Torrent Of Abuse

You want me to put them back??!?

Actually I remember Lowe getting applauded for the deal he forced on Spurs when they prised Deano off us. What was it? £8m? £10m? It was applauded because the team were doing well. It is when he sold players with us struggling that there was dissent. Which is pretty understandable really.

It's a game. One of the comments is serious. You have to guess which one.

No wonder they don't like governments exerting political interference: They have enough corrupt politicians inside their ranks already. No room for competition. Warner seems to have 'earned' some kind of immunity because it suits both him and FIFA for everything to be swept under the carpet. This is white-collar justice: You don't get prosecuted. You don't get fired. You get urged to take your pension and retire early with a handshake and some mealy-mouthed statement of thanks for all the hard work. FIFA will never fix itself by itself. Why should it lay its failing open to the world for all to see? The individual football associations won't fix FIFA. Why would any of them poke their heads above the parapet and risk being left exposed when other associations stay quiet and play dumb? If the FA decide to quit from FIFA in the spirit of fairness then I will admire their principles but marvel at their stupidity because it will achieve nothing and taint the home nations with a tag of trouble-making which will mean we are made outsiders for a lifetime. I doubt whether many of the mainstream media will follow this story for long either (without prompting). They too will need to suckle from the FIFA teat when they look to get rights for coverage of the next World Cup. Can't rock the boat too much. The most sensible thing would be for the FA to appoint a public relations team to run an anti-FIFA campaign behind the scenes. It would secretly feed a steady drip of stories of corruption to the more investigative elements of the media to keep FIFA on the back foot until the next world cup in 2014. It could perhaps use social media like Twitter to keep a steady stream of tags/topics mocking FIFA's corrupt practices in the public eye. It would try everything it could to keep the idea of FIFA's corrupt heart in the public eye. Why do this in such a roundabout manner? Well, to my mind, it gradually tarnishes the FIFA brand. When you tarnish the FIFA brand, you threaten its advertising. When you remove its advertising revenues you remove its funding. When you remove its funding, it turns from being a vast, rich, insular rich boys club into one more willing to do real business and effect change. It's too powerful right now for anyone to take it on directly but if its support mechanism can be chewed away at, then the whole ugly, corrupt structure will fall away. When that happens, the most corrupt will be offered up in the name of justice, some newer (more transparently accountable) faces will appear and the rest of the sheep in FIFA will fall in line. It's sad but to my mind, that's the way the world really works. Principles are great but without smarts they don't do s***.

Wasn't Taylor signed for a pittance from Fleet Town? I think he made a debut away to Middlesbrough when we were bottom of the table and in dire straits the season we also won away at Forest (they went down that year). Of course I could have got some or all of the details wrong as I'm a uncontrollable crack addict.

Christ this place is full of self righteous pedants. Can't you just get laid and be done with it? If only for your mum's sake.

Sweet Jesus you're right. For the love of God. I can't apologise enough to anyone who might have been traumatized by my post. What have I done? What HAVE I done?

Portsmouth at home (we win 2-0). Like last year, we'll dive right into a 'local derby' en route to giving the f**kers a three match kicking.

We would have to grow as a club and that's not something I can see us doing in 5 years - more like 10. It would be easier to adopt a Barcelona model at a club like Newcastle which already is pretty huge in terms of support. You need the big attendances to guarantee the sort of money which can keep the players here. Until then the good players would be picked off by the big clubs (think what is rumored to be happening now with Oxo). That said, with the will, the money and the fans yes we can build something very special here.

Seeing this thread again makes me very very happy on one hand and very very sad on the other as I'd like to go and shake old Markus warmly by the hand. I can take or leave the money situation changing (or not, who knows) but it was a shame he didn't get to see us achieve at least one of our (soon to be) two promotions.

I understand the fears over ticket prices but I still feel the 'desire' to stay in a lower division smacks of the same thinking that says 'marry a plain girl because she's less likely to leave you'. We should aim for the top, IMO.

So, if we develop, it's potentially ALL seats for Saints fans. A redeveloped Northam stand (on it's own or part of a bigger redevelopment) doubles in size but contains the same number of away fans. So we can push them into a space half the size, thereby moving them further out of the Northam stand and helping us marginalise them. Perfect Now we just need Premiership football (a few years of it preferably), a big redevelopment and 10-20,000 new fans. Oh so simple!

If we increased the Northam, a second tier would make it around 37k in total. The away allocation would be 3,700 instead of 3,200. Does that mean we could push the away fans more into the Itchen/Northam corner and reclaim a bigger slice of the Northam without moving the away fans en masse?

Closer to 1st than 3rd. What were we worried about?

And then Gus Poyet would explode with rage at the idea of us gaining some sort of advantage by playing our game after everyone else

First Saddam was executed, now Osama's been killed. Gaddafi and his family are (allegedly) being targeted... Pompey are really going to get their groove on if they want to find new owners. I guess Kim Jong-Il is still available?

Johnny Come Early. You can get help for that by the way.

Put simply, it's a 5 match burst for the finishing line. It's a case of which jockey can force their horse over the line first. We play Brighton (who have already won the title), Hartlepool (who have nothing to play for), Brentford (who may have a very distant shot at the playoffs still in reach), Plymouth (who may be relegated when we play them) and Walsall (who may still have something to play for - but whom we play at home). None of those matches are easy but they are the best we could reasonably hope for. Brighton may take their foot off the gas enough for us to get a point but the rest are winnable. Then it's just a case of whose legs give out first - ours, Huddersfield's or Peterborough's. I certainly know which position I'd want to be in - OURS. Here's to 4 wins and a draw. If we achieve that (and we can) then it doesn't really matter what any other team does.

A side that wants to do ok would see two away draws as satisfactory. We are NOT looking for just ok. We need the exceptional. I'm going for the two games in hand and hopefully somewhere between 3 and 6 points. I don't trust Peterborough not to f@ck up their match against the Terriers.

It depends on his wage and his attitude and who else we buy. If he's here on a low wage and 2 year contract with the expectation that he won't really be starting games but here to provide cover then maybe. He might do well bringing on another younger striker. In fact, maybe even Lambert would improve simply for the fact that someone with his reputation is here. If he's here as a first choice striker then probably not.

I now have us (optimistically it must be said) finishing 3 points clear in 2nd having been sure of promotion in the last day simply by goal difference. I reckon we lose to Brighton. I also have it that a three way tussle for the last playoff place sees Orient pip both Bompey and Rochdale to it when they both draw 2-2. Tranmere join Notts County, Swindon and Plymouth in the drop zone on the last day.

I am still worried about our run-in. To my mind, a lot of the run-in depends on WHEN we play the sides, more than WHO we are playing. We visit Leyton Orient and Rochdale when they may still harbour hopes of squeezing into the play-offs. By contrast, Huddersfield may play MK Dons when they have little to play for, with the Dons both secure in the play-off places and adrift of the automatic places. I guess we should hope for us to win, Bournemouth to win (so Rochdale and Leyton Orient have less hopes of catching the last play-off place) and Peterborough to win (so they still have plenty to play for against Huddersfield). Our two away games and Huddersfield's game v Peterborough could decide it. I'd certainly hate to go to Brighton NEEDING to win. I think we could do it but my heart wouldn't be able to take the strain if 3 points were a necessity.

That's disgusting. It clearly looks more like Luther Vandross.

Oh my. Did the predictor. Up on goal difference only ahead of Huddersfield with 86 points (21 of 30 points gained). Big games would appear to be: PBoro v Bournemouth (I had 2-1) Saints v MKdons (2-2) Huddersfield v PBoro (2-1) Brighton v Huddersfield (1-1) I had us wobbling in the two away games (Orient, Rochdale) but coming away with 4 points. Might be wishful thinking there - although I had us losing to Brighton and drawing at Brentford too.

So it's unacceptable to aim for the playoffs when you're 10 points adrift of everyone with 46 games to play but it's ok to do that when you're 2 points adrift of the second place team with 10 games to go (and they only have eight)? Surely mathematically it's slightly easier to make up 2 points in 10 games than it is to make up 10 points in 46 games? We only have to make up 0.2 points per game, not 0.217. Added to which you're already on the home straight. So you've now become less ambitious than Pardew was. Sadoldgit is actually right (and he put his point in terms a damn sight more polite than your response).