Ken Tone

You rarely bet, yet your forum name is 'speculator' ?! I think what people sometimes forget is that bookies don't just set odds on pure probability. They also take into account how much they mght lose, based on how many punters back a certain outcome. On that basis any well-supported football team will be given relatively poor odds to succeed, because they have too many fans betting on them, which would cost the bookies too much if they won. In fact bookies will quote as poor odds as they think they can get away with, yet still have punters bet, so they get as big a profit as possible. So 10/1 odds dones't necessarily mean that the bookies think there is only a 1/11 probability of us going up. It just means that supply and demand, market forces, indicate that enough saints fans are daft enough to put bets on at that rate! But not so many that the bookies will lose too much if we do go up. K.

I know Markus is a billionaire, but surely even for him this would be a fairly major investment? Could be well into the hundreds of millions. K.

This is all very well, but where would we put the away fans and the northam? Imagine the arguments if we had a whole new stadium to consider! In fact come to think of it maybe Cortese has come up with this idea because too many people said not to move the away fans at St Mary's? ;-) Btw anyone know how that consultation ended up? Any news on what the majority view was? K.

Or both ?

All points with some validity but you're thinking like someone who wants to run a football club. The administrator's main job is to maximise the money he can get for the creditors, not to run a football club. He doesn't care whether they do well on the pitch, unless that makes it more likely he will get a buyer who will pay more to the creditors. More specifically: 1. Who knows how much of the wages Pompey are playing? They don't have a good track record for 'prudence' do they? I would not be surprised if they were paying the lot. Some loans involve full wages plus a loan fee remember. 2. According to David James, the year they got to the cup final they lost money because the players' bounses were more than the extra income! 3. There is such a small hope of them staying up, that surely the admin can't really think it is worth paying out unnecessary money to make it very, very slightly less small? Still, my logic says the loanees should have gone by now , and they haven't, so maybe you're more right than me. K.

Personally I just can't understand why the administrator hasn't sent back the loan players. Why is he sanctioning continuing to pay big wages to non-permanent employees? Surely they can't all have been signed on season-long deal with no cop-out clause ? Surely even pompey can't have been that stupid? .... Can they? Reckon the Guardian reasoning is correct about Storrie. If he is still there in a few days time then the administrator will have proved he really is not independent IMO. K.

Might you be confusing the IoW with the Isle of Man by any chance? Anyway, the article says "North has already been approached by a club with a view to taking over the Isle of Wight production line, which includes a total of three centres looking after kids aged six to 14" So maybe saints are already doing just what the OP suggests. K.

what ..and risk not looking cool !!!

Ah. Have you any idea where my glasses are by any chance ? ;-) K.

At present my seat is the one behind the first horrible mauve one. God knows what number it is! Like I said , you wait until you're middle-aged! K.

You see Vodafone as desirable and Friends Provident as mickey mouse ?! Wait till you're middle-aged. More seriously, does anyone know whether Flybe will still be stadium sponsors? Or will saints have to replace lots of seats again? (And if so, will I ever find my ST seat again?) K.

I'm not sure that an administrator is bound by previous employment contracts in terms of big pay-offs? Can't he just pay national legal minimum? On the other hand if on monday the administrator is found not to have been appointed properly, Storrie etc could have an interesting legal case if they had been laid off with contracts ignored. So maybe administrator is just waiting until after monday and then will chop him? What I just can't get my head round is why the administrator hasn't sent back all the loan players. He surely needs to reduce the wage bill as much as possible and he doesn't care if they win or lose games ,so why is he keeping them? K.

Poisted on the pompey news site is this link to the Blackburn newspaper. Some valid points in there. http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/5050688.Pompey_enjoyed_their_ride/ K.

Never heard the old song, 'lemon tree very pretty'? --- with the line, 'never make a pretty woman your wife'. K.

I too find the premiership soulless and mercenary, with part of me dreading actually being there again, but, and it's a big but, the reason why we find this league exciting and entertaining is becasue we are a relatively big and, most importantly, *ambitious* team in L1. We are constantly looking forward and upwards, imagining promotion, doing sums on how many points we need to reach 6th etc. If we were a regular solid mid-table L1 team it would not be so exciting. To support a team that cannot even dream of promotion to the premiership is pretty depressing. Try following Tranmere every week, or Wycombe, or Brentford, or Yeovil, etc. So picking up on the philosophical posts earlier, not only is football a journey , but it is one where to travel is better than to arrive ..... but it is also very much better to travel than to stand still. K.

In any event I thought that for this game club wembley people merely got first refusal at buying a ticket , not a free ticket. So there's surely no reason why the remainder that are not taken up by club wembley members shouldn't go on sale after a fixed date? K.

Lol. Looks like you ge-studied German to about the same level I did! (Isn't it DIE JPT trophy btw?) K.

1. No 2. Yes K.

Go to the DIY shop and ask for a small 'weight' .. then go to the electricians for a bucket of sparks .. then the tax office for a yard of red tape ... and then the glassware factory and ask for a retort ...... K.

And even if it were, as keeps being pointed out, Markus no longer has any role in the Liebherr family business. He owns a company that produces common rail diesel engine parts. Liebherr cranes are not his. k.

Can we compromise on transparent flags? K.

+1 Sod flags. I want to see the match. K.

Welcome to my world. Haven't got worked up over England games for years, and certainly care far, far less about england's results than saints'. Will watch world cup games on telly but may well have a good book on my knee at the same time! (Definitely not John Terry's autobiography.) K.

Yeah. My wife always said he was just too damn ugly to play for saints. Ah the memories ..... " Head it DOWN Dowie! " ..shouted at the Dell nearly as often as "FORWARD Magilton" K.

From where I was I could also hear an occasional 'when the town go marching in', which is not just cringeworthy -- it's plain stupid -- because of course every time, saints fans joined in and drowned it. There aren't many teams who are stupid enough to try to sing a version of 'when the saints' at st mary's K.