havanatopia

Does today's regurgitated news of imminent closure of Portsmouth Football Club have many similarities with our own financial meltdown of 30 years ago?

The most obvious coincidence, of course, is the 8 players contracted who could, like our City heroes, save their club.

How have times changed from then to now?

Can The mega rich players of today stomach the thought of tearing up their contracts and emulating what far less wealthy players did for Bristol City?

The signs, so far, do not look promising.

Agree with you that the appointment of AVB is reliant on unlocking his future potential rather than an excellent track record. However, tactically AVB is excellent, (Better than Redknapp IMO), and was given a mandate at Chelsea to dramatically change the club only for the 'old guard' to step in and get him the sack. Obviously, Redknapp dramatically improved Spurs but judging by the way they fizzled out last season, partly due to his tactical naivety, I cant help thinking that he took them as far as he could have done, which I think is the reason Levy has made this appointment.

Perhaps you know more about Harry than I do and know of his stats that points to his capabilities. However, i find it hard to believe that the so called Spurs failings, if one can even say it is failure, which I do not, is down to the naivety of a man who has had success pretty much everywhere he has gone.

The only man that is naive here is AVB and that is not all a bad thing; certainly at his age he can learn faster than an ageing man but of course he is also on a steeper learning curve in the first place so that is fairly obvious.

I rate AVB, think he has a lot to prove in the English game. An ambitious move by Spurs IMO.

He certainly has a lot to prove and hope, for his sake, he does well. I do not rate him personally as high as Harry.. how on earth could you if only its based on the future which of course is somewhat stating the bleedin' obvious. As for ambition by Spurs?.. agreed albeit somewhat blind to where they have come from which is the best 2-3 years in the clubs recent history.

Let us not forget that he was the most sought after manager in Europe this time last year and I think he was undone more by the egos in the Chelsea dressing room than his failings on the pitch. That's not to say there aren't egos in Spurs dressing room though...

Plenty of managers have shat out before they did well (Rodgers & Lambert spring to mind) but I just have a feeling that AVB is one of those who'll be good on the continent but never quite 'get it' over here

Good points and agree on the last sentence. All seemed to be going so well for Spurs with Harry and despite them falling away at the end it still looks like one helluva gamble from an outsider viewpoint. Look where Spurs were when Harry took over and look where he took them. Look at that context and now they have a kid in charge who cracked it on his home patch but England is indeed a totally different kettle.

Spurs have a long history of making totally the wrong appointments; for once they were, without doubt, going places with Harry. Levy inexplicably bailed out what we can only suspect was an uneasy or tense relationship and we will find out if it was the correct roll of the dice but to an extent of course we will never know.

What do we make of that appointment then?

What is the betting he will be out on his ear before the end of next season with more egg on Levy's face.

Be interesting to see the fans reaction to this one. Not sure it is going to be that positive.

On last nights showing, Bas is the better player.

Samaras was inept and looked out of his depth.

Coming good now though ain't he !

Harsh on Samaras. He is undoubtably a talented footballer with good ball control, but the Greek manager played him so deep yesterday he couldnt effect the game properly. Spent most of the time in his own half, no doubt at the instruction of the ultra defensive manager

If Samaras was to play in the Championship up front he would bag plenty of goals where his physical game would work best

Good. Was beginning to think my inclusion of him on my list was an error. Verdict still out mind.. need to see if he plays where he is at his best in the next match.

I hope Mikkelson and Postiga get a look in later today. I doubt the latter though.

On last nights showing, Bas is the better player.

Samaras was inept and looked out of his depth.

Could not disagree with that on last night's showing; he looked bizarrely disinterested.

Hey Havana.

I'm going to resurrect my Scouting the Euro's Thread from last week, as I mentioned a number of players on there who we could potentially be looking at.

Of those you have listed Pawel Brozek could be a shout. He's still contracted to Trabzonspor but wants away, so he's not a free agent at the moment as some may have intimated further up on the thread.

Samaras, Postiga & Elmander would all be outside our reach financially in my opinion, but of course it's always worth a question to their agents!

David Lafata is one which could well be within our reach, but he'll be 31 in September. He's been top scorer the last 2 seasons in the Czech league, but I worry that he hasn't really done anything prior to this in his career. A very late developer perhaps? Don't know, but he's certainly THE form striker for the Czech Republic at the moment.

Tobia Mikkelsen is someone I'd hope we're looking at.

The only other players I feel we have a realistic chance of getting are :

Croatia - Jurica Boljat

Czech Republic - Daniel Kolar

Denmark Stephan Andersen, Tobias Mikkelsen, Nicklas Pedersen

Poland - Marcin Kaminski

Sweden - Samuel Holmen

Anyway, as I said, time to revive my Euro 2012 Scouting Thread!!

Appreciate your remarks there Harry. My list was not put together entirely at random and i think your remarks reflect that. Be interested to see your list. I thought Samaras looked a little weak last night. Mikkelsen and Brozek would be by favoured two but some of the older guys perhaps more realistic. I shall be watching the rest of the players and hope they put in some decent performances, if they play.

Really?

Johan Elmander is on about 60k a week, Helder Postiga would never join us either.

Samaras would cost a fairly large fee and is probably on around 30k a week.

Really?

You just never know what is around the corner.

Might our manager be considering running the rule over these striker potentials at the Euros. Some are hardy professionals entering, perhaps, their twilight playing careers, others are just starting out or perhaps not quite good enough for the Prem. Either way, and since he mentioned it not me, we can perhaps consider that one or more of the players taking to the field at the competition, might be in a City shirt sometime soon.

STRIKERS

PAWEL BROZEK - AGED 29 - PLAYS FOR POLAND AND CELTIC

GEORGIOS SAMARA - AGED 27 - PLAYS FOR GREECE AND CELTIC

DAVID LAFATA - AGED 30 - PLAYS FOR CZECH REPUBLIC AND FC JABLONEC

TOBIAS MIKKELSON - AGED 25 - PLAYS FOR DENMARK AND Nordsjælland - also plays as a winger

HELDER POSTIGA - AGED 29 - PLAYS FOR PORTUGAL AND REAL ZARAGOZA - once of spurs.. blows hot and cold, not been with RZ long but he would be would be off the radar and can still win a match and may have something to prove in England where he failed to impress in his young days.

JOHAN ELMANDER - AGED 30 - PLAYS FOR SWEDEN AND GALATASARY

I don't think any of the above are beyond the realms of possibility for one reason or other.

link to the pages:-

http://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threads/15874-forest-bristol-city

I always like to get an opposing fans view of our match... they all said to a man that we were 5hit.. buts thats fine. They can come to the Gate on Monday and think its gonna be easy.

....

If Bristol win today I am not feeling very confident for Monday. Full gate at Ashton Gate and they get this away win.

Suddenly the light at the end of the tunnel not looking too bright

I think I've turned into a forest fan, and just my luck they are sh1te too

who said that gerken is a shite keeper?

knew this was going to happen. we lose monday we will be down.

You useless fxxxing cxxxs Forest. To win 4-7 at Leeds and then put in that display. Fxxxing typical. Fxxk you Cotterill. (i had to beep this one)

I don't want to be negative, I really don't, but I can't see us winning Monday. Especially after those wxxxers gave them a massive lift.

How can the club be to blame.....they offered him a new contract, what more could they have done. No one was really to blame, Basso just wanted to move on. Perhaps Bigger clubs were sniffing around, and he thought he might better himself. It would seem these were only rumours as when he became a free agent, nobody came in for him. Why does it always have to be someone's fault?

I was not referring to Basso but take your general point. My view is simply different.

Basso's future has nothing to do with weale - its not his concern.

I think Monkeh is suggesting Basso waited for Weale to go before putting his own spanner in the works, i,.e, that Basso was complicit or scheming.

Monkeh.. ultimately, the board need to take the blame; the buck stops with them. it has been handled badly imo.

If I was in the UK i would of course go to that WHU match. its not in my nature to boo an ex player or any player for that matter but i can understand why some people would at Maynard. Lets be quite clear here; the lad could very easily have come out and been honest and said he would like to test himself at a higher level and for that reason he did not think he would be signing a new contract... blah blah blah and all the nice stuff about us etc etc.. he didn't. he waffled, blagged, deferred, said nout, turned us around in riddles and kept everyone guessing knowing full well he was off and we, most of us anyway, thought about the same, probably. he had ample opportunity to put it to bed early on, mid way through the saga or nearer the end... he never did.

You will always have a mindless moronic few who will shout obscenities and throw things and abuse his family and that is plain wrong. But.. it could all have been avoided had he been grown up about it. And I don't care if some say he was advised by his 'agent' - inverted commas because he never behaved like a decent agent did he, not in my book. He wasn't grown up about it and will get flak from BCFC for it forever more. All i can say really therefore is, tough luck.

As for Henderson, Millen made a big mistake there imo, amongst the litany.

All in all though... you have to look upstairs for the real errors in losing out on the cash front with both of these players. its been said many times before and will be many times in the future, of that I have no doubt; CS is not a patch on SL as a chairman. Just my opinion however but there are enough pointers to that conclusion.

According to this article ...

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-past/pearce-i-may-be-next-to-leave-1-3640279

....Henderson has gone to WHU for a £700k loan fee. I find that a great deal for Pompey especially when you compare what Maynard was sold for.. to the same club. Seems like we got stitched twice.

Of course, you cannot believe all you read in the press can you.

And?

I was merely trying to point out that the original stats can be made to look less impressive, and the points projection less favourable...

The original stats are as they are and not an attempt, in any way, to shine a certain better light with Del than Millen. if you want to lump the entire season together and forget about the manager for a minute then we are currently on exactly 1 pt per game. At a cursory glance most people who have responded to my thread seem to think 46 points will be sufficient.

My view is that it will not. Will we get more? Yes. So I think we will survive and we can thank Millen for 6pts of that if you like.

how many points is enough???

1 point more than the team that finish 3rd bottom the day after the last game of the season.

Meaningful remarks there!

Few stats to start with:-

Under Millen (wiggles for 2 games)

6 pts from 12 league games = 0.5 pts per game

Under Del

25 pts from 19 league games = 1.31 pts per game

if we continue with that form we will accumulate a further 19 pts from the remaining 15 games giving us a total haul of 50 pts.

Question: Is that enough?

We defended well but they did have 19 shots and probably 4 or 5 really good chances.

That isn't to say we didn't have chances. We hit well on the counter attack and could have won it at the end.

I don't think West Ham played that well considering the players they have at their disposal. Only Noble impressed me with his constant running.

We had 14 overall to their 19, they had 7 on target and we had 6.. frankly off targets are pointless as reliable stats; my 4 year old nephew could easily trounce those off target figures.

In short, it was pretty evens on tuesday night and don't let Big Mega head distract you from reality.

From a personal perspective I hope they get beaten in the Play Off Final 1-0 to a 94th minute Own Goal after the opposition were reduced to 8 men and no goalkeeper.....And I also hope its US

I like that prospect Red.

Heard him saying this on the way home last night.

No mention of how well we played to stop them, or how many chances we had as well.

Bloke is a total t055er.

He's definitely older than 55.

About sums it up though.

On BBC radio P'boro' Darren Fergusson statd if City beat Posh, than Steve W would fancy his chances of becoming next Manager!

Thankfully then He does not fancy his chances.

I am sure he works hard and all that but he has a certain lack of charisma that Millen had; on reflection, can you envisage those two on the training pitch and in the changing room? Good at what they do in terms of method, we assume or how else do you get appointed, but just not inspiring in virtually any shape or form.