[Daniel]

He need to sign pace and power something we have been lacking for years!

[briefcase_wanchor]

You either get bankrolled or become a modern day Rotherham (and even their yo-yo strung looks like snapping this year). It’s very difficult to compete in such a financially mixed league.

My view is that the parachute payment system has made it even more of a basket case. It gives those coming down a massive advantage, for no reason other than supplementing their profligacy in the Prem. The Prem still has its mucky paws all over the EFL.

The Eisners should have been alive to this and whilst their ground improvements and off field work is admirable they are at risk of scuppering their own ambitions.

[Jizbag]

The Eisners seem to want success on the cheap. No point in buying a club like Portsmouth only to get into the Championship and fuck it all up with a piss poor budget. They either need to get real about spending on the team or sell up to someone who will.

[Rocketman]

The Eisners seem to want success on the cheap. No point in buying a club like Portsmouth only to get into the Championship and fuck it all up with a piss poor budget. They either need to get real about spending on the team or sell up to someone who will.

Yeah sure, like they are all queuing up to buy us. Zzzzzz

[exterminator]

If you have bought in 15 players on an average of c£4k a week that is £60k a week. What was wrong with bringing in 8 Championship Standard quality players at £7.5k a week (that is also £60k a week.

Tornante or the Eisners can't be blamed for the recruitment of Championship unready players, that is down to Max Wall, Richard Hughes & Moosehead !!

[Cunninglinguist]

If you have bought in 15 players on an average of c£4k a week that is £60k a week. What was wrong with bringing in 8 Championship Standard quality players at £7.5k a week (that is also £60k a week.

Tornante or the Eisners can't be blamed for the recruitment of Championship unready players, that is down to Max Wall, Richard Hughes  & Moosehead  !!

Just supposing that half of those 15 actually improve to become championship standard players. Would that be good business?

[TareeDawg]

You have to walk before you can run.

The idea that you can buy them young & develop them when you have just been promoted & need Championship ready players to enable the club to establish themselves in that Division is fatally flawed.. Add to that we have no U21/23 side in which to give them game time to do this developing makes it even more ridiculous.

As I keep saying it would have been far better to have bought in 8 quality  Championship players in with the budget we had rather than blow it on 13/15 players many of whom are inexperienced youngsters /foreign imports who will take time to get up to speed.

Exactly. Nail on head.

[exterminator]

If you have bought in 15 players on an average of c£4k a week that is £60k a week. What was wrong with bringing in 8 Championship Standard quality players at £7.5k a week (that is also £60k a week.

Tornante or the Eisners can't be blamed for the recruitment of Championship unready players, that is down to Max Wall, Richard Hughes  & Moosehead  !!

Just supposing that half of those 15 actually improve to become championship standard players. Would that be good business?

No, because the need for Championship quality is now, not in 18 months time when we could be languishing back in Div 1 !!

[Hammie]

if we had bought 8 players. How many would be fit to play?
Last season we got promoted because our shadow team was pretty much as good as the first team.
At the end of the day parachute payments mean we either gambol the future of the club, probably get point deductions too. Or struggle for a few seasons, Sheff Weds seem the bet comparison. Barnsley too, maybe Rotherham.
Actually about the only time we did not struggle in the 2nd tier was when we splurged and risked our future, or when Jim Smith was handed a great youth team by Alan Ball. These days the latter would not happen as all the best would be take by Prem clubs with no option but to sell them.
Blame the Prem if you want to blame anyone.

[Cunninglinguist]

If you have bought in 15 players on an average of c£4k a week that is £60k a week. What was wrong with bringing in 8 Championship Standard quality players at £7.5k a week (that is also £60k a week.

Tornante or the Eisners can't be blamed for the recruitment of Championship unready players, that is down to Max Wall, Richard Hughes  & Moosehead  !!

Just supposing that half of those 15 actually improve to become championship standard players. Would that be good business?

No, because the need for Championship quality is now, not in 18 months time when we could be languishing back in Div 1 !!

It might not take 18 months for some of them to achieve that quality. The immediate need is to be 4th from bottom by the end of the season. That isn’t a tremendously high target (although it looks a tough one right now). Maybe we won’t make it this season but at least we won’t go back down with a financial millstone round our neck. 
The championship isn’t the be all and end all (as I repeatedly said last season). We weren’t great champions last term and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that we’re struggling this season. The aim should be to be playing competitive football in whatever division we’re in but not to do that at ridiculous cost. The plan for playing in this league seemed to be clearly laid out and I don’t see masses of money being thrown at it and it doesn’t make sound financial business sense to do so. Pompey is a business.

Anyway, on a positive note, if I understand correctly, we should have a proven goal scorer joining the squad in January and he won’t cost us a penny. Maybe that’ll save us.  

Some of my best memories of Pompey have involved relegation scraps. If we can just keep in touch with teams around us then we could be in for an exciting season.

[exterminator]

If you have bought in 15 players on an average of c£4k a week that is £60k a week. What was wrong with bringing in 8 Championship Standard quality players at £7.5k a week (that is also £60k a week.

Tornante or the Eisners can't be blamed for the recruitment of Championship unready players, that is down to Max Wall, Richard Hughes  & Moosehead  !!

Just supposing that half of those 15 actually improve to become championship standard players. Would that be good business?

No, because the need for Championship quality is now, not in 18 months time when we could be languishing back in Div 1 !!

It might not take 18 months for some of them to achieve that quality. The immediate need is to be 4th from bottom by the end of the season. That isn’t a tremendously high target (although it looks a tough one right now). Maybe we won’t make it this season but at least we won’t go back down with a financial millstone round our neck. 
The championship isn’t the be all and end all (as I repeatedly said last season). We weren’t great champions last term and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that we’re struggling this season. The aim should be to be playing competitive football in whatever division we’re in but not to do that at ridiculous cost. The plan for playing in this league seemed to be clearly laid out and I don’t see masses of money being thrown at it and it doesn’t make sound financial business sense to do so. Pompey is a business.

Anyway, on a positive note, if I understand correctly, we should have a proven goal scorer joining the squad in January and he won’t cost us a penny. Maybe that’ll save us.  

Some of my best memories of Pompey have involved relegation scraps. If we can just keep in touch with teams around us then we could be in for an exciting season.

So Towler & Devlin who were bought "to develop" are regular starters - take the rose colored specs off & smell the coffee. 

I wouldn't count on CB hitting the ground running as a "proven goal scorer"  in January either - this is a big step up from Division 1. 

Unfortunately not getting targets in for pre-season & then panicking & recruiting inexperience was the start of this sorry season so far.

We are paying two players who can't play as they aren't in the 25, a good proportion of Scullys wage & spent £000s paying off Whyte - they should all have been shipped out in the summer - another example  of the haphazard recruitment process.

[Prickles]

Think the argument that our window was a cataclysmic fuck up is fairly unanimously settled.

Liverpool totally pulled our pants down with Blair.

But the one that infuriates me the most is Ritchie.

[Hammie]

For some reason I hold out Hope that Blair might be ok. But I don't think he's a winger, more of an old fashioned number ten off of a big man.

[Kingo]

Not sure about that Hammie. His move seems to be to kick the ball past someone and run after it.

[dsmg]

Bit unfair on Blair, Slayer. He's only started one game and had a few minutes as sub in others. Been thrown in at the deep end seeing as he only had one solitary performance of any type before coming here. Also I thought Ritchie put in his best performance by far on Friday. He wasn't on long but caused problems and set up Lang with a great chance in the last minute (which unfortunately he failed to take)!

[Cunninglinguist]

Not sure about that Hammie. His move seems to be to kick the ball past someone and run after it.

I suppose if he does that and then crosses it into the box, job done?

[Pompey_in_Derby]

Saw some figures on one of the fans websites which suggested that Sunderland had a very small wage budget - somewhere in the bottom third of this division - and well under half the likes of West Brom, Luton, Norwich and Cardiff. Despite their regular gates of 40k, the impact of the parachute payments is ridiculous and dwarfs money earned at the gate. Only Oxford have a smaller budget than PFC.

[Pompey_in_Derby]

Saw some figures on one of the fans websites which suggested that Sunderland had a very small wage budget - somewhere in the bottom third of this division - and well under half the likes of West Brom, Luton, Norwich and Cardiff. Despite their regular gates of 40k, the impact of the parachute payments is ridiculous and dwarfs money earned at the gate. Only Oxford have a smaller budget than PFC.

Make of it what you want, but all of the promoted teams lie in the bottom 4

[Hammie]

Saw some figures on one of the fans websites which suggested that Sunderland had a very small wage budget - somewhere in the bottom third of this division - and well under half the likes of West Brom, Luton, Norwich and Cardiff. Despite their regular gates of 40k, the impact of the parachute payments is ridiculous and dwarfs money earned at the gate. Only Oxford have a smaller budget than PFC.

Make of it what you want, but all of the promoted teams lie in the bottom 4

watching from below, we saw Rotherham and Barnsley yo yo repeatedly. Others go up, do well for a season on a good start then struggle and drop back. usually one or two a season go bust and drop down while they sorted things out with or without a point deduction.

Currently, Plymouth and Coventry were always gong to be strugglers, along with Oxford and probably Derby (and us)
Sheff Weds could easily drop back after a good run.

Cardiff seem to have decent players and a manager who has got them organised.

QPR lost to us so must be in a right state!

Champ or Prem 2 now that parachute payments try to keep them in the big money club,

[dsmg]

Leicester not in bottom four

[blueandwight]

The Eisners seem to want success on the cheap. No point in buying a club like Portsmouth only to get into the Championship and fuck it all up with a piss poor budget. They either need to get real about spending on the team or sell up to someone who will.

Unfortunately it's taken most fans nearly eight years to find that out!

[blueandwight]

If you have bought in 15 players on an average of c£4k a week that is £60k a week. What was wrong with bringing in 8 Championship Standard quality players at £7.5k a week (that is also £60k a week.

Tornante or the Eisners can't be blamed for the recruitment of Championship unready players, that is down to Max Wall, Richard Hughes  & Moosehead  !!

No they can't you're quite right but they are the root cause of the problem by setting the lowest playing budget in the Championship.
That said, I'm not at all sure what Hughes was doing from January until the end of August because, to be frank, the transfer window was nothing short of embarassing and we now have a squad that'd struggle to get out of League One let alone survive in the Championship.

[blueandwight]

Saw some figures on one of the fans websites which suggested that Sunderland had a very small wage budget - somewhere in the bottom third of this division - and well under half the likes of West Brom, Luton, Norwich and Cardiff. Despite their regular gates of 40k, the impact of the parachute payments is ridiculous and dwarfs money earned at the gate. Only Oxford have a smaller budget than PFC.

I think you might be wrong on that one but even then they've got an Under 21 side playing competitive football and an Academy that is producing young players ready to step up.

[Pompey_in_Derby]

Saw some figures on one of the fans websites which suggested that Sunderland had a very small wage budget - somewhere in the bottom third of this division - and well under half the likes of West Brom, Luton, Norwich and Cardiff. Despite their regular gates of 40k, the impact of the parachute payments is ridiculous and dwarfs money earned at the gate. Only Oxford have a smaller budget than PFC.

I think you might be wrong on that one but even then they've got an Under 21 side playing competitive football and an Academy that is producing young players ready to step up.

Not sure why you think that B&W. The numbers seem to make sense to me. Parachute money is around £40m per season, Sunderland get gates of 40k, so let's say their income is around £12m. A wage bill of around £9m seems about right and this is around one-quarter of the wage bill reported at Leeds, and less than half that at Luton.

[Leon T.]

A few random thoughts in relation to the Club's business model...

I think there's a distinction to be made between 'sustainability' and 'self-sustaining'.

The latter is only spending what you take in, which we weren't even doing in League One. That may change this season with the income the Club will receive as a Championship club. The Club can be 'sustainable' all the time its owners are willing to fund losses. Tornante's appetite for losses is an open question, though.

If you look at the Club's P&L, it has made an operating loss of c£3m for the past three seasons. The P&L includes player wages and other day-to-day running costs (opex). Simply put, the Club doesn't generate enough income to cover its outgoings. The losses have been covered by Tornante's equity injections (which have also paid for the stadium works). In addition, the Club's income over the same time period has been relatively static. I do find it curious that Tornante are content to keep covering roughly the same operating losses each year but not finding ways to raise income.

Perhaps the plan is to keep costs low and turn a profit through the natural rise in income through being a Championship club? I think I'm right in saying that, including the new TV deal, the Club will realise somewhere between an additional £8m - £12m each season by being Championship club. Even at the lower end of that range, £8m would cancel out the £3m loss each season and leave £5m. Does anyone think our costs have risen by that much since last season, based on the wages you'd expect us to pay for the players we've brought in?

The Club has talked about the 'player trading model' being another way of generating income, but is it a reliable source of revenue? Also, are we set-up to fully exploit this 'strategy'? Comparisons have been made with Brentford, but if you look at what they actually did to fully exploit their approach then the comparisons don't stack up.

Regarding longer-term plans, Andy Cullen said at the most recent TGFC meeting that a footbridge feasibility study was about to get underway, with the outputs expected in around 12 months. The Portsmouth Local Plan indicates that the Council expects the North Stand expansion to be complete sometime between 2035 and 2040. So, I wouldn't bank on additional capacity anytime soon. The development won't be funded directly by Tornante, either - the plan is to fund the North Stand expansion by building hundreds of homes, retail units, and a hotel / conference venue in the area around Fratton Park (a prospect that I have conflicting feelings on as both a Pompey fan and resident of Eastney).