rallyboy

a good effort. Could have been worse - other results were kind, Lambert could/should have been sent off, or he could have been subbed and argued with the manager on the way off prior to departing in January. And according to Radio Solent, Leeds are still running on huge budgets which is okay if you own something. They are now living the dream and trying to rent success.

another day, another problem. This is like 20 years of strife at any other struggling club all condensed into six months. I suppose it would be apt if the man who lifted the cup they purchased brings them down because they didn't pay his win bonus. Whoever's writing the script is definitely a Saints fan. And I didn't miss the Rix farce comment - too sharp (old) for most on here!

the real gem is that this development highlighted by The Sun must have shot to bits any hope of refinancing. 'Hi, I'm a serial fraudster with many convictions, I'm representing a company on the brink of implosion, can we have lots of your money please with no chance of a return or even repayment as we have no real income, and we only need your cash because someone in the office has already stolen the other £100M we had'.

That is hilarious, this is well beyond a plausible comedy now, it's gone into ludircous farce. Faraj running around with his trousers down, the vicar at the door, comical defending, it's got the lot - and more! Has it got to the point where we feel sorry for them yet, it can't go on like this. They must have technically been in admin for months, please put us all out of our misery.

well it appears that they have helped push Watford to the brink - tonight they seem resigned to administration. If this is the case, hopefully the knock on effect from one of Mr Fry's colleagues calling in debt will be the dominoe that brings the Fratton house of cards crashing down. (or have I mixed my pub game analogies there?...)

seeing a bloke in a Norwich shirt lying on the ground pretending he's been elbowed, and he looks up briefly to see that the Wembley train is about to pull out of the station without him. Crouchie rolling a penalty past Mr Bean. Moran volleying in at the far post. Mmmmm, happy days. Ricky Lambert hammering a free kick over a wall and into the top corner to win the 2010play off final at Wembley.

if that's the way forward for football we will have the holy war consortium from down the road knocking on the door for a chat pretty soon. And what would Pompey bring to the party?... A data base we could sell to Lidl? Tips on where to sell our scrap gold? Towbar advice? Not much else these days - don't think we'll get too deep into merger talks ta.

If Holt had been booked twice he should have been booked a third time for his appalling acting display that fooled no one and gave us the extra seconds to equalise and send him and his tubby chums home shell-shocked. Mmmm, a good night, no - a great night!

ah, Meols - the home of OMD, but as a Wirral Saint I'm sure you knew that.....and noting that both Tranmere and Pompey looked like they took 150 to their games and there wasn't a great difference in the officially reported figures, respeck to the Wirralites.

what does annoy me is the number of commentators who have no grasp of the game - ie, Carvalho blatantly follows through with raised studs into a player's back - 'oh, that was an accident' says Motty... or that animal Essien launches two-footed into someone's thigh clipping the ball en route - 'that wasn't a foul he got the ball' says another idiot. An alarming lack of perception in their specialist areas. And Shearer is the dullest man in Europe.

looked like about twenty of them on the telly - that's not even a whole household. I still don't see that snatched point paying off a single debt, and that's where their real problem is. I did chuckle at the Wolves v Redknapp result though, it had everything!

It's not rocket science, finally a newspaper has worked it out. The alarm bells were ringing when Crouch abandoned a Champions League club for a massive payrise. It was always madness, you didn't even need hindsight.

I don't see more than £12M of value in that squad, especially when Harry starts helping himself to bargains. Which just brings into great clarity for anyone who hasn't worked it out yet - the figures do not stack up! Without a massive instant gift (NOT LOAN!) it must be over. The only value in the business is the ability to generate Prem TV money, but even if they stay up they have signed that money away so a new owner can't get at it for years. There is no income. Assets - Playing squad -£12M - get out while you can guys. Ground - secured against £15M debt - whoosh, there it goes. Any adjacent land or training ground plot not owned by the arms dealer? - secured against another £10M? Whoops, it's flats. Selling EVERYTHING would only clear half the debt leaving an administrator with little to work from - For sale - the name 'Portsmouth FC' £20M.

Mid-January must be crunch time. All the lenders and creditors will have been told of the Sky money's imminent arrival, it was the little bright spot on the horizon so there will be quite a bundle to try and get hold of it. When it becomes apparent that it has been used for other debts there will be no reason to wait, that could be winding-up order/byebye secured assets time. Presumably in the meantime Storrie will find another small high interest loan to try and see them through January, this will be paraded as... 'vital investment that will allow the club to move forward with new stadium plans and squad-strengthening', when in reality it will be enough to cover another wage bill. And I note that he was keen to point out this week that he himself has a couple of years contract that would need paying off should they offload him. Like Paul Hart, they cannot afford to keep him, and they can't afford to pay him off. Which reminds me, when they paid up Redknapp's Saints contract and paid us compensation, was that an amount that would eventually keep us afloat an extra month and give us the opportunity to secure our new owners? I would like to see it that way!

The info was in the public domain as a planning application so I can see why they went with it, I can also see why Nicola wasn't happy. Let's not turn into Pompey and ban the local paper every three games over nowt - the News wrote that a game was poor and are still banned.... Whatever we think and I know who who I would chose as well, both parties need each other so sit down and have a chat, it can be sorted in 5mins. Storm in one of those little thimbles that they drink coffee out of in Italy.

PES you are indeed tarnished by those around you. There are many on here who cared little of the rivalry until a significant number of Pompey fans came to St Marys and abused the memory of Ted Bates. Shout 'scummer', peddle made up stories about strikes, gloat about holding the FA cup during the war, but abusing the dead in the name of rivalry? When Flahavan died there was respect from all other fans and I thought that that moment would be enough of a reminder, but the appalling display that night showed that there is a majority within the blue few that bring shame on the club. That incident above others drives the dislike on here, and the flames were nicely fanned six months ago when we hit rock bottom and had to take our punishment for financial stupidity. Add all the gloating over Maradona and the stadium in the harbour and an observer might note that Pompey is run by clowns and ripe for humiliation from all corners of the league - if you put Watford into administration as well it will be a crime against football and will make Pompey the most unpopular club in the land - and not in a good way. On the bright side, I don't see the club disappearing, just downsizing a tad. And as someone who is happy to gloat, I'm not doing it with mates of mine who are on the wrong side of the river, I'm doing it at those gobby, cross-eyed, sister-worrying simpletons who booed Ted and who jumped on the overpriced bandwagon when Pompey paid £150M for a 1-0 win over Cardiff. The hangers on were all out there on the common to celebrate that day, but where are they now? Without massive immediate investment there could soon be only one real club in Hampshire, yes we are currently way behind in terms of league status, but the future is so very red and white.

re the financial institutions, the little wheezy skate is swimming with sharks while wearing a high-viz waistcoat crafted from raw steak. More disturbing news for them, Gold and Sullivan are trying to buy into West Ham and invest in new players. Whoops. The poor teams are starting to stir.

it's a pity if Storrie is on the way out as he drove the bus over the cliff with Harry navigating. Then again, a few of the debts are being held back by his personal deals with agents and clubs so if they now lose confidence in the new set up and call in their debts.... With his knowledge of the goings on I wouldn't be upsetting him, he could be sat alongside the taxman in court spilling the beans on all and sundry to keep himself out of jail. Another twist in the great comedy, more dates added due to public demand!

I did make reference to the arms dealer's fragile relationship with the other two a while back, could they perhaps have just jumped in out of spite to take control of the football club? (the only vehicle for Gaydamak to make serious money using the adjacent land) You have a bloke who has ripped you off, someone offers you the chance to mess with his business deals and cost him money, mmm, tempting..... Arms dealer senior vetoed their initial involvement and Fahim sold on as a go-between, could the landmine magnate and child-killer see a precarious situation arising if he allowed Faraj control of the club? All parties could now be locked together in a development suicide pact - The current owners need both Fahim and Gaydamak onboard to agree any redevelopment that involves expansion. In turn, to get his money back Gaydamak needs the new owners to repay his loans or redevelop using his land, meaning, they could put the club into admin tomorrow to write off his debt and shaft his schemes. The arms dealer tried to turn them over, they now have him where they want him, but he also has them fenced into the footprint of the stadium. Funniest possibility - Faraj -'You owed us a huge sum and we had to sue you, good luck with your redevelopment next door to the football club that we have just closed, we'll give you a tenner for the land that yesterday was a prime piece of sports stadia development land, and is today a car park next door to our new industrial estate'.... To sum up - who on earth could buy into this complex scenario at the moment, even post-admin you would have to be insane, there are far too many skeletons, and they can't even remember where they buried them themselves. But as that Blue few pointed out earlier, the third consecutive wages debacle is just a banking glitch over a direct debit.

let's not forget that the nasty press have to shoulder a lot of the blame as well. They keep writing stuff about the club, reporting the facts and other annoying things like that. The Sun in particular have it in for them, I remember them suggesting that Al Fahim had no money and that Storrie would be charged, they also continue to print the league table, it's really out of order.

disappointingly it seems that Pompey may have turned a corner - it's teatime and they haven't taken out a loan yet today. Though on the upside, I guess the horrendous interest due on the rest of them is gathering momentum with every passing hour. Tick, tick, tick....

sorry Verbal but I don't think 'legally trading' has been on their agenda for a year now! The business is in terminal decline yet people at the top continue to drain it of funds... The auditors and taxman are going to have a field day sometime soon and it's now making our debacle in the summer look like a minor blip. It will be the hottest ticket in town and I hope Sky cover it live - 'the full financial report on Pompey's last few years of trading' starring senior judges and financial investigators - I can't wait...

now that the club is primarily financed by regular loans shouldn't the league be doing a fit and proper person test on ALL of these generous businesses? An investor would have to pass, why not people who are lending? It looks like a simple scam to bypass the regulations. £10M of drug money to launder? Lend it to Pompey, get a bit of land in return when they default. Come on Prem officials, wise up, they are taking the mick out of you again.

who takes responsibility for the repayment of £50M-£100M of debt without even looking at the books?... Or is it just another implausible storrie.

Fortunately they made the last two owners go through the 'new stringent' test, otherwise they might have ended up with an arms dealer or a skint fantasist obsessed with taking out loans. Interesting to hear Grant say today that he didn't know there were any financial issues -presumably he didn't know they were down the bottom either.