Torrent Of Abuse

It's all about perspectives. Many people see the last seven games as vindication of the view that Pardew was getting things right and that it was always going to take 10 games to get results going our way (and that maybe we shouldn't have been doubting Pardew's ability after a handful of games). Different people. Different viewpoints.

You don't do yourself any favours do you? You can't complain about people being hypercritical of your opinions if that's how you react to people.

I remember rushing back from work (where my boss was trying to do my performance review) to get to the 1-0 game. What sort of person tries to do a review at 5:30 anyway? Wasn't Kevin Davies injured scoring in that game?Out for about 6 games or something?Bastards! I remember I was on holiday for the 4-0 'boro game and I thought "that's it. I've missed the game of the season..." Then came that 6-3 against ManU... :-)

Almost, but he missed out the bit between signing the young players and putting them in the first team - something about training them to be good enough. As with the first team, you can't get rid of the coaching staff and expect everyone to go on winning games by themselves. We actually have the financial backing to put these plans into action now.

Perhaps the idea is to play 4-5-1 to keep things tight and then open things up when the opposition is tiring by playing 4-4-2. If they work on defence and hold it at 0-0 instead of chasing down a 1 or 2 goal deficit then 4-5-1 can still work. Just needs a little work.

Absolutely spot on! We were not just a club which had lost a few big names. We had sold the family silver before moving on and selling the china, the furniture, the carpets and light fittings too. We had no scouting network, no coaches of any merit and a bunch of shell-shocked kids. The sensible posters on here knew it would take time, hoped that time wouldn't be too long and looked worriedly at how the 10 point penalty probably meant promotion would probably not be until next year. The lack of faith in the manager after just 10 games was really quite pitiful just as the gushing praise and talk of visits to Wembley After 14 is quite embarassing - particularly as I doubt many of those posting this praise have the real stomach for the hard road ahead. Worst of all are posters like CBFry who seem to now assume the recent form confirms they were right to expect more from the early games and that everyone else was giving Pardew a free pass for a season of failure. No. It actually just means you lacked any patience or belief that Pardew would get things right. Like the bore who jumps up every 30 seconds and complains about every stray pass, you just end up p*ssing off everyone else in the stand. Please sit down, calm down or go get a beer. You're not helping and If anything, you're spoiling it for the rest of us...

You know, I will always have a soft spot for Frannie Benali. He was hardly the best left back in the world, and God knows he must have cost us points over the years but I know he gave everything he could for the club, particularly when it needed it the most. You can mull over any number of sendings off or own goals but to me he deserves respect for what he did FOR the club. For the goal-line clearance at 1-0 down against Milwall in the FA cup run of 2003 that eventually got us to Cardiff. I won't say that I'd want him to be guaranteed free tickets for life but the occasional nod from the club is a nice gesture of respect. Likewise, of all our ill-lustrous (sic) board members from the last x years, I'd be happy enough to see him get the occasional freebie out of respect for those weeks we spent in limbo nearly winking out of footballing existence. Yeah, he f@*ked up at times but he was there when needed most, which is more than can be said of many others who seemed to take a page out of "The Glenn Hoddle guide for How To Say Goodbye" and just disappeared. I like our new board and I like our new team but if I ever see Leon Crouch, I'd happily buy him a drink or even a ticket to the game. Likewise, I'd happily do the same for Mr. Benali, whether he can afford his own drinks or not - simply because. I could decide that the club reinvented itself in 2009 (it's somewhat true) but if I ever find myself in the Premiership forgetting people who were there when we needed them, in the period my mate Barry colourfully refers to as "When we were s**t" then chances are we'll have simply replaced Pompey as the latest in a long line of teams who forget their old pals because they now have better (richer) friends.

It's great to know that less than a month after the "pardew out - but when?" thread, we're talking about 3 trips to Wembley. Can't you all just find one set of medication and stick with it? The Charlton game will tell us a lot about how we measure up against those currently chasing automatic promotion. They seem to be dropping points which would suggest a rough patch which they will hopefully still be going through when they play us. What a great psychological boost it would be to give them an absolute tonking! One good side of the 10 point penalty (if there is one) is that a side winning games like we are will be reeling in the teams above us. Sometimes it's not that comfortable to be up front needing to keep ahead when you know you are being chased down.

St. Will was definitely out of order, although you have to ask how you can call someone a "z-list golfer" and then muse on how an argument is too personal. Internet forums are supposed to be like conversations down the pub - You don't say anything you wouldn't say to someone's face - but it never really works like that. I can sort of see where St. Will is coming from... After the run of wins, it is odd to be focussing on a negative like "will Trotman leave? We should sign him up now" but then people see things in very different ways. Now probably IS the time for AP to sign him permanently - just as now probably IS the time for us to relax and enjoy things rather than find new things to worry about - but then some worry more than others. There's too much sensitivity all round, I think. Positive posters can probably roll their eyes in private a bit more, as opposed to biting on here. Alpine and Delldays, as you point out, this is a forum for exchange of views and that means you get to hear things you don't like. It's not just about people being accepting of YOUR right to be heard. I can well imagine you being told to cheer the f@@k up if you said the sort of things you have done down the pub. I'm sure you can defend that viewpoint well enough without asking that people refrain from criticising you. Freedom of speech works both ways. There are a lot of posters in here and a lot of different opinions. Can't people just roll with it a bit?

Well you go up in my estimation (not that that's worth much ) for coming on here and saying that when results seem to be proving you wrong. Let's be honest, it wasn't a 2-1 or 1-0 close thing. We are closing games down in a way we haven't for years. This seems like the real deal. At least you aren't responding to this thread by simply posting "Yawn" or "yeah yeah, you know we apparently didn't have a pre-season FFS" or any of the other snide, cheap bulls**t we've had on here for the last few weeks. Fair go to you.

I'm somewhat shocked that Pardew has been here for months and he still doesn't know how to communicate properly with the posters on this forum. What he should have said was: "For those of you who get too excited about the players we sign, calm down and accept that he's a low-risk signing who I'll probably bring on here and there as a quick sub late in the game. For those of you who are just going to split hairs about any signing I make and who are ready to slit your wrists because I haven't signed Ronaldo, take a breath, stop over-analysing everything I say and give him a chance as he's better than you think. For the rest of you, please just go off down the pub while everyone else grossly exaggerates the other side's points to force an argument before everything degenerates into a slanging match".

At least we are visibly moving on from the veiled "I'm just voicing concerns. Tell me where in this thread am I asking for the manager to be sacked?" phase to the "I AM actually putting out there that manager should be sacked" phase. I hate all that pussy-footing around. What a difference a week makes.

I was being sarcastic, Alpine. Sometimes this forum's wild swing from depression to mania and back again surprises even me. It only takes one of our players to get injured or sign for another team for them to go from no-hoper to vital linch-pin. Don't have to look too far for where much of the lack of belief has taken nest at our club...

This would be the same Papa who wasn't that much cop last week. The overrated guy? Him? Surely there can't be any wrist-slitting going on here then... oh wait...

Sorry for the bad spelling above btw... All seems like a bad episode of "Allo Allo". iPhone + sausage fingers = chaos :-)

I quit agree that Pearson seems to have a refreshingly strong grasp of what is wrong with our club and more importantly how to fix it. Crucially, we also seem to have real backers now - serious, sensible backers. It will take tome, poatience and effort but I have every belief we will do it. As for you, 19C, I fear sensible posts like your original post will always be lost in the great mass of pointlessly confrontational material you churn out on other people's threads. You really can't cry foul over smugness, cheap points and comments about mental disorders when you have gone to town so readily yourself on a banquet of smugness, cheap points and barbed comments about cancer. Just as those so intricately entwined in our recent history of board room failure will be able to tell you that you can't plant the seeds of failure and expect success, so you must reslise that you can't plant the seeds of derision and strife without expecting the same in return. The club is working hard to undo years of damage done through mischief and neglect and so should you.

Quite so. We continued to lose all through the protracted takeover, whilst player after player left. It will take quite some time to recover what we have lost but we have the right moves being made now and I have every confidence that the constant downward momentum of the last 5 years will be replaced with an inexorable upward one. It would be nice if everyone of us was onboard for the trip instead of getting off at the first sign if delays at the first station.

You're quite the optimist - which is understandable given your love for the club. That said, you have to realise that building a 40,000 stadium doesn't get you anything like that kind of attendance. You would get around 27,000 average IF you were still in the PL. it takes a generation at least to build the fan base. In 3 years, the fans you found/rediscovered would actually end up back watching games on TV Instead of attending. It's a sad truth which we found for ourselves. You've had a nightmare preparation to the season which will see you strugging (perhaps without chance of escape) come Christmas. From there, buying up every player won't save you as you will already have that downward momentum. Then relegation would see yet more challenges. You need a new stadium and new team and time to bring the together. I think the stuffing around of SAF has pretty much damned your season in the same way that Pinnacle klilled our promotion chances. Another season in Div 3 for us will be hard given that we have brought in players ambitious for success. I think relegation would, however, knock your guys out for another 10 years. I seriously doubt you have anyone able to fund all you need to keep you afloat. And I don't think you have time on your side.

Perhaps each player could draw up a list of the players they most like to pass to and receive passes from. Then AP can draw up tactics to match. Anyone caught passing to someone they didn't put on the list will automatically not be passed to for 5 minutes. That should help our passing problems.

Strange to get things back on topic but I ran the City2Surf race in Sydney a few weeks ago in a Saints kit. Was recognized by a fellow Saint on Bondi Beach after the game. We briefly chatted about the good result against Millwall from the night before although I think his wife wished she'd managed to get her husband further away from other football fans...

Hey look, Alan, do you like the pose? It's for the new statue out the front. We're going to get some cabinet-maker from down south to make it. He showed me a great one he did of Jimmy Krankee playing volleyball.

I can only explain my choice like this: We've been in Pompey's position before. Preparing for a season where you believe you are going to get kicked from pillar to post, with little or no help from the manager, players or owner is no fun. We've done that before. For years. Yes, Pompey could well survive but as what? A team whose only hope is to hold on until a real owner comes along? Done that. I don't remember it being all sunshine and lollipops on here while it was happening either. I may be a bit punchdrunk after the last few seasons but I'd prefer a season with the promise of maybe... maybe winning games and getting somewhere over a season of just holding on. We've ridden out this God-awful rollercoaster of a mess so please forgive me not wanting to switch to a club showing all the signs of doing the same all over again. I'd rather win some games and I don't really give a flying one who it's against... Man U or Darlington, it's all the same to me. Our club is on the up now. I don't really care where it's coming up from exactly. By contrast, Pompey appear to be on the wane. Considering the events at FP, it doesn't seem that important where they're coming down from either. Not to me anyway. I trust AP to get us up there - maybe not this year but soon. Don't think the same can be said of Pompey's man.

Let's not discount the job in hand here: two promotion campaigns before we're even up where they are. That's a massive task. That said, I would rather be here. I believe in both the manager and owner. The same can not be said of Pompey. They are showing all the signs of the fondness for football suicide which marked our first delegation season. All it would take would be A bad start followed by Hart being sacked at Christmas (followed by another Adams-esque cheap choice) and you'd see Pompey in the sort of free-fall which would make ours look like a light tumble. That said, even if we stay down and they stay up, I would still choose the lean, purged club with a decent manager and owner over the flaccid, punch-drunk club with a second rate manager and cheapjack owner. Which is exactly what Pompey fans were saying when they got their "dream team" all those years ago. And look what happened then...

Surviving administration has probably changed my views somewhat :-) A club living beyond its means IS cheating. The fact that our so-called leaders were so bad at it that they managed to attract the penalty without actually generating any of the success that a club like Leeds did is (sadly) immaterial. If I take part in a race but take illegal performance-enhancing chemicals, I will get banned regardless of whether I still finished in last place. I agree that it hurts the fans most though, and the point deduction process should carry with it a ban for the directors (so bye bye Ken Bates and Peter Risdale). It's surely the most obvious thing to do. Unfortunately I think the points deduction is the blunt instrument used to enforce the law against clubs who really did gain an advantage through debt (like Leeds). As with all laws, if you make them strict to catch the crooks, you will sometimes hurt the innocent - and if you make them loose to protect the innocent, you will sometimes set the guilty free. That's life, Im afraid. Personally I think that all the TALK we have heard about the evils of debt should actually be backed up by real actions. If a club takes on exorbitant debts, that should automatically attract a point deduction. If spending exceeds a percentage of income, that's a deduction. There is no sense in letting clubs take all the steps which will lead to failure and THEN punishing them. We can see Liverpool doing everything that the League and FA warn against and gaining the unfair advantage in the process. If the knew that this reckless spending had to be offset against an automatic point deduction, then they might have to weigh up whether the risk is worth it. A club would be able to spend only within it's means (and for the well-supported clubs that is still an expensive habit) in order to fund its transfers or else be docked points. The playing field would be levelled. Smaller clubs would have at least a passable chance. Big clubs would (through necessity) have to stay solvent. Only the most reckless would go out of business. And it would never happen because there are too many vested interests and too few running the game with the guts for any fight save the one where the little guy is on the ground, waiting for the punishment to stop...

think Havant and Waterlooville should be very careful. I'd certainly not want to appear "inextricably linked" to a side which is sliding into administration.