Stirchleysaint

Yes but you'll have to introduce a compensation scheme that would be based on contract value. So a contested situation such as Schneiderlin's would see the full amount paid up for the remaining three years. There would have to be some standard formula as to various clauses and bonuses across football. It would put more pressure on wages but then hopefully you wouldn't get half the rubbish from players attempting to get moves away. It would be a simple notification to the FA or whoever. Entitlement to some contract value would still be a problem. Not sure how you solve that.

Part of Chelsea's business model is making money from loans out which is how they can afford to keep so many players on their staff - it actually contributes to their FFP needs. If the buy-out is £10m then I wouldn't be surprised if the loan fee is around £2m (in addition to wages) which would be discounted off any purchase. So not free by any means but a sensible short-term fix to a problem.

Since it was Eastleigh 1 Pompey 6, did anybody want to listen to that?

Pardew isn't the worst appointment. The budget for the squad will be the deciding factor in this league provided he is competent.

Thank Gawd for that. Now we can get back to moaning about the players...

Show us the money please...

Pinnacle are gone, don't waste your bandwidth on them.

I take the view that Matt acted with the best of intentions. However, they do say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Sometimes you can make a situation worse by intervening.

Great, more misery. Lets all pray that the Swiss don't roll over as well...

We are being sold by an administrator are we not?

I'll believe it when I see it. Lets come out of administration first shall we.

Will we be in the South East or South West draw?

We'll know when we know, anything else should be treated as cobblers.

Either way, I'm not fussed. Players act like players, they are not fans. If he wants to stay, good. If he wants to go, good. I just want players who are happy to play for the Saints. We need to be pulling in the same direction.

Given the handbags on this thread, lets hope that Pinnacle don't suffer any more hiccups in closing the deal. I hate to see the meltdown that such an event would cause. So one cheer for getting to this point, another if Pinnacle close the deal, a third if they can get Saints into a reasonable financial position. Oh and there is the issue of a hard campaign ahead of us in League One. As Churchill said, we may not be at the beginning of the end but we might be at the end of the beginning. Phew...