope a team mate will be, each midfielder tonight was guilty of it, some (Smith & Nolan) more than others. Up front Loven looked good considering the week he's had whilst Shola was a bit of a non-entity (so better than usual). Carroll is shit at heading the ball on, if the team aren't going to fire crosses in to him to attack in the penalty area we might as well not bother playing him. Slightly annoyed that we didn't test their keeper more since he was gash. Some of our defending was laughable, Colo had no idea where Bednar was for their 2nd. The less said about Simpson tonight the better. I expect Hughton will just play the reserves on Saturday so we'll not really know if the players have learned anything from tonight's performance.

Wish our central midfielders would occasionally look before passing the ball instead of just randomly passing it forward.

How the fuck did Loven score with that? Goalkeeping as bad as Colo's defending

His loss tbh, he could join us & become a critical part of a promotion push establishing himself as the number one striker at the club come promotion and be playing in the Premiership next season. Instead he'll get promotion to the Championship with Leeds and probably end up staying there for another few seasons due to his age and inexperience at a higher level.

Can they afford it? Can they afford not too? The simple fact is that the squad isn't good enough though. I know that's down to him, but it means there's nothing to say the new guy would do much better. If they have to pay him off and don't get CL either, that's a lot of brass lost. They might just see it out and try force him out in the summer. If the squad isn't good enough you have to wonder why considering the amount of money Rafa has spent. How much did he pay for Robbie Keane? Wasn't Rick Parry the scapegoat for Keane? They're fast running out of non-footballing staff to blame, maybe the tea lady will get the blame for tonight.

I'll have a go. This looks like it's based on a document from a few months ago when Ashley was trying to sell the club for £95 million. He is pointing out to potential buyers that if they take the club at that price and then get the club promoted, the club would be worth between £150m and £200m - which is probably correct. They then point out the cost-cutting measures that are there to ensure the club is financially stable during the 'promotion season', and conclude that if someone makes the purchase, the return in terms of the increased value of the club is likely to be £84 million IF we are promoted. If we don't get promoted, things are still stable. NUST have taken that figure of £84 million, divided it by 12, and concluded that Ashley is making a profit of £7 million per month. Complete rubbish. What they are not taking into account is that we have not been promoted, and Ashley has already lost £230 million on his own purchase of the club and by clearing the initial £90 million debt. You reckon "a respected company's Investment document that was used to try to raise investment to buy the Club" means Ashley? I'm not sure quite what it means, but how could it be Ashley "[raising] investment to buy the Club"? Like the rest of this missive, it sounds suspiciously like nonsense. I've got a feeling they mean the Profitable Group