So...N'Gog or Al Habsi?

True Moses BUT who authorised that level of spending? Megson could not have done it alone, he didn't sign the cheques. I don't doubt he picked some awful players but lest we forget he also got some very good ones on board including Cahill and Lee.

I find myself in a highly unusual position for me. Megson did so much wrong that it's easy to blame him for every last problem the club ever has but he wasn't the only villain and shouldn't be blamed alone. Gartside and the board showed extremely poor judgement appointing him in the first place and then threw cash at the problem in the vain hope it would miraculously go away. It didn't and now we're faced with a stark reality that is faced by well over half the league. Megson is not the only manager who wasted money on players who weren't good enough and he wasn't the only one who seemed not to realise that some of the players he signed weren't worth the wages he was allowed to offer.

It's all in the past now but the echoes and ramifications will stretch a long way into the future, not just ours but many other clubs. Megson cannot be blamed for all our financial woes. The Board must take some responsibility and in a way so must we fans. We wanted success, we wanted to see big names like we'd had in the Allardyce years but we could and possibly should have realised that the days where you could grab a World Cup winner who would take a pay cut in return for regular first team action were now gone. Agents and players are now motivated by cold hard cash and not much else and clubs didn't stand firm enough to prevent the entire circus from spiralling dangerously upwards. In all honesty football is now like a house of cards teetering in a stiff breeze. God knows what will happen when a gale blows.

"Megson did so much wrong that it's easy to blame him for every last problem the club ever has"

You can stop there....

lPp, you didn't see Big Sam wanting to spend ten million pounds on a 27 year old. You can't tell me Megson's excessive spending was because the Premier League was gripped in some dizzy era of conspicuous consumption from 2007-9. Of course Megson can be fairly criticised for overspending.

You also ask what is the point of winning things to then end up in administration. Well in ten years time, Portsmouth will have recovered from their financial problems and will be able to look back at the day they won the FA Cup Final at Wembley. Chances are, we won't. So while I would not want the club to go into administration at any point, I'd swap that for watching my team win the cup at some point before I die. Fair?

That's a good point LH. Birmingham relegated with a mad owner... But currently League Cup Holders and gracing Europe...

Boro in the league cup final was our REAL chance of silverware.. Not sure we will get that close for a while now..

how many of us on this board(even if we had the money) would pour our own money, into the bottomless pit, that our club is?
*****
Not many, probably ..Then again ED does it because he's a bit of a recluse, and probably thinks ...' Ah well ..you can't take it with you '. Sure, we benefit from that, but it's a rich man's 'subbuteo' substitute at the end of the day ..I'm sure he gets great pleasure out of it - that's why he does it ..and because he can well afford it, of course

largehat you are making a very big assumption about Portsmouth recovering. Will they? To be honest the way things are going in football right now I suspect MORE clubs will fall into admin and that eventually some of them WON'T find a saviour.

If the top six or so keep getting further away from everyone else in terms of revenue and TV money which I CAN see happening then the smaller clubs will see their profit margins squeezed ever harder. The new rules that state clubs will have to operate from turnover alone (inc cponcorships and so on but without owners just chucking cash in to cover losses) means that Europe will become a closed shop to all but the profit makers. Let's face it mate, very few football clubs EVER make a profit. Portsmouth went bust,.yes admin technically meant they didn't but the truth is they were finished and NEVER payed their creditors all the money they owed out. soon, very soon I think a club will go into admin and the creditors will not accept five or ten percent. that club will then fold

One thing I do expect to happen now, is shorter contracts, less transfers, and a he'll of alot of bosmans.

Clubs won't be able to sign players for big money anymore so will be forced to see some players go and hope someone becomes available for nothing.

continued from last post darn k/b fritzed ...

That club will then fold and go out of business completely. With money so tight it's unlikely that they will be the first. Portsmouth were lucky as are all the other clubs that go into admin. Their creditors took a fraction of the real debt figure in order to secure something rather than nothing but it had a knock and should have woken the rest of the premiership up. The fact is all the warnings have been there for a decade. ITV digital, Setanta, Aldershot Town, Leeds United to name but a few of the signs that told us football was heading for a precipice.

When a club goes into admin they are basically reliant on the creditors allowing them to repay a fraction and that someone will come along and buy the business. Portsmouth got that but they now operate on a vastly reduced scale and I can see them going down to league one or even two long before they get back to the premiership. How long will that FA Cup win and little trot around Europe keep the fans warm for when it's Torquay United in the league on a wet wednesday night in december?

It's easy to say oh but success is worth the price but is it really? IS a short term glow worth years, maybe even decades of eking out a scratch existence while praying that the man who eventually bought the club will keep his patience and keep throwing money in? And two years from now the owners won't even be able to do that. City got round it with their 'sponsorship' deal with Etihad but they are an enormous club anyway and have the revenue to boot. we don't, neither do portsmouth or the vast majority of football clubs.

I know it sounds gloomy largehat but the fact is that in these difficult financial times clubs are going to have to be very careful on what they spend and cut their cloth accordingly. Or they WILL disappear.

A very well reasoned response, lPp, we will only know in the fullness of time what happens with Portsmouth. They haven't slid any further than the Championship yet. It really could go either way.

Just to be clear though I am in favour of sound financial management too. I just don't -categorically- agree it would be a terrible thing for us to win the FA Cup and go down the following season with financial problems. I just want to see us win something. I am desperate.

Entertainment-wise, following Bolton in the old Div 2 was far better value for money in many ways There's a lot to be said for watchin' your team winning most weeks, scoring lots of goals and challenging for a top 3 place all season, as opposed to losin' most weeks, conceding lots of goals and fightin' to stay out of the bottom 3 all season ......