SKD

Haha fair play, you’ve done me there, kind of. Im not talking on pitch, I’m talking sustainability of business plan and owner. Getting back on to thread subject, Long story short, thanks for proving my point in that swapping a cup for relegation would not result in going bust 👍🏻

Haha if I was a skate I’d be wanting us to keep him given our form. But you’re wrong on both counts. I want us to keep Ralph, just believe that criticism is just and he’s not what saints fans make him out to be.

You are completely deluded if you think that in the way we currently operate we won’t go down. We could have a stadium 3 times the size of there’s, that wouldn’t matter when we’re pulling 20k in the championship. I’m not a troll, I’m not a skate either, just looking at the situation without red and white tinted glasses. For as long as we’re in the premier league, we’ll be miles ahead of them, when we drop, the gap will close. If we still have Gao when we drop, the gap will be a lot smaller than you are making out. Parachute payments served Sunderland, Swansea etc. Well haven’t they. We need to sell to buy in the premier league, how do you think that will work in the championship?

Their bloke didn’t turn them into a league one team though did he. As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t sold anything off? I never said they have fantastic long term prospects, just that long term, let’s say 5-10 years, with both clubs with their current owners they are a more stable club. It’s okay to admit it. Luckily, I think we’ll get taken over by someone who’s willing to push us on from the mess we’re currently in.

Cool. Who would you rather have as an owner was the question, not which clubs position would you rather be in.

I never said that our club isn’t worth more than Portsmouth in its current state, did I. As I understand it, Gao has not put 1 penny in the club. Everything we’ve spent is from the revenue gained from the PL Riches or player sales. So even if their owner has only put in ‘hundreds of thousands’, it’s hundreds of thousands more than Gao. We drop out, we lose those riches. We then rely on saleable assets even more than we do now and we’re running out of those (probably enough for a season or so if we went down). Riddled with a huge loan that we need to pay back on pretty awful rates. Like I said, I’m fully expecting us to be taken over, but in our current state, we’re not heading in the right direction and they won’t be in L1 for too much longer. For as long as we’re in the Premier league, of course we’ll finically be better off, purely due to the revenue of the league. However, when we drop out (which we will), let’s see how we do then 👍🏻

That doesn’t answer the question though, does it. what would Gao have achieved in that time? I’m not saying their owner is some kind of super owner on the scale of City, but he’s better than Gao.

Explained above Always. Feel free to answer.

Who would you rather have owning the club? Gao or that Disney fella?

Long term I said. They have a stable owner, who isn’t investing loads, but has a stable business plan. I expect they’ll find their level about mid to lower championship in the next 5-10 years, which wouldn’t come as a surprise if we’re around about there either. How long will our business model survive outside of the PL? In its current format, not very long at all. Of course, I’m expecting us to be taken over at some point in the near future, however my point was to highlight that relegation doesn’t mean becoming extinct. In fact, that’s very rare. Especially for a club like us, with the above infrastructure (if not sold off in the process). It’s more attractive for a Marcus type investor.

Haha. But even using them as the extremest and rarest example, they still have a club and long term are probably in a better situation than we are.

How many clubs have dropped out of the premier league and then gone out of business in the past 20 years...?

Haha spot on. Crazy that it needs explaining that Danny ings isn’t a stock on the stock market... (unless you’re talking football index 😉)

Not true, we’ve account for a huge contract (for our standard) for Ings, so if he doesn’t sign it, we have the money. If we’d offer him it or if he’d want to join a relegation battle is probably the biggest issue. I’m sure there are more attractive clubs out there who’ll be in for him. Probably end up at West Ham.

This is the correct answer. So, so key to how we play. Perhaps fortunate in that when he was out we had no one to step in, maybe making him look better, but what a good player he is.

Those wanted for ‘allegedly’ attacking the police in the Bristol ‘protests’. The photo answers your question.

International star ‘support’ striker...

Yep, especially given he left a big one, arguably the most successful of the lot in recent 2-3 years, because he wasn’t getting game time. Although, he may look back at the end in regret and think how have I not won anything. Contrary to this forum, top level athletes don’t see 3rd best form In 2020 and premier league survival as success. Le tiss was the anomaly. I know Matt says he has no regrets, but I bet deep down he thinks what if.

This is true. It seems daft to waste money on another forward, they could end up like Carrillo. Nlundlulu and Obafemi are both young hungry and therefore guaranteed to improve. We’d be much better spending the money on an extra Large pride flag. We could spend the excess on getting a BLM banner wrapped around the Northam.

But doing well for a calendar year doesn’t mean anything, does it? It’s not something that is widely recognised as an achievement. There’s a reason why every time we play they mention the 9-0’s or points thrown from Winning positions and not the form In 2020. In football, you’re only as good as your last game.

It makes me laugh that you continue to use ‘it’s a multi million pound business’ as a point to add weight to your argument, as if this exact thing doesn’t happen on the stock market every single day 😂

Have you ever considered that perhaps not all the press stories are made up and some are true? It’s a bit like poker. It works like this. Agent talks to club A, club A offer x amount or have him as x target. Agent speaks to press about club B being interested. Club A then have a decision to make, call the bluff, potentially losing out on a deal or increase offer. From a clubs perspective, club want to buy player A (Haaland in this instance). Player A Is undecided as has many clubs interested. Club leaks to press about interest in player B. Player A has decision to make, call bluff and miss out on deal for desired club or make a decision quicker. I mean it’s pretty simple stuff.

Ignore him mate. He has some Weird theory that football clubs and agents don’t use the media to negotiate deals. He’s not the brightest spark and clearly has never been involved in any meaningful negotiations in his life.

Correct. We need to plan for life after him. I like Toney, not sure if he’ll be in our price range (its seriously sad that we can’t afford a championship player!), but I do worry about his ability to adapt. In Ings, we’re losing a proven 10-15 goal a season striker. Toney has only had 1 good season at championship level. He could work out like Watkins and adapt very well, or could work out like Adams (who also only had 1 good season in the championship) and clearly isn’t someone you can rely on to get enough goals to keep us up. I worry we’ll try and be clever amd it’ll back fire. We need to spend every penny and more to replace ings if we want to survive next season imo. I’d love us to go for Callum Wilson. Perfect for us.

Out of interest, what represents such success to you? As someone who has played at a half decent level, I can vouch that winning a trophy is what you play for every year.