David Kelly

Fancied us to get beat tonight. This would be a very good result.

And defending! Never thought Gillespie was that good for us, he was just fast and fortunate with the players he played alongside. He had a lot more poor games than he did ones like that Barca match. Nobby was by far the best right winger we had in the premier league. That said Routledge has been very inconsistant (at best) in the premiership previously so we'll have to wait and see whether can continue the very promissing form he has shown so far.

Saw Kick Ass and echo Holden's comments. Hit Girl is class!

Well I'd love us to be signing someone who is pushing for top scorrer but I'm fully aware that won't happen. But I think we need to look for better than Fletcher since we're going to be no great shakes either so I wouldn't expect us to be laying them on a plate for him. I agree 15+ goal scorer will cost a hell of a lot (something I've already said) but that's what we need imo if we're going to move away from the threat of relegation. Agree about a goalscorer. Whilst we all know we need the midfield overhauling you need a proven scorer to compete and at the moment we don't have that. Shola has proven he isn't good enough in the prem and his injury record is pretty poor Carroll and Ranger are totally unproven at prem level Best is unproven at championship level! Lovenkrands will be a good player to have in the squad i think but we should have somebody better as first choice So we're pinning our hopes on unproven players stepping straight up to premiership standard if we don't buy somebody, and that will cost serious money. Very true. Although Carroll didn't do too badly on a few occasions last season when he had the chance. I'm definitely somebody who thinks Carroll has a chance of making it, not a world beater but a good target man for our new signing (hopefully!) to play off and chip in with some goals himself. But i wouldn't want to be pinning my hopes of him to be the main man and it wouldn't be fair on him to be stuck with that either. Definitely, I don't see him ever being a massive goal scorer even if he does continue to progress.

Well I'd love us to be signing someone who is pushing for top scorrer but I'm fully aware that won't happen. But I think we need to look for better than Fletcher since we're going to be no great shakes either so I wouldn't expect us to be laying them on a plate for him. I agree 15+ goal scorer will cost a hell of a lot (something I've already said) but that's what we need imo if we're going to move away from the threat of relegation. Agree about a goalscorer. Whilst we all know we need the midfield overhauling you need a proven scorer to compete and at the moment we don't have that. Shola has proven he isn't good enough in the prem and his injury record is pretty poor Carroll and Ranger are totally unproven at prem level Best is unproven at championship level! Lovenkrands will be a good player to have in the squad i think but we should have somebody better as first choice So we're pinning our hopes on unproven players stepping straight up to premiership standard if we don't buy somebody, and that will cost serious money. Very true. Although Carroll didn't do too badly on a few occasions last season when he had the chance.

Well I'd love us to be signing someone who is pushing for top scorrer but I'm fully aware that won't happen. But I think we need to look for better than Fletcher since we're going to be no great shakes either so I wouldn't expect us to be laying them on a plate for him. I agree 15+ goal scorer will cost a hell of a lot (something I've already said) but that's what we need imo if we're going to move away from the threat of relegation.

Looks a decent player every time i've seen him. they picked him up for 3mil, could be available for less than 5 following a relegation and kilbys tendencies to sell off the best assets Not exactly pushing Rooney for top goalscorer is he? We need goals.

From the look of Perch against us last week I wouldn't be averse to having another punt at him for rightback

Keane and Benayoun as possibilities? Both might not be too expensive given their age and position with their clubs and would be a big improvement for us. Wages might be a problem though.

Agree with all of that especially the immediate needs of the starting 11 And it won't come cheap. Aye if this supposed £15m is true then we will struggle badly to bring those players in. We would need to spend most of that on a striker if we want better than we already have.

Completely fucked today. Quite looking forward to a normal weekend now after the last few days.

Will miss winning and having the best player in the league and having a defence that keeps clean sheets. Won't miss Don Goodman, Peter Beagrie and people saying Harper would be in the England squad if he was playing in the premier league.

We need at least one central midfielder with a bit of creativity. A goal scorrer to play alongside Carroll (assuming he's not locked up) and a new rightback. These are to go straight into the starting eleven. We also need cover at leftback and for the wings. This is all assuming none of our first choice current players are sold. I'm not confident any of this will happen though with the fat fuck in charge which I think will continue as no one will pay him what he wants for us.

NJS raises a very good point about obtaining debt. Leazes may be right when he says that all clubs trying to achieve something have certain levels of debt and that's the way to move forward. But where do we obtain this finance from? The financial world is mess at the minute and when financiers see what's happening at clubs like Portsmouth, they are going to be even less inclinded to make money available. I know we can attract greater revenue than most clubs because of our fanbase but I still don't see us being able to secure the type of money that would be required to start attacking the top six or seven (let alone the top four). Unless Ashley digs very deep (something which no one believes is going to happen) we are going to have to try something different. Which means building slowly with young or unknown foreign players. This will hopefully lead back to the days when we can start thinking about competing for top players once again. Unless Ashley can find someone with a lot of money to offload us on to.

Got a fucking killer today like. Think I need to get back on the drink as soon as to sort meself out.

After being married and hardly having any propper sessions on the piss for the best part of the last decade, now that i'm single again and doing all day sessions on a Saturday I'm finding that the hangovers are much worse than they were in my early twenty's. I'm probably not in double figures for being sick with drink in my life (if I'm fucked enough to be sick I need to be helped home and can't remember a thing) and that's still not happening but I'm finding that I'm still recovering from a saturday on a Monday at least. Of course the plant food and horse tranq's aren't doing me any favours there like.

If Blackburn are top half I think we are in with a reasonable chance. Oh and cheers BP.

Have to admit I feared relegation was possible at the start of the season. Fortunately Ashley hasn't fucked us over any more yet, the senior player have stood up to be counted and you we right, the teams in this division are generally shite. I agree despite the shite standard of some of the football, I have enjoyed this more than any season for a long while. Well done acca. Wish I'd had the confidence to bet on our homes games a lot earlier.

I honestly think we are different class to every other team in this division when we are at home and have pretty much a full team, and Forest are going through a very indiferent spell now that they lost their unbeaten away record. With the solid back four that we amazingly have this season, two of the best wingers in the league and a front two on fire, I think we will have far too much for them and I expect us to win reasonably well. Not that I'm knocking Forest as I think when they are on form they play some of the best football in the division but I just expect us to be bang up for this and be too strong for them.

I was drunk to the point of complete incompetance last night. And not for the first time

You're probably right there. Sad indictment on the state of the club.

Get down past Everton and the league is shite and nothing to be afraid of tbh. Obviously there is a massive gulf between those teams and the likes of Scunthorpe or Plymouth but we've showed this season that there is a massive gulf between us and them anyway. If we were to be able to spend something like £15m this summer on three £5m players or four £4m players (and keep all of our better players) we could have a team capable of staying up and moving towards mid table. With Ashely that's still a pretty big fucking if though.

Oh and as ever the article is shite.

Would be bad news for us to lose either of them imo. Taylor showed himself to be a decent premiership player in difficult circumstances and could be better if the club ever settles down. Carroll showed some promise last year and has improved this year (not sure he'll ever be top class but there is certainly potential there). We have all said for ages that our squad isn't strong enough (clearly that has shown to be at premiership level rather than fizzy pop league where we probably have the best squad) so losing any key members isn't going to be good news. Especially as either of them going on the back of this likely to only diminish their transfer value which given our owner won't make it up we can't afford. I think our current team isn't a million miles away from being able to move up towards mid table in the top league but I would have both of these two in my starting eleven next year. We have other players (such as Nolan, Gutherie etc) who need to be replaced so having to replace two who didn't need replacing certainly doesn't help us.

I hate being too hot at work in the summer but I would still rather have the hot weather for when I finish. Plus nowt better than drinking outside in summer with all the summer fanny.